[Buddha-l] Views of morality, culture, and religion

[Malcolm Dean]

From: Vicente Gonzalez <vicen.bcn at gmail.com>
Subject: Views of morality, culture, and religion

Malcolm wrote:
MD> A Buddhist approach, I would suggest, denies essentialism and
MD> recognizes the acts and mental states related together as
MD> characteristics of various religions and schools of thought - and sees
MD> that these relationships or characteristics appear and re-appear in
MD> new configurations throughout human history. We can then consider
MD> their achievements and results.

> it's a good and scientific view. Although I wonder if finally one
> will be forced to consider those achievements and results in moral
> terms: authentic-false, good-bad, etc....

This is dualism, is it not? Following Wheeler's physics, existence is
binary, but phenomena are not - they are complex, emergent, and as someone
once said, empty. This feeling of being "forced to consider" troubles me.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought Buddhism was about karma, its results, and
liberation therefrom, not about morality, and especially not about any
morality delivered from "on high" or enforced as a social or cultural code.

MD> I think we see the confusion in rather desperate attempts to
MD> distinguish and divorce a  "mainline" Islam from a "jihadi" Islam,
MD> while forgetting the bloody history of European religion and its many
MD> crusades and internal jihads. Either we recognize the whole phenomenon
MD> of religion, or we choose an essentialist (in my view, illusory)
MD> rendition of religious history by artificially deleting what we view
MD> as "pseudo," "political," or "tribal."

> I don't know really. At one side, Religion is something rooted in the
> human nature. Social structures (organizations, doctrines,
> hierarchies, etc) all them can be considered additional things to that
> first meaning, and their sense can be to serve individuals giving
> access and success to canalize their religious feeling.
> If the utility of these structures is that, then there is a logical
> space for a moral criteria in establishing what can be authentic or
> false.

So the purpose of religion is simply to channel "religious feelings?" Such
criteria are relative to specific times and places, to societies and
cultures. They are not based on any explicit scientific or logical process;
they are implicit products of cultural and cognitive entropy, often
invisible to the participants themselves, but given the credibility of a
deity. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought that Buddhism was one attempt to go
beyond that.

Malcolm
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