Category: Other Religions

Who’s the #1 religious leader in the world?

The pope . . . of course.

Who’s the #2?

Well, probably the dalai lama.

There a bit of assymetry, though. The pope is the figurehead of Christianity, which is the world’s largest religion. The dalai lama is the most famous Buddhist leader,  but depending on what you count as a religion, Buddhism is only the fourth to the sixth largest religion (after Islam and Hinduism, for example).

But the other major religions don’t have generally recognized figureheads, and so the dalai lama gets second billing alongside the pope, without comparable religious leaders in the picture.

The result is that the media treats the Dalai Lama as kind of "the Asian pope."

The assymetry goes a bit deeper than what I’ve indicated, though, since the position of the pope and the dalai lama are assymeterical within their respetive religions. The pope is the head of the Catholic Church, which the original Christian communion and by far the largest. The communion that the dalai lama heads, though, is neither the original nor the largest Buddhist communion. He is the most influential leader in the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, though even then he is not its head (that would be the ganden tripa).

All of this assymetry encourages one to recognize the uniqueness of the pope as a religious leader, though that isn’t my point in writing.

I simply thought folks might be interested to read an interview (linked below) with the Dalai Lama and to know a little more about him since he makes such frequent appearances in the media.

The title "dalai lama" means something like "the ocean teacher" with the term "ocean" referring to the expansiveness of his teaching. The title is regarded as belonging to the successive reincarnations of a particular individual. The first dalai lama (though the title was not used in his day) was called Gedun Drub, who lived in the 1400s. The present dalai lama (Tenzin Gyatso) is the fourteenth dalai lama. (Dalai lamas have much longer reigns than popes since the office is a life-long one.)

When a dalai lama dies a search is conducted for his reincarnation, and this usually takes a few years. To help find the reincarnation, various children are shown personal belongings of the previous dalai lama, and if one of the children shows familiarity with these belongings, it is a sign that he may be the reincarnation.

To avoid disputes, the reincarnation of the dalai lama is officially recognized by another lama–known as the panchen lama. (Reciprocally, when the panchen lama dies, the dalai lama recognizes his reincarnation. The dalai lama also appoints the ganden tripa, which is a non-reincarnating office.)

At the moment there is a looming problem with the succession arrangements for the next dalai lama and that problem can be summed up in one word: China.

China took over Tibet when the current dalai lama was a teenager, and he has lived in exile in India for decades. It is probably this fact that accounts for much of the dalai lama’s recognition in the media. If China had never seized control of Tibet, he would just be the local major religious leader of Tibet, but the state of his country has projected him onto the world stage in a much more substantial way.

Now here’s the problem: The communist government of China has reserved to itself the approval of high-level reincarnations in Tibet (citing previous involvement by a Chinese emperor in the selection of the panchen lama).
After the takeover of Tibet, China put the previous panchen lama under house arrest for years and may have murdered him after he gave a speech critical of the communist government. His death led to a split in that the Chinese government now recognizes a different panchen lama than the dalai lama does.

Rather than be reincarnated in Chinese controlled territory, the dalai lama has also announced that he will be reborn in a free country, outside of Chinese control. He’s also suggested that he may not reincarnate at all.

This means that the stage is set for the coming of a false dalai lama–an Asian anti-pope, if you will. In the interview linked below, the present dalai lama states frankly:

As I’ve said earlier, whether this institution [of the dalai lama] will continue depends on the people. Under the best of circumstances, I think that the institution should continue. First, the maintenance of the institution is important. Then, there is the personal history. Both options should be kept open. If the Tibetan people want another reincarnation, then logically while we’re outside, the successor should be someone who can carry out this task, which has not yet been accomplished by the previous Dalai Lama. That means that he must come in a free country. But the Chinese government will also appoint a Dalai Lama. So there’ll be two Dalai Lamas. One Dalai Lama—the Chinese official Dalai Lama—the Tibetan people will have no faith in. Even the ordinary Chinese will have no faith in him. He’ll be a false Dalai Lama.

Another dimension of the problem is that the dalai lama is the head of the Tibetan government in exile, and China is deathly afraid that he or his successors could lead Tibet to attempt to separate from Chinese rule. In response the dalai lama has said that he is willing to renounce (including for his future incarnations) any political role in Tibet if it can have autonomy and freedom.

