Political Compass

My Political Compass

Economic Left and Social Libertarian:
Economic Left/Right: -4.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.49

Vote Irish

Kogelo Village

Obama's half-brother Malik is carried through Kogelo village, Kenya. The president-elect's relatives erupted in cheers Wednesday, singing "We are going to the White House!"

Obama Redraws Map Of Religious Voters

All Things Considered, October 24, 2008 · Religious language trips off Barack Obama's tongue as if he were a native of the Bible Belt.

From the moment he emerged on the national scene, he has spoken to believers in a language few Democrats have mastered: the language of the Bible and of a personal relationship with God.

Sometimes he shares his adult conversion story, describing how he knelt beneath the cross at his Chicago church: "I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me," he says. "I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works."

Sometimes he speaks of sin and personal responsibility: "When a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels someone has disrespected him," he told a group of religious progressives in 2006, "We've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart."

And sometimes he borrows code words, not from hymns, but from Christian rock star Michael W. Smith, such as when he proclaimed at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, "We worship an awesome God in the blue states!"

It is this ease with religion that has helped Obama win over voters of various religious stripes — including Catholics who traditionally have voted Republican....

Progressively Conservative

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: The Middle Way Life in a World of Polarity

We human beings have long acquired the habit of creating dichotomies and opposition, and our understandings of scriptural texts and traditions have not avoided this tendency. We frequently find polarity imposed as a device of convenience: tradition versus reform, meditator versus scholar, etc. Some Buddhist teachers may fall into such dichotomies. Ajahn Buddhadasa is one who does not. For him, the middle way is about finding the right course between extremes.

Ajahn Buddhadasa grew up during a time of great change in Thai society, as aggressive western “civilization” and imperialism made deep inroads. This change brought about many benefits such as roads, schools, and advances in health care, but much destruction resulted as well. The forests of Thailand diminished from over 90% to just 10%, prostitution became rampant, and traditional modes of life have disappeared. Many in Thailand responded to the pressure to westernize by embracing and profiting from it. Others took the opposite approach, resisting and refusing what the West had to offer. Ajahn Buddhadasa sought the middle way between these opposing alternatives.

The organizing element in Ajahn Buddhadasa’s response to Western imperialism and modernization was the Dhamma. This may seem self-evident, but it wasn’t true of the political-economic elite or even the majority of Thai monks, especially the senior monks who were often much more interested in maintaining tradition and privilege than in living from Dhammic principles. One of Ajahn Buddhadasa’s most notable qualities was his ability to hold the Dhamma at the center—not a bookish, memorized Dhamma, but a living, creative expression of it. He and others, such as Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn, represent some of the healthiest Asian responses to the tremendous economic, political, and military pressure emanating from the violent capitalist-driven ideology of the West.

Faced with the dichotomy of slavishly following or stubbornly refusing the progress of Westernization, Ajahn Buddhadasa felt that there were many things to learn from the West. Like the Dalai Lama, he was fascinated by science. When he was a young monk, he cherished the typewriter given to him by an early benefactor. He experimented with radios and early recording equipment, and was an excellent photographer. He read Freud and other psychologists, and philosophers like Hegel and Marx. He believed there was a way to use some Western developments constructively. Instead of blindly refusing them, he thought that one should learn how to adapt them - understanding them while being mindful of their potential dangers.

He thought that Asian peoples could learn from what those in the West were thinking and doing, without surrendering their own wisdom. Many Thai students in Europe and in Western-style educational systems were being told by their European teachers that they came from an “inferior civilization.” There were some who believed what they were told. Fortunately, others did not. Ajahn Buddhadasa emerged as the main Thai voice pointing out that Europe had created nothing comparable to Buddhism, while acknowledging the economic and military advancement of the West. He presented the view that Asian Buddhism had an attitude much more fitting with science than Christianity, and a kind of wisdom largely missing in the West.

