Even the Dalai Lama kicks at atheists
Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, says tolerance is good and religions are good. Unfortunately, as G Felis pointed out, he says more than that.
Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.
No we don’t. We may offer generalized criticism of religious belief as such, but that’s not the same as issuing “blanket condemnations” of all believers themselves. The DL did a blanket condemnation of us.
That’s a sly and nasty little quote there. It’s rather disturbing to see the “radical atheists” sandwiched neatly in between the “episodes of violence” and the “flames of war.” Rational criticism is casually thrown into the militant stew.
As you already pointed out, there are no blanket condemnations of the sort the Dali Lama seems to imply — wholesale, bigoted physical or verbal attacks against those who hold to religious beliefs. Instead, the wholesale attack that seems to bother everyone is the wholesale attack against all the unfounded supernatural beliefs, in a war of ideas and concepts, and a concern about truth. The ‘radical atheists’ are not just focusing their attention on extremists, or keeping their criticism aimed at mean religions or bad things that churches do. That would be okay; religious people do it themselves.
No, the specific underlying fact claims of religion are being disputed — the value of faith is up for debate. That’s apparently just too large a blanket for the religious.
Yes, he sandwiches us between two sentences about physical violence as if ‘blanket condemnation’ – even if it existed – was morally equivalent to murder.
And who died and made him High Lama anyway? Oh, yes – he did, himself, and then he got reincarnated. Handy, that.
Who else thinks asking a kid to pick trinkets out of a box is a FANTASTIC way to chose a leader? None of that tedious voting nonsense.
Snap. I had a similar criticism on my Facebook group. The vilification of atheists seems to be at least one of the underlying motivations of inter-faith dialogue. Ah well, if you want to create an “us,” you really need a “them.”
“he vilification of atheists seems to be at least one of the underlying motivations of inter-faith dialogue”
It’s probably the only thing they agree about. It’s understandable: the way atheists think is different in kind from the way believers think and so we are much more alien than other believers.
Ah, but since none of the atheists you know of do the things he claims they do, it would entail that you are not a radical atheist, and neither are Hitchens, etc. So he must be giving a very subtle and Zen shout-out.
So ironic. HH and his writer ghosts are deluded on this one.
Uh huh – or a typical rhetorical smear that does its work even though it doesn’t actually apply to any real atheists, because of course the intended audience will simply assume that it does apply to lots and lots of real atheists, and hate them that extra bit more. Which of course is what you meant, in your Zen way.
Moreover, Gautama is said to have denied that there are supernatural beings that can save us, and to have criticised those who seek refuge in institutions such as sacred groves or monasteries. Core Buddhism is in principle atheist. Whoever ghosted this silly stuff put out in the Dalai Lama’s name is just making the usual confusion between atheists who speak clearly about the lack of any evidence for most religious beliefs, and intolerance of religious people. But some intolerance is necessary, eg of intolerant requirements for women, but not men, to hide their faces; and of frauds like Jesus who raise false hopes by conducting bogus ‘cures’ of a tiny number of ill people, thus showing total lack of compassion for the huge majority of friends and relatives whose dying beloveds are not cured. And, of course, if only the big religions forgot the enormities perpetrated by their founders, and stuck to advocating compassion, us atheists would have no problem with them.
Lin-Chi (Rinzai in Japanese) was a founder of the Chan (Zen) practice.
Sorry about all that clutter (very non-Zen). I obviously mis-used the quote button.
Nicholas has it. The Buddha’s message was at its heart an atheistic, anti-dogmatic one. Of course, the Buddha’s teachings are barely recognizable in Tibetan Buddhism, but the current Dalai Lama knows enough to have avoided such a grotesque mischaracterization. This reminds me of the shelves of paperbacks by “Robert LudlumTM” — the name of the author of a piece of writing no longer gives any clue to the author’s identity.
Well, he certainly knows how to please his masters. Can’t let those nice cheques stop coming.
I like that, Julia.
Maybe someone should ask him why the Bhuddist theocracy he used to rule allowed its citizens to be owned as slaves until the atheistic Chinese regime invaded and freed them.
I actually think this has less to do with anti-atheist bigotry per se and more to do with the moderate’s fallacy: the idea that if two people or two groups are shouting at each other, they must both be wrong and the truth must be somewhere in between. Even if one group is hitting and kicking and throwing stones, and the other group is just shouting “stop that!” They’re both loud, and they’re polarized, so a great way to look wise and independent-minded and tolerant is to condemn them both.
It happens all over the place in politics. In American politics, for instance, you’ll catch people claiming that Al Franken is the left equivalent of Rush Limbaugh–when in fact there is no left equivalent of Rush Limbaugh.