He is not shooting for independence, though. (That would send the Chinese government into orbit.) Instead, he is looking for something much more modest:

Meaningful autonomy. Autonomy is provided for in the Chinese constitution for minorities and special rights are guaranteed for Tibet. In communist states, sometimes the constitutions they write are not sincerely practiced. It’s a special sort of case with Tibet. It becomes possible to have one country, two systems. Why not? Let’s consider Tibet historically: Different language, different culture, different geographical location. So in order to get maximum satisfaction for the Tibetan people, I think a higher degree of autonomy should be given. Then Tibetan loyalty to the people of China will naturally come. Tibetans will enjoy true autonomy. That is the guarantee for preservation of our identity, our culture, our spirituality, our environment.

In Quebec in Canada, some politicians wanted independence, but when the people were asked, they saw that their greater interest, their greater benefit, was by staying within Canada. It’s similar with Scotland, also. Their high degree of autonomy within Great Britain gives them satisfaction. So giving a higher degree of autonomy brings no danger of separation.

It’s interesting reading the interview it the dalai lama, because on certain issues he seems to have a realistic understanding of the situation (e.g., the coming succession problem, the fact that some kind of autonomy but not full independence is all that can be hoped for at the moment). But on other issues he sounds completely unrealistic. (His suggestion that the U.S. should have had a non-violent response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, for example, was from outer space.)

One item that was of particular interest in the interview was an equivalent to the woment’s ordination issue. While women can theoretically attain the highest forms of ordination in the dalai lama’s sect, they have not yet achieved such ordinations in comparable numbers, and this is a source of discomfort.

In any event,

GET THE INTERVIEW.

I’ve found the Sipapuni!

"What’s the Sipapuni?" you ask.

Well–that’s it! Right there! In the middle of the picture. The reddish round thing on the edge of the river. Has a little black dot in the center of it.

"Okay, but can I have a more informative answer?" you ask.

Sure. The Sipapuni is a natural formation on the Little Colorado River, about four miles upstream from where it intersects with the Colorado River. It’s in the Grand Canyon, though it’s just outside Grand Canyon National Park.

The Sipapuni is a travertine dome, which means that it’s a dome made of calcium carbonate (think: limestone)–usually layered–and formed from spring water, particularly the water of a hot spring. That black dot in the center of the Sipapuni is the spring, and the reason it’s a different color than the surrounding land is because of minerals in the spring water that leave orange and yellow deposits.

"Okay, but why is the Sipapuni important and why does it have a name–whereas so many travertine domes don’t?"

Because the Sipapuni is an enormously important location in the folklore of several American Indian tribes, particularly the Hopi and the Zuni.

According to both of these tribes, the Sipapuni is the location from which man emerged into this world. In other words, it’s their equivalent of the Garden of Eden.

According to both tribes (though the details vary), the beings that eventually emerged into the world went through a series of other worlds before climbing up out of the Sipapuni into ours.

In Hopi folklore, this is the fourth world. Things weren’t going so good in the third world, and so they found a way to climb up into a new, largely uninhabited world and became the human race.

In Zuni folklore, humans passed through a series of four caves before emerging through the Sipapuni, making this the fifth world.

Other tribes also believe that humans emerged from a site in the Grand Canyon but do not identify it with the Sipapuni, claiming that the site has been lost.

The idea that a body of people have an identifiable Eden that you can go see with your own eyes (though they don’t want you to do that since the site is considered sacred) is something I find fascinating.

If the early part of the book of Genesis were to be taken literally, you could get a rough fix on Eden’s location, but not with this kind of precision–and you certainly can’t find it today with Google’s satellite imagery.

HERE’S ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE SIPAPUNI WITH LATITUDE & LONGITUDE MEASUREMENTS.

HERE’S THE INTERSECTION OF THE COLORADO AND LITTLE COLORADO IF YOU WANT TO NAVIGATE EAST (RIGHT) TO THE SIPAPUNI FOR YOURSELF.

HERE’S A HOPI CREATION ACCOUNT FEATURING THE SIPAPUNI.

Having discussed where Hopi and Zuni Eden is, sometime soon I’ll have to tell you about where Zuni Heaven is.

No human group has a monopoly on sophistry. The tendency to rationalize what we want to do but know is wrong is universal among humans.

It’s no suprise, then, to find

THIS STORY FROM ISRAEL.

According to it, a new law will go into effect next year that will hook timers up to people’s respirators. The timers will be equipped with (though the paper doesn’t call it that) a dead-man switch.

No really!

Periodically an alarm will sound, and if you DON’T override the alarm then it will turn off the respirator and the patient will be euthanatized. (That’s why it’s a dead-man switch. You’ve got to keep interacting with it or the device changes it’s behavior. Normally dead-man switches are used for fail-safe purposes, but in this case it’s being used for a fail-deadly purpose, making the name "dead-man" bitterly appropriate.)