Ajahn Buddhadasa taught that in order to wisely absorb what is coming from the West, and to filter what is unhealthy, we need to stay grounded in an understanding of Buddha-Dhamma. This had a great influence on Thai society, especially among the progressive elite. Though the meaning is a bit different for those of us born in the West, the dilemma remains: we live in a culture that is very powerful and has some healthy, creative aspects, but also a tremendous amount of violence and destruction. How are we going to sort through this? In which principles can we ground ourselves?

Another dichotomy occurs between conservative and radical. The Thai activist and scholar Sulak Sivaraksa coined the term “radical conservatism” to describe Ajahn Buddhadasa. In some ways Ajahn Buddhadasa was conservative. He thought that Southern Thai culture was healthy, balanced, and wise, and he wanted to help conserve it. He was also conservative, in certain respects, regarding Buddhism, believing that Buddhism needed to stay grounded in its past without being stuck there.

At the same time he was radical. Ajahn Buddhadasa honored the Buddhist tradition that had developed over 2500 years, but he also recognized that the many changes it had been through were not in keeping with its core. In trying to understand and preserve the tradition, he endeavored to find the original and essential aspects of Buddhism through carefully reading and studying the Pali suttas. He insisted on reviving core threads of Buddha-Dhamma—teachings such as suññata (emptiness) and tathata (thusness) —that were in danger of being obliterated by certain elements of traditional Theravada Buddhism. Although this could be considered a conservative activity, it seemed very radical to the monastic hierarchy. Rather than end up on one side or the other of this conservative-progressive dichotomy, he was able to be progressively conservative and conservatively progressive, avoiding a common ideological lock-down.

Another key dichotomy he addressed is that of lay versus monastic. Senior monks discouraged him from teaching anatta (not-self) and paticcasamuppada (dependent co-origination) to lay people on grounds that it would “confuse them.” But in good conscience Ajahn Buddhadhasa could not stop. He argued that these dhammas are core to Buddhism, and all people who want to end suffering have a right to learn them. For him, ending suffering is not a monastic issue, or even a Buddhist issue, but a human issue. He took on the work of making the Dhamma available to anyone who might be interested, whether they were lay or ordained, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Sikh (and he had students from all of these traditions).

Ajahn Buddhadasa also challenged the meditation versus daily-life practice dichotomy. The term ‘Dhamma practice’ is often used as a euphemism for meditation both in the West and in Asia . When people say ‘practice’ they are referring to the practice of sitting on a cushion or doing walking meditation, and sometimes specifically on retreat or in a formal setting. This has raised questions and created confusion about how to practice in daily-life, and how to respond to the demands, complexities, and needs of the world we live in.

Central to Ajahn Buddhadasa’s approach is the idea that “Dhamma is duty; duty is Dhamma.” Dhamma practice comes down to doing our duty, which inspires a further investigation into the nature of that duty. For some of us our duty is something dictated to us by our family. The government tells us about our patriotic duty. Capitalism tells us about our duty to consume to keep the economy strong. Ajahn Buddhadasa believed that duty must be discovered by and for ourselves. We should be mindful of messages from our family, government, culture, and economic system, but in the end it is our own responsibility to identify. Sometimes it’s about taking care of the body, sometimes it’s about one’s profession, and sometimes it’s about social action. Ultimately the core duty is to let go of self and to be free of suffering.

Finally, there is the spiritual versus worldly dichotomy. There are teachers of Theravada who believe in a clear duality between samsara and Nibbana, the worldly and transcendent. And there is much in the West that dichotomizes these as well, including leftist political traditions that want to abolish religion and be simply materialistic. There are others with the opposite bias: “Forget politics and forget social issues, all you have to do is practice, practice, practice and escape to Nibbana.”

While Ajahn Buddhadasa didn’t believe that samsara (worldly) and Nibbana (transcendent) are one and the same, he did insist that Nibbana is found only in the midst of the world. For him the way to end suffering could only be found through suffering. He described Nibbana as “the coolest point in the furnace.”

The Dhamma perspective that made all this bridging possible is an understanding, both intellectual and experiential, of idappaccayata—the universal natural law that all things happen because of causes and conditions. Nothing is static, absolute, or fixed. Seeing this, we avoid becoming trapped in ideology, positions, and dichotomies. Ajahn Buddhadasa believed that an approach which may have worked for a while may also finally reach its limit. The more we understand that everything depends on causes and conditions, that nothing is fixed, the easier it will be to navigate the intellectual and ideological dichotomies of our world, and to follow the middle way of non-suffering in this lifetime.

-- Santikaro

Romney on Faith in America

12/6/2007 10:30:00 AM

Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney's (R-MA) "Faith in America" Speech
Speaking from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station, TX, fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) discusses religion, politics and governance. The speech by the GOP Presidential candidate is being compared to then-Sen. John Kennedy's 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Assn.

Romney (who is not pictured to the right!) is simply one among a long line of presidential contenders who were/are Mormon. One may disagree with Mormon theology (and Mormon politics, for that matter), but for sheer creativity/inspiration, it has few rivals within American history. From NPR comes a short description of the speech:

Romney did not offer a tutorial of his own faith, which shares many core beliefs with evangelical Christianity. The religion is further guided by the Book of Mormon, published by church founder Joseph Smith Jr. in 1830. Smith said he had discovered the sacred text buried near his home and proceeded to translate it.

Romney, who in recent polls was shown trailing Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee – who was a Baptist minister before taking office — said there were features of other faiths that he wished were in his own, issuing a laundry list that seemed designed to be inclusive and to avoid offense.

"I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims.

"It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions," he said.

Inherit the Winds of Katrina

There's an interesting situation down in Louisiana: Bobby Jindal has just been elected governor.

What makes this interesting is Jindal's position on Intelligent Design in the schools.

Hello, where's the Living Buddha registration counter?

San Francisco, California (USA) -- A controversial 54 year old performance artist and American Buddhist yogi named Dennis Conkin will report to the Chinese Embassy in San Francisco, California on Wednesday, September 5 at 10 a.m. to comply with new Chinese regulations that require Living Buddhas of the Tibetan Buddhist religion to register with the Chinese government.

"I am aware of the new regulations, so I am reporting as required to the Embassy for instructions on how to proceed. I'm not sure if the Chinese government wants a dossier of my relevant past lives or whether I'm just supposed to show up. Maybe they'll have some spiritual experts already available at the Embassy to look at my past life aura or something," Conkin said. "Maybe they can clear up some confusion I have about a couple of recent incarnations. That would be so helpful to me. And much cheaper than going to Tibet."

"I'm encouraging everyone who possesses Buddha-nature to go to their nearest Chinese Embassy and register for recognition. Validation is so important to a healthy sense of self-esteem and well being," Conkin said

The new regulations were instituted by the Chinese government effective September 1, 2007 and are aimed at curbing the spiritual and political power of His Holiness The Dalai Lama and other Tibetan religious leaders , The regulations are also aimed at preventing the recognition of the next Dalai Lama by Tibetan religious leaders.

Conkin, a full time student at San Francisco City College, is sanguine about the prospect of being recognized as a holy incarnation by the Chinese government. He says he's had little success being recognized by authentic Tibetan Buddhist teachers as well.

"Well, so far the only recognition I've ever had is from the Universal Life Church who said that If I send them the required fee, they will send me a certificate that says I'm a Lama," Conkin said. "They haven't made one that says Living Buddha, yet." he said. "They should. It would be a best seller."

Reaction from Tibetan Buddhist Lamas has been mixed, Conkin says. "Some of them have gotten quite pissed off with me, others just crack up and laugh a lot. It's been a really great meditation about the nature of self-delusion and deception," he said.

Conkin says the Chinese government might consider a similar form of meditation.

