This has been quite a hot topic in the UK recently, I decided to wait till a little of the heat seemed to have gone out of it before airing my views.  We have made considerable progress on the rights of Gay people and the differently gendered, in my view we should be pleased with how far we’ve come.  That doesn’t mean we can let ourselves become complacent though.

The opposition to Gay marriage seems to me to be religious conservatives, I’ve seen no secular opposition or religious liberal opposition.  This opposition seems to be based on two arguments.  The first is an argument from religious dogma, which boils down to what the religious book says.  The second is based on an idea of the ownership of marriage by the religious.  Note that I avoid naming a specific religion, this is a deliberate choice on my part as I think my comments are applicable to more than one faith.

Let’s look at the first argument, the argument from dogma.  This really isn’t an argument, I’ve taken aim at religious dogma so often in the past that you can probably guess what I’m going to say here.  This dogma is the unverified writings of a stone age priesthood, whatever it says was not written with a modern audience (or the modern world) in mind.  I can assert this as the writer could not have known the future and so couldn’t be expected to anticipate the world these writings now find themselves in.  What we have is two people in love, trying to be happy together, being blocked by some stone age writing of highly dubious origin and transmission.  Remember, the only claim this dogma has to authority is the idea that it’s the unaltered world of a god.  I’ve aimed at that before, so will simply link to my previous writings.  On a personal level, I am mystified why it should be called “Gay Marriage”, or even “Marriage”, wouldn’t you want to lose the religious baggage that this label brings with it?

The second argument: they think they own marriage, no, I am not making this up.  The argument is that because the word “Marriage” is defined in their religious texts which pre date the state, then the state cannot redefine them.  The notion of marriage is recorded by the ancient Greeks, but we know that the Sumerians (3000 – 2000 BCE) had marriages. I think this casts doubt on the idea being exclusively owned by any current “in play” religion.  Same sex unions are recorded during the Zhou (1046 – 260 BC) and Ming (1368 – 1644 AD) dynasties in China and in also Rome (the Emperor Nero).  I think this disproves any idea that it’s purely a modern phenomenon.

As a Buddhist I know that the world is in constant change, the evolution of the definition of marriage is simply one part of that change.  It has changed between civilisations over time and will, no doubt, continue to do so.  The institution of marriage is defined by the people in the marriages, they do this every day with the Karma they create through their actions and interactions.  It is not owned by either a religious institution or the state.

This is about the right of two people in love to join together and make a formal commitment.  That love and that commitment are what’s important, not the arguments surrounding a religious institution or secular state based view of marriage.

Finally, a quick note on the religious definition of marriage as “one man and one woman”.  In the Bible, the old Testament prophets are show as having more than one wife.  In both Exodus (21:10) and Deuteronomy (17:17 & 21:15-17) instructions are given for how they are to be treated. So, even the bible violates that definition.

This came through my Twitter feed yesterday and I couldn’t resist opening it, like a moth to a flame.  It seems that a group of British Christian MPs are going to try to overturn a ban on adverts promoting the healing power of prayer.

The football player Fabrice Muamba has begun to make a recovery after his collapse last week and these MPs have decided that as he was the recipient of many prayers and good wishes, this means that prayer works.  Oh, really?  So in their opinions, does this have nothing to do with the prompt actions of the medical staff from both team and the expensive professional medical care he received afterwards?

They then challenge the UK Advertising Standards Authority as follows:

We write to express our concern at this decision and to enquire about the basis on which it has been made. It appears to cut across two thousand years of Christian tradition and the very clear teaching in the Bible. Many of us have seen and experienced physical healing ourselves in our own families and churches and wonder why you have decided that this is not possible.

On what scientific research or empirical evidence have you based this decision?

Let me be clear, having looked at the ASA judgement itself, their position seems to be that there is no evidence in support of the claims of healing. These MPs have got the cart firmly before the horse here.  As the ones making the claims of divine healing, the responsibility is with the advertiser and themselves to provide the empirical evidence of such healing, it does not lie with the ASA.

There have been studies conducted into the healing power of prayer, some even funded by religious groups.  These studies drew a blank, no scientific evidence has yet been found to conclude that prayer has any healing power whatever.  Oddly, some patients got worse, which was put down to a form of performance anxiety on their part.  I think that in light of this, the most reasonable conclusion at this time is that the healing power of prayer has no supporting evidence and is unproven.

A new report from the Church of England caught my eye today, courtesy of the British Humanist Association.  It seems to be pushing for a stronger evangelising of state funded Church schools, while complaining of the attack of secularism.

How are these publicly funded schools supposed to be inclusive when they make children of other faiths or no faith whatsoever feel like outsiders?  Let’s be clear, the landscape in the United Kingdom is changing and has been for years.  Secularism in this country has now strengthened to the point that it is challenging the established Church, which poses some very difficult questions for the powers that be.  The British Social Attitudes Survey shows that  50% of the population are secular and this is even higher in the under 24s.  These schools are state funded, which means they are paid for from the taxes levied on non-Christians and Christians alike.  With this thought in place, you have to ask how you can justify using public money to promote one faith over all the other alternatives?