The reason for this rigamarole is to circumvent the "Thou shalt not kill" (or "Thou shalt not murder") requirement. Certain strands of Jewish religious law forbid taking the life of a patient, and so a system has been devised to allow a machine to do the killing instead of a person.

It’s a way of having your euthanasia and eating it, too.

It’s also pure and simple rationalization.

It doesn’t eliminate the immorality of the homicide, it just changes the mode by which the homiciders do their work. Instead of them directly flipping a switch to kill the patient, they first install an egg timer on his life and then they refuse to re-set the egg timer. That doesn’t get around the problem.

Sure, the person who installs the egg timer can say, "Hey, I’m not killing him. I’m just setting up this egg timer." And then the person who refuses to re-set it can say, "Hey, I’m not killing him. I’m just not re-setting that egg timer."

But the situation is the same as if the first person wheeled the patient into an air-tight room and said, "Hey, I’m not killing him; he’s got some air in here for a while" and the second saying, "Hey, I’m not causing him to suffocate; I’m just not opening the door to let in more air."

Or, if you prefer a little more science-fiction in your example, it’s like one person setting up a GIANT KILLDROID in the patient’s room and another person refusing to keep hitting the DO NOT KILL switch on the KILLDROID.

I’m sorry, but these folks’ actions would STILL amount to homicide.

Nevertheless, I could see this kind of rationalization being used in the U.S. someday. Israel just got there first.

I do want to briefly treat something else the article mentions, though, that is more specifically Jewish: It mentions Sabbath timers. These are the same kind of timer (i.e., they activate if you don’t hit the dead-man switch), only they are used to do things like turn lights in a house ON during the Sabbath (rather than turning respirators OFF) since in some circles it is considered breaking the Sabbath to turn the lights on.

That’s TOTALLY DIFFERENT morally, and I want to point that out.

Now, I don’t agree with the severe interpretation of God’s law that would constitute flipping on a light switch as work and thus a violation of the Sabbath. Neither do I mind that there is someone at the power station who has to work on the Sabbath. Even the priests work on the Sabbath, and guys at the power plant is one of those functions that needs doing (whether you have a droid turning on your lights or not). It’s like if your sheep falls in a pit on the sabbath, it’s okay to get him out. (NOTE: Sheep do this ALL the time. They’re REALLY dumb and helpless.)

But there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between having a droid turn on you lights on the Sabbath and having a droid kill your patient.

The point of Sabbath legislation (however it is interpreted) is not to keep you from having light but to keep you from working so that you can rest. Doing the labor to set up a lightswitch droid on Thursday does not cause you to do work on the Sabbath. You get to rest when you’re s’pposed to and you work when you’re s’pposed to. You’re just doing a little extra work to make your rest more enjoyable.

But the point of anti-killing legislation IS to keep people from being killed, and so setting up a killdroid on your patient’s respirator DOES violate the purpose for which the legislation is given.

There’s thus a big difference between morally between using a killdroid and using a lightswitch droid–and not just in the gravity of the actions they perform (killing someone being a lot worse than turning on lights) but in the morality of SETTING THEM UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I didn’t want the mention of Sabbath timers to confuse this as a uniquely Jewish issue. Medical killdroids are just wrong no matter who is using them as part of a "La, la, la, la; I’m not killing you; la, la, la, la" gambit.

NOTE: For simplicity’s sake I have not broached the question of how the Jewish Sabbath relates to Sunday and what Christians are allowed to do on Sunday. Neither have I broached the question of whether the person on the respirator is required to be on the respirator in the first place. I’m assuming that the use of the respirator IS morally required in a particular case for getting at the morality of using a killdroid to shut it off. In other cases its use may not be morally required, in which case no killdroid would be needed to shut it off morally. That’s a separate debate that I didn’t want to have here.

CHT to the reader who alerted me to the following story.

It seems that the Washington Nationals have suspended a volunteer chaplain for nodding his head in response to the wrong question.

The question was put to him by player Ryan Church, who was asking advice about his former girlfriend, who happens to be Jewish.

According to Church, he’s what happened:

"I said, like, Jewish people, they don’t believe in Jesus. Does that
mean they’re doomed? [Volunteer chaplain] Jon [Moeller] nodded, like, that’s what it meant. My
ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions
don’t know any better. It’s up to us to spread the word" [SOURCE].

Following this, the Washington Post got ahold of the story and published a front-page piece on it, following which Moeller was suspended as chaplain and Church issued an apology in which he distanced himself from "call[ing] into question the religious beliefs of others"–something that he apparently had just done!

