Fields: The Week In Religion–Buddhist, Islam and Catholic Edition
BY SAM FIELDS
Guest Columnist
Buddhists
Finalist for the title of The World’s Biggest Phony Baloney, the Dalai Lama, recently turned up on the Indian border with Tibet. There he loudly proclaimed that the “most profound and detailed expression of Buddhism was to be found in Tibet.
For those who know the history of Tibet, that is a scary thought.
Under three hundred years of Dalai Lamas (it’s a title, not a name), Tibet was a feudal dictatorship where a few families and Buddhist monks owned everything and everyone.
Dissenters were tortured, jailed or executed. Family members were sold off at the whim of the lord.
Sitting on top of this Buddhist dictatorship was a Dalai Lama spouting Buddhist bullshit that your current position in life was right and justified based on your conduct in a previous life.
For them it was their Age of Faith.
And as 19th century atheist Robert Ingersoll once noted: “In an Age of Faith, a thousand men lived in hovels so that one could live a palace.
The Dalai Lama’s supporters remind me of some former Confederate soldiers singing the original version of “Suwannee River as they long for the days of the “happy darkies.
I have some dear and otherwise intelligent friends who are enamored with this former serf-owner. They revel in their ignorance of what he and his ilk really stood for when they were in power.
On this subject, they sound like Holocaust deniers.
Islam
I have often written that religion is a form of mental illness and fundamentalist religion is a form of psychoses.
If you believe that an invisible being is telling you what is right and wrong and what to do, does it really matter whether you are pushing a shopping cart down the street or preaching from a pulpit?
Either way it is a break from reality; it’s delusional.
Most of the time it is harmless.
Every so often that mental illness manifests itself in openly anti-social behavior.
Major Nidal Hasan’s murder of 13 soldiers is but the latest manifestation.
He was a fundamentalist Muslim.
Which means that, like all fundamentalists, his rational thought process was replaced by magical thinking. In his case, his thinking became an obsession.
Reports are emerging from the Army and FBI that he was in contact with overseas Islamic terrorists also of the fundamentalist ilk—these days are there any other kind?
He was giving fundamentalist speeches where he discussed killing the infidels.
But no one was willing to report him because they did not want to appear to be picking on a Muslim.
The irony of this is he was a psychiatrist and it was other shrinks that knew what was going on.
Out of political correctness, they did nothing. Deference to religion led to 13 deaths.
If he had made the same kind of threats based on a secular notion there can be little doubt that his co-workers would have reported him to the authorities.
But as long as he couched his ranting in the name of god, he ain’t crazyhe’s just pious.
CATHOLICS
Led by religious fanatics like Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI), a number of congressmen held up health care reform until there was a provision banning abortion coverage.
Stupak and others appeared to be doing the bidding of some Roman Catholic bishops, who came out publicly for an abortion ban in the bill.
Will this reduce abortions? Hardly.
Right now 47,000 people-a-year die because they lack health insurance and ten times that many are driven into poverty and bankruptcy.
That’s real people and real families that are being sacrificed by religious fanatics. I believe these fanatics would love to see this country turned into a Roman Catholic theocracy.
If you think this is an exaggeration, let me tell you about a meeting I had with a former judge from Columbia.
As a Justice of the Peace in the early 1990’s, she performed secular marriages but only for non-Catholics.
Why only non-Catholics?
Until Columbia rewrote its Constitution, The Roman Catholic Church had special rights including being the only church that had state recognized marriage.
It should go without saying that the RCC fought against adopting the new Constitution. They are no better than anyone else when it comes to giving up money or power.
Let’s be clear that the Catholics are not the only ones who think that way.
The Protestant Christian Identity Movement, backed by people like George “Dubya Bush, have the same goal.
Orthodox Jews are no better.
Spend a month in Utah and you will quickly learn what a theocracy is like. If you ain’t Mormon, you ain’t shit.
But the reason Catholicism deserves center stage is that it is ten times the size of any other Christian group and it is centralized.
The good news is that the vast majority of American Catholics have been Americanized about Church-State issues.
The bad news is that, like Jews, Muslims and Protestants, the extremists have control of their church’s agenda.
November 15th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
My gawd carries a hammer. Your gawd was nailed to a cross…
Any questions?
November 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I thought you had given it a rest, Sam. What is it about believers that you can’t abide? Can’t you leave them alone?
November 15th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
sam
don’t worry be happy
November 15th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
sam, u r right on, but a lot of people cannot see what u can see. i see it!
November 15th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
it’s all true. normal people don’t really believe their religions because if they did they’d be knocking on doors trying to save everybody.
or maybe they do believe their religion and couldn’t care less if everyone else get annihilated, incinerated, burned forever, etc.
November 16th, 2009 at 5:22 am
I can quit trudging through the night looking for an honest man. I have found him….
November 16th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Dear Mr Courthouse,
Believers spend a lifetime evangelizing and witnessing to non believers.
Yet you are puzzled/offended when one atheist promotes his beliefs.
I’ll stop writing when Christians stop seeking converts
Deal????
November 16th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The debate between religious believers and non-believers will never end. Believers have no proof and non-believers have no faith. To me it doesn’t matter. So long as they all mow their lawns. That part I insist upon.
Just be a decent human being and whatever else your beliefs are is your business. Nobody is right or wrong in that discussion so long as they mow their lawn.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Dear Lawn Mower.
1. Shall we abandon the search for the truth because it offends
2. Nice idea to not talk religion at the dinner table but that ignores the billions who have died and continue to die in this debate that goes back millennia
November 17th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
As an atheist, I have plenty of faith. I have faith in the love of my dog. Faith in good engineering. All sorts of faith.
What I don’t have faith in is a cranky old white dude, living in the clouds, meting out punishment as he sees fit.
From my life, I’ve gotten more from the Tooth Fairy than any gawd. When your gawd starts leaving Krugerands under my pillow, I’ll join your team. Until then, enjoy the punch.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Wow, You sound angry, and like you want everyone else to be angry and as negative as you come across IMO. I feel sorry for you and dont want to be the misery of your company. If you feel the need to attack others beliefs to prove you are right, you are no better then then those religious actions you despise… I find it funny that you complain about site users complaining about your religious rants and say you are willing to debate anyone, anytime, anyplace (very Dirty Harry esque of you), yet no one can comment on it…. And the original complaint seems to be about giving you a platform on a local politically orientated blog to spew this atheist anger on people who quite frankly arent interested… If you want to start your own blog about the positive aspects of your personal atheist beliefs have at it, but i have got to agree with whoever complained about you, and your latest 2 blogs are all I have ever heard or know of you, sorry no offense… I sincerely doubt anyone that complained about Buddy giving you a platform here, wants to give you another platform amongst their associates or friends, just a guess or were you expecting the invites from local church leaders for you to debate their entire congregations to be piling in to your mailbox.. Being a happy, positive atheist, would do alot more for your cause then the way you are going about it.. Thats just some free PR advice. Good luck with it!
November 18th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Dear Nico,
In a nation where atheism has less than 1% of the exposure of theism you are really sensitive to see anything from our side.
A thousand times a day atheism is denounced from the pulpit. I suspect you don’t object to that.
In a world where each year millions die and billions are without freedom because of theism you are only offended by someone who points out this evil.
Apparently murder and oppression don’t make you angry. Making fun of Jesusfreaks does.
Don’t worry. Be ignorant.