In my previous post, I talked about why I think that drawing ethics from a dogmatic supernaturally inspired source isn’t really a very good idea.  In this post, I’d like to talk a little about why I think that ethics drawn from a secular source are more meaningful.  I also think that as Buddhism has a long history of doing just that, it has an awful lot to bring to the table in this process.

Why do I think this?  When we hand the responsibility over to a third party to decide our morals, or forgive us, this takes quite a lot away from us as Human Beings.  We can no longer claim to be masters of our own destinies, we cannot evolve our morality in any meaningful way and we still have responsibility for our actions.  This is because we are the ones who chose to let someone else drive and then willingly went along for the ride.

Speaking from the viewpoint of this Secular Buddhist, it’s much more meaningful to take this power back for ourselves.  Buddhist ethics are based in a clear minded view of the world in this moment, as it is.  Not coloured by dogma or beliefs, by superstitions or agendas.  We have to actually think about the issues as they are in this moment, justify what we think and why we think that way rationally and without recourse to dogma.  We have to consider the feelings of others, we must practise empathy and consider the Karma that our actions produce for ourselves and others.  This leads to a greater consideration for the humanity of others and underlines our deep and powerful connection to those around us.

It also brings me back to something I’ve covered in a previous posts, the idea of forgiveness and compassion starting with ourselves.  When forgiveness is doled out by another, we’re not required to understand or forgive and we’re not really able to, not even for ourselves.  When we are the ones doing the forgiving, we are required to understand that we’re imperfect, limited and fallible.  Coming from that position, accepting that we are flawed and imperfect, we can learn to forgive ourselves.  Once we can do that, we’re in a much better position to use that same understanding to begin to forgive others.

I’ve done a very brief turn around the notion of Secular Buddhism recently.  I’ve talked a little about my view on why Buddhism is originally secular and why it’s such a good fit for the west.  I also covered very briefly how it came west, though there is a lot that can be said about that, I urge you to pursue your own research.  Accounts of the Panadura debate are available on line, and I may be able to reproduce them on this website once I’ve looked into the copyright issues.  But I haven’t been near a question.  Why is Secular Buddhism important, why am I of the opinion that it’s vital to have it?

The answer, I feel comes down to awareness and the willingness to see.  Humanity has many religions, depending on where you draw the line this number can vary.  These religions for the most part draw their authority from their particular god, so I see them as drawing their moral authority from an source outside provable and verifiable reality.  This effectively means that anything can be passed off as morality and go unchallenged as once you subscribe to religion your incentives are to support the status quo.  Want an example?  The Catholic Church frowns on the use of birth control, this from a religion that is widespread in some of the poorest areas on the planet!  The most effective thing the Catholic Church could do for these areas is allow condoms and other contraception.  This would reduce population pressure and the strain on already poor families, it would also reduce the spread of AIDS and other diseases all of which would benefit these communities no end.

For a second example, I’ll move along to Homosexuality.  According to the doctrines of many religions Homosexuality is a sin, pure and simple.  Buddhism, tends to vary depending on where you are but as far as I am aware the Buddha was silent on this.  There are a number of stones thrown at Homosexuals by the religious (remember “he who is without sin”, anyone?), this isn’t the time to get into it in depth but I’ll make one comment.  Homosexuality has been observed in 450 species in the wild on Earth, Homophobia in only one.  You can say the same about religion come to think of it, same species too, odd that isn’t it?

In my opinion, because of doctrine, the Catholic Church can’t allow any of this to be challenged.  The doctrine of Papal infallibility means that to admit that they were wrong would be to shake the bedrock, this is something they cannot have.  I’ve already expressed my views on the consequences of that before.

My previous two posts have continued a short theme I wished to explore.  They’ve hopefully explained why I consider Buddhism to be Secular and provided a very quick overview of how Buddhism came to the West.  So here we are, Buddhism is in the western world and according to some sources is the fastest growing religion (I use the term as a shorthand) in many countries, maybe even the whole western world. [1] [2] [3] [4]

I think Buddhism has come to fit the western world very well.  Buddhism is finding that in many places it fits very well with modern science.  Indeed the attitude of questioning and verifying things for yourself that the Buddha speaks of to the people of Kesaputta in the Kalama Sutra is not at all antagonistic to the scientific endeavour.  I’ve posted verses 4 and 10 from the above link in order to bring them directly to your attention.

4. “It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them.

10. “Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.

The above isn’t the only thing Buddhism has to offer that fits it with an increasingly secular west, you will find Buddhist meditation centres in many western cities.  Theravada centres, Zen centres and New Kadampa centres among just a few.  The teachings of Buddhism offer a powerful potential antidote to the stresses, strains and challenges of modern life.  They allow a person to find a sense of peace in our high-tech materialist society without making you feel inherently sinful or unworthy.  For me, as for many others here in the west, this is a huge part of the appeal.

References

I said previously that I’d say a little more about how Buddhism came to the west.  I’m going to put my notes into some sort of order and relate them here.

The story starts in Sri Lanka.  Both the Anglican church and the Catholic church had missionaries in the country and under the colonial rule of the British they were busily making converts and making life very difficult for the indigenous religion, Buddhism.  The Buddhists were ill equipped to make any inroads until a monk called Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera came along.  He had received much exposure to the Christian faith and scripture as he had originally intended to be a Christian priest, but he took a different path and became a Buddhist monk.  He participated in a defining debate between the Christians and the Buddhists, which took place in the town of Panadura on the 24th and 26th August 1873.  Prior to this, there had been several other debates which had mostly been written, but this one was the clincher.  The Buddhist side emerged victorious and the scene was set for a revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

Ok, that’s fine, but how did Buddhism come to the West?  Enter Col. Henry Steel Olcott.  Col. Olcott was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society, and when a translation of the debate caught his eye, he sent a large amount of material to Sri Lanka, all of it critical of Christianity.  This was translated and distributed, Col. Olcott then visited the country.

Col Olcott wrote a book “The Buddhist Catechism” which is still in demand today.  He helped organise the Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka and started the process of drawing both Buddhism and modern science together.  He and Helena P. Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society became the first known westerners to convert to Buddhism.  Through their influence the Dharma started to come West.

I’d like to expand on a couple of things I said in my previous post, this first one regarding Buddhism itself.  I said that Buddhism was originally, a fairly secular thing.  You could be forgiven for looking at the Buddhist world, with it’s Devas and Dharma Protectors and other things and thinking that I’ve lost the plot.  On the face of things, I wouldn’t blame you, but let’s look a little closer.

The Buddha himself is quoted in the Dhammapada as not being very impressed with religions that preach salvation, this first quote shows exactly what I’m talking about.

No one saves us but ourselves, no one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path, but Buddhas clearly show the way.

The Dhammapada, 165.

This is the first quotation, but there is a second one that I’d like to share that specifically deals with the reasons that the Buddha says people go to temples and holy places.

Gripped by fear men go to the sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines, but these are not a secure kind of refuge.

The Dhammapada, 188

The Buddha is setting a theme, that one cannot find salvation or a refuge from suffering in sacred places or in the hands of another, whether that person is a human or a deity.  I can see this setting the scene for an attitude of Agnosticism if not outright Atheism.  I interpret it as Agnosticism as the Buddha didn’t directly comment on the existence or not of gods, at least as far as I know.  I say Buddhism is secular as when dealing with things in an Agnostic manner, if you don’t have any evidence to prove a thing exists or is true, you simply behave as if it doesn’t exist or is untrue.  In the case of the divine, this defaults in my view to a secular manner.

Buddhism is something with a long history.  As far as I’m aware, it started about 2600 years ago and has migrated through a new of countries.  Along the way, it picked up various traditions, practices and other paraphernalia.  It also picked up a lot of religious baggage, including gods, spirits and demons, though this can vary a lot in quantity and lineup depending on where exactly you happen to stand.

Of course, as we know Buddhism eventually came to the west.  This is an interesting story in itself and when I can actually finish looking into it I’ll write up my understanding of it.  On coming west, Buddhism met western secularism and I think something very special happened.  The important thing to remember is that Buddhism was originally a quite secular thing, but during its travels that seems to have gotten lost, at least to my eyes.  Upon coming west, the path was set that would start to dust away the accumulated layers of it’s travels and leave an entirely secular system of ethics.

In Buddhism we have perhaps the only system of ethics and self development that has stood the test of time and does not draw on the authority of a hazily defined and unproven supernatural system for its basis.  The importance of this cannot be overstated, in my opinion.  This is also the beginning of subject that I’d like to delve deeper into in future posts.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been involved in the virtual world of Second Life. For the most part, this has been a rewarding experience. Although I have over time become more aware of some of the flaws. It’s been a disheartening thing, seeing a platform that I believe has real potential being held back by these flaws. Happily, the creators of Second Life under the guidance of Rod Humble are working to make the technology more accessible and easier to use, which is excellent news, and have plans to drive the world forward.

I see Second Life being used by numerous artists and other creatives. People the world over are able to tour art galleries and view works of sculpture. Further to this, Second Life makes art exhibits happen that are just not possible anywhere else. Concerts can be held and DJs can play virtual sets. I’ve listened to artists from across the world performing live from their own homes, so I know first hand that there is a live music scene in Second Life. All of this is available to you, as long as you have an internet connection. Remote location, or physical disability need present no obstacle to fulfilling Second Life.

Of course, my more usual field of comment is agnosticism, religion and spirituality. This area is most certainly catered for in Second Life. In my early days, I found a region called “Bodhi” which was well constructed and hid snippets of Dharma in gems around the landscape. Bodhi is now gone, to the best of my knowledge, but there are plenty of other places. The Skeptical Buddhists Sangha and Kannonji are just two such places with discussion and talks. Consulting the inworld search yields many more.  The odds are, if you enter your faith or lack thereof into Second Life search, it will be there.

In addition to this, there are many centres of learning, not just focussing on inworld skills but things of use outside of Second Life. You can also find support groups inworld for any number of things, and I find myself reflecting that if Second Life saves even one person through these groups. Or when it enables people to grow and reach nearer their potential through these classes, then it’s all been well worth it