The suspension and apology followed complaints from Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, and Orthodox rabbi in Washington. According to the WaPo story linked above, Rabbi Herzfeld stated that "the locker room of the Nationals is being used to preach hatred."

Elsewhere he is quoted as saying: "The Nationals did a good job about bringing hate into the locker room."

This might surprise some, but in principle I don’t have a problem with the Nationals suspending Chaplain Moeller. If they’re a private organization, they can have whatever kind of chaplain they want, including none at all. They also have the right to tell whatever chaplains they may have that "There are certain subjects we don’t want you to go into when you’re here; if you feel that you can minister to the players under these conditions, fine; otherwise, you’ll need to conduct your ministry elsewhere."

If the Nationals has such a policy and Chaplain Moeller was in violation of it then it is fair to suspend him. If they don’t have such a policy but are choosing to implement one now then Chaplain Moeller should have the policy explained to him and then he should be allowed to decide whether or not he feels he can minister under those conditions.

I do take exception to the remarks attributed to Rabbi Herzfeld, however. It is not "hatred" to propose a particular set of criteria for salvation and then conclude that those who do not meet those criteria are not saved. That’s a theological opinion, and it may be right or wrong, but it isn’t itself hatred.

Hatred might motivate it. A person might be drawn to a particular set of criteria because he hates a group and wishes to exclude them from salvation. But the mere fact that an individual concludes that some people aren’t saved is not itself evidence of hatred.

I don’t know how much experience Rabbi Herzfeld may have in talking with conservative Protestants, but there are a great many of them who are in no way motivated by hatred for the Jewish people, yet who believe that all Jewish people will be lost unless they accept Jesus as the Messiah.

The vast majority of them are not motivated by hatred in coming to this conclusion. They come to it because they sincerely believe in the necessity of Christian faith for salvation, and they happen to believe in a this necessity in an un-nuanced way that leads them to conclude that all who lack explicit Christian faith are unsaved.

That’s a theological opinion–one that I and my Church regard as inadequate–but it’s not an expression of hatred.

In fact, as evidenced by the somewhat inarticulate Mr. Church, it’s often serves as the occasion for showing love. Though human sinfulness can get in the way even here, it is in principle an act of love to share with someone what they need to be saved. It’s a spiritual work of mercy, and the belief that all non-Christians are doomed is often the occasion among conservative Protestants for renewed calls to reach out to them and share with them what they will need to be saved, for they are recognized as people who God loves and who he wants to save and who Jesus also died for. Conservative Proestants are regularly taught that people of other faiths are no better or worse than they themselves are and that all stand in need of God’s mercy.

I say all this as one who many conservative Protestants would not count as a Christian.

Many would regard me as automatically doomed because I am a Catholic. There is often even more antipathy toward Catholicism than toward Judaism in their circles because Catholics are believed to represent a false Christianity. By striking "closer to home" as it were, Catholicism is perceived as a much greater theological threat than Judaism.

But those conservative Protestants who believe that I am doomed because I am a Catholic don’t hate me.

They may disagree with and even loathe the faith to which I subscribe, but I’m not going to go around accusing them of "hate" just because they think I don’t qualify for salvation as they understand its terms.

There are far too many false accusations of hatred and "hate speech," and they have contributed to the development of a culture of victimization that threatens the fabric of American society.

Fundamentally, it is a disservice to the truth and to society to go around proclaiming "Hate! Hate!" where there is no hate.

The Netherlands, the country that has legalized everything from prostitution (WARNING: Evil file format! [.pdf]) to euthanasia, is now giving tax breaks to student witches:

"Dutch tax authorities have allowed a woman to deduct the 2,210 euros it cost her to take a one-year course in witchcraft, an inland revenue official said Wednesday.

"The 39-year actress and artist learned how to use crystal balls and prepare herbs, and also spells and other witchcraft skills at the course held in the country’s northwest.

"’The woman used the training in order to start … giving workshops, so she used it to extend her professional knowledge,’ the tax official told Reuters.

"Margarita Roland, who gave the course and whose Web site (http://www.heksehoeve.nl/) [Editor’s note: The site is in Dutch and its URL was published by the source article. –MA] shows her with a broomstick and pointed hat, said she teaches apprentices all they need to know to become a witch, using magic as a force for good.

"’A witch is a wise woman or man who knows about the magic of life in general and the magic of the earth in particular," said Roland, known as the ‘witch of Appelscha’ after her home town."

GET THE STORY.

Does anyone have any idea how the Netherlands became the center of kookiness in Europe?