"Whoever in the Chinese government cooked up this absurd plan to require TIbetan Buddhist tulkus or incarnate Lamas to seek their approval and registration might consider such a meditation," Conkin said "Or at least start watching their breath, they need to get a serious grip on reality."

Conkin is available for interview and comment at 415 756 1546

There could be some firsts

[By: PJ (Be Careful How You Address The Queen) L.]

With the first presidential primaries only a few months away you might be interested in some of the

Presidential hopefuls that just might make history....

• John McCain would become the oldest United States president if elected. At age 72, he would be 3 years older than Ronald Reagan. He would also be the first Arizona resident to win the White House and the first Naval Academy graduate to become president since Jimmy Carter.
  
• Senator Barack Obama of Illinois would be the first African-American president as well as the first president born in Hawaii. And the first United Church Of Christ president since Calvin Coolidge.
• Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the first woman president and the first New York State resident to occupy the Oval Office since Franklin Roosevelt.
• ...see more.

Bush and Benedict XVI

Vatican City - US President George W Bush drew gasps at the Vatican on Saturday by referring to Pope Benedict XVI as "sir" instead of the expected "His Holiness", pool reporters said.

They could clearly hear the US leader say "Yes, sir" when the pope asked him if he was going to meet with officials of the lay Catholic Sant'Egidio community at the US embassy later during his visit.

New Baptist Covenant

3 prominent Republicans join Carter, Clinton, Gore on New Covenant roster

By Greg Warner

Published May 17, 2007

ATLANTA (ABP) -- Organizers for next January's New Baptist Covenant gathering announced the speakers for the historic three-day meeting -- with former President Jimmy Carter making good on a pledge to enlist prominent Republican Baptists to complement the mostly Democratic headliners.

Republican Senators Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa) join Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee as recently named participants for the Jan. 30-Feb. 1 New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta, billed as the broadest Baptist meeting in America since Baptists divided over slavery before the Civil War. Organizers hope to attract 20,000 people to the gathering.

Carter already has enlisted former President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the former vice president who came within 537 Florida votes of succeeding Clinton. They all are Democrats, as is ‘60s-era presidential adviser Bill Moyers, now a journalist and author.

Although the meeting will occur in the heat of the presidential-nomination season, Carter eschewed any political intention for the gathering. Clinton's involvement sparked criticism the event would become a campaign rally for wife Hillary, the Democratic presidential frontrunner. But the only presidential candidate on the program is Republican Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor and governor of Arkansas.

Carter acknowledged his effort was slowed initially by criticism the group was dominated by Democrats. "It may have been a mistake to single out me and Bill Clinton as two politicians," he said. But the group's effort to enlist Republican speakers was "completely successful," Carter said. "Every Republican we have invited has agreed to come."

....

Rather than the racial, theological and social conflict that has divided Baptists for decades, the Covenant group plans to demonstrate Baptist unity around Jesus' compassion agenda, outlined in his inaugural sermon recorded in the fourth chapter of Luke's gospel.

Those themes comprise the core of the "New Baptist Covenant," a statement drafted in April 2006 in a meeting at the Carter Center attended by some of the same Baptist leaders. The statement says the Covenant partners are "committed to promote peace with justice, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and marginalized, welcome the strangers among us, and promote religious liberty and respect for religious diversity."

This bodes well for the return of Baptists to their egalitarian, radically individualist, compassionately communitarian, and socially progressive roots.

Is Wicca a Religion?

One reason that the VA gave for refusing the Wiccan request for grave-site symbology, invoked the lacked of centralized authority within Wicca. That might have been part of the answer, but I suspect other factors played a part, factors centered on other aspects of Wiccan practice, aspects that many people refuse to see as being really "religious". On another blog (GetReligion), I posted further thoughts on the "centralized authority" excuse:

The “centralization” thing seems fishy to me. Who’s the central authority for Jews and Muslims? If the VA does have single organizations in mind that it believes represent all Jews or all Muslims, how do the other Jews and Muslims feel about that?

True, there is no “one” centralized authority for all Jews, or all Muslims, or all Christians. But there is The Episcopal Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and so forth. Of course, there are Wiccan religious organizations, as well.

Notice the former requirements for a religion in order for its emblem to be recognized by the VA:

1. A written request from the recognized head of the religious group,
2. A list of national officers, and
3. A membership tally.

A religion like Wicca, even though it does possess some level of organizational structure, is not dependent upon such structure. It is commonly accepted among Wiccans that one can be a Wiccan without joining a coven, or without being initiated by a priestess or priest. In a nation broadly pervaded by Christianity, where Christianity serves as the model of what a real religion entails (community, belief, sacred text, particular ideas of divinity, etc.), Wicca can certainly appear not “really” a religion, as something people just “make up”. And, indeed, there is tremendous potential for Wiccan creativity in the construction of their Book of Shadows and magickal rituals. Within a Christian framework, that’s not “religion” — religion has a defined Deity (preferably masculine), a defined founder (preferably male), a defined doctrine (preferably written in sacred texts and conciliar documents); religion, moreover, does not involve nudity, or sex, or invoking spirits — things Wiccans have been known to include in their rituals.(By contrast, even Scientologists and Eckankarists are not known for engaging in such distinctive behavior!) From a historically Christian perspective held by many Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, Wicca might be “spiritual”, but it’s not “religious”.

The definitions that the VA formerly used to define what counts as a religion, originated out of a Christian matrix. I’m not saying that’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’, just that in 21st-century America, governmental administrations have to be aware of the tendency to judge all religious and spiritual paths, in terms of how much they fit into traditionally Christian notions of organizational and ritual characteristics of what “religion” really is.

Without having read all 30,000 documents created by the VA, I would just have to strongly suspect that some of the VA decision-making process involved a conscious and unconscious comparison (and not just at the level of centralized organization, I agree!) of Wicca with Christianity and other formally recognized religions, with Wicca coming up with the short end of the stick.

Pentacle Power

April 23, 2007

The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on government-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.

A settlement between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Wiccans adds the five-pointed star to the list of "emblems of belief" allowed on VA grave markers.

Eleven families nationwide are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

After more than 10 years, Wiccans are now allowed to have the pentacle in national cemeteries and on government-issued headstones of Wiccan military. Now, you might ask yourself, "What took them so long?!" I'm glad you asked.

How do you define a religion? OK, not "you" personally, but the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs? Until 2005, the VA included in its definition of "religion" the necessity of a central headquarters or centralized authority. Since Wiccans lack such a centralized authority, let alone a "headquarters", Wicca was not seen as a real, bona fide, religion. It might be spiritual, but a religion?? Nah! The following is from a Washington Post story from 2006:

Department spokeswoman Josephine Schuda said VA turned down Wiccans in the past because religious groups used to be required to list a headquarters or central authority, which Wicca does not have. But that requirement was eliminated last year, she noted.

The "central authority" requirement was lifted in 2005, so one might argue that that's why it took more than 10 years for the Wiccan request to go through. But even 2 years is apparently a long time by VA standards, so why the prolongation? Conspiracy theories abound, and I'm sure the political climate had something to do with it. Wiccans don't exactly have a pure reputation in America. Many people automatically (or after due consideration) lump Wiccans along with Satanists, demon-worships, dreaded polytheists, pertinacious pagans, and general undesirables. I need not go into why all that is incorrect on this blog. Suffice it to say that many persons see the existence of Wicca as an affront to their own religious tradition, and are (thus, understandably) not too keen on having Wicca recognized -- in any form whatsoever -- by the U. S. federal authorities. But freedom of religion for one, means freedom of religion for all. (See also this.)

There's another issue here, though: what counts as religion in First Amendment definition? Must it be organized with a central authority? Or does it merely have to involve belief in, and practice directed towards, what is super-natural? I'll leave that for another day.