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.