Let's Send the Dalai Lama Back to Tibet (where he belongs)

Everyone in the free world knows the Dalai Lama’s story: how he fled Tibet in 1959 to avoid persecution by the Chinese government. Living in exile for over four decades, he is the spiritual leader of Tibetans and a spokesperson for their plight. According to his official website, one of the Dalai’s three main commitments is “the welfare of the Tibetan people, focusing on the survival of their identity, culture and religion.” 

Although living in “exile” sounds like a great hardship, in reality, the Dalai is wined and dined by Hollywood stars, billionaires, kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers.  Perhaps rubbing shoulders with the Dalai helps to counter-balance their self-absorbed life-styles; it makes them feel spiritual without all the messy trappings of religion.

As for the Dali, he travels first class, stays at luxury hotels, and has an entourage who waits on him hand and foot.  In addition to publishing many books, his speaking engagements around the world are always sold out. The Dalai has his own website, facebook page, twitter and youtube channel. He is a folk hero, a pop culture figure, a much quoted Facebook meme and a religious icon for new-agers in all their flaky diversity.

One can understand how this happened.  After all he’s an exiled leader of an underdog religion that most Westerners see as exotic and non-threatening.  And the Dalai is extremely charismatic: a cute old guy, who dresses in robes and says quotable things in adorable broken English. Compared to that other old spiritual leader, the rather rigid and judgmental head of the Catholic empire, the Dalai is a spiritual popsicle; sweet, cool and refreshing, he never leaves you feeling too heavy.  

Don’t get me wrong. I like the Dalai Lama as much as I like any religious leader who lives like a millionaire while selling spirituality to the desperate masses.  But here’s the thing: when it comes to preserving the Tibetan culture and religion, the Dalai’s exile has out lived its purpose.  The entire free world knows about the Tibetan situation. We are up to our eyeballs in empathic awareness.  

So isn’t it time for the Dali to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk, right back to Tibet where he belongs?  Think what would happen if the Dalai Lama went home.  The Chinese government would arrest him.  Imagine the outraged protests from international leaders. All those wealthy powerful people, who currently polish their karma with his robes, would have to speak up. The Dalai’s fans would riot in the streets or at least start a facebook petition.  Think of the attention that would focus on the Chinese government’s terrible human rights record. The Dalai would dominate headlines for days, weeks, even months, provided, of course, nothing too exciting happens in the new season of Mad Men. 

True, the Dalia might spend his remaining years in prison, but for someone who espouses non-attachment to the physical world, that should be a piece of cake. Think how Nelson Mandela defeated apartheid while spending 27 years in prison.  Think of how the Indian nation rallