It's All About Certainty

According to the latest news accounts, the failure of the “Super Committee” came as a surprise to most Americans. Not me (see Dirty Little Truths About pentagon Funding 8-6-11) where I predicted the failure with absolute certainty. I really don’t have that many truly original ideas, but I do have a firm opinion which I’ve never seen echoed by any of the media pundits. I believe that ideology is not just about political viewpoints (and probably never was) but has, in fact, become the world’s newest religion. Wondering why Liberals and Conservatives can’t see eye to eye about the national budget is like wondering why Catholics and Buddhists don’t agree on the virginity of Mary or the divinity of her son. Religion has never been about compromise, and ideology isn’t moved to compromise either. Both are about the certainty of being correct in a single point of view, and to compromise would be to admit a possible flaw in that viewpoint which, in turn, would undermine the certainty. And here’s the key point. The certainty makes people feel good. Compromise doesn’t make people feel good. So I suppose that right about now, both factions of the Super Committee are feeling good about their toeing the line on behalf of their ideological comrades.

How Buddhism Deals With Flooding

Last March I blogged about the fact that there had been absolutely zero incidents of looting in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami. Now, another eight months have passed, and still there has been no looting whatsoever. In nearby Thailand, most of the entire country has been devastated by massive flooding for more than two weeks now, and the situation there makes New Orleans after Hurricane Katrine look like nothing more than a small scale water event. In contrast with the post-Katrina crime rampage in New Orleans, the incidence of crime and looting in Thailand has been zero. Ziltch. Notta. It's worth noting that both Japan and Thailand are Buddhist countries, and Buddhists believe that it's wrong to steal from their fellow man, so they refrain from looting even when there's a flood.

Unfortunately, such good deeds are not going to save the Buddhists from the everlasting fires of hell (if you listen to the Christian fundamentalists) because the Buddhists have not accepted Jesus into their hearts as their Lord and Savior.... and yada yada yada. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and there is no way to the Father but through me." (John 14:6). This narcissistic declaration from the self-proclaimed "Son of God" doesn't offer much heavenly hope to the Buddhist community.... unless, of course, the whole Jesus thing is just a pile of undiluted horseshit. In that case, the Buddhist practice of lawful behavior might have something going for it.

See also "Looting in Japan," March 13, 2011

Looting in Japan

It’s been three days since the catastrophe in Japan, and now it’s time to look at the incidence of looting and violence there. We all know the familiar pattern. After a devastating calamity— whether in the United Sates (Hurricane Katrina), or Haiti (the 2010 earthquake), or South America (the mudslides in Brazil)— the widespread looting begins even before the first bodies have been recovered. It’s probably just a coincidence, but the U.S., Haiti, and Brazil would all say that their primary religion is Christianity. So how much looting has taken place in Japan? Zero. Zilch. Notta. In three days there hasn’t been a single reported incidence of looting. Not one. And it’s a sure bet that, if it takes a decade to recover from the destruction there, the looting incidence will still be zero ten years from now. Japan is a Buddhist society.

Buddhists don’t believe they will have everlasting life because they’ve been “born again” (whatever the hell that means). Buddhists don’t believe they’ve been “saved” because they’re washed in the blood of the Son of God (I don’t get the meaning of that, either). And Buddhists don’t believe there has been “atonement” for their sins and the sins of all mankind because some self-righteous, self-proclaimed messiah got the cookies pounded out of him by a middle-level Roman bureaucrat two thousand years ago. So what DO Buddhists believe? They believe that it’s wrong to go into somebody else’s home or place of business and take stuff that doesn’t belong to them. Furthermore, they believe that if something is wrong, then you just don’t do it. Period. In their belief system, there’s no divine forgiveness or atonement or any of that crap.

I suppose it was to be expected, but already a few Evangelicals are saying that Japan’s troubles are God’s retribution for their failure to accept the Savior. If you can buy into the Jesus thing, you can convince yourself of anything.

News Flash to Rome. News Flash to Utah

Among all the world’s great religions, only Buddhism has demonstrated that its people and spiritual leaders understand the role of public relations in shaping media attention. The diplomatic travels of the Dali Lama, and the global media focus on the harsh Chinese treatment of Buddhist monks over the issue of Tibet— these and other PR initiatives demonstrate that, when it comes to the media, the Buddhists “get it.”

In stark contrast, the Abrahamic monotheisms don’t seem to have a clue. Three years ago, the Muslims went ballistic (actually, the proper phrase is to say they went Jihadist) because a Danish newspaper (the media) published cartoons of Mohammad. In the mayhem over that episode, several infidels were killed, which is always a real crowd pleaser for Islam, but it didn’t go very far to win over new coverts.

Catholicism fights this media battle constantly, and never seems to get it right. Most Vatican press releases are reactive to bad news, like when another Archdiocese goes bankrupt paying off past victims of priestly sex abuse, or when some rogue Bishop denies the Holocaust. Even when Vatican news is proactive and celebratory, it’s usually to announce something silly, like a human interest story about some South American peasant woman who cooks a baked potato only to find that the skin has crinkled into a likeness of the face of the Virgin Mary. We’ve all seen that sort of thing coming from the Vatican PR machine. The latest media war being waged by The Church involves the upcoming Ron Howard/Tom Hanks film, “Angels and Demons,” from the Dan Brown novel. The film doesn’t open until May, but already the Vatican is up in arms because they’re afraid that moviegoers will come away with the impression that The Church was anti-science during the Renaissance. News flash to Rome— that’s not any secret or misconception, and it hasn’t been for 400 years.

And now it’s the Mormon Church with its panties tied into knots over something involving the media. An upcoming episode of the HBO series, “Big Love,” will show a depiction of a secret ceremony (not fictitious) inside a Mormon temple. Only Mormons are supposed to know about this secret ceremony, but now HBO subscribers can see it too, and worst of all, they will learn about it for free, without paying that famous Mormon tithe. News flash to Utah—“Big Love” is only a sitcom. It’s not a documentary.

Long ago, business, educational, and political groups learned that trained PR people, with expertise in media relations, could go a long way toward making life easier for them in today’s media-drenched world. The Abrahamic monotheistic religions of the world need to embrace this tactic, and do it soon, because as long as these religions keep doing stupid things, the media will keep making them look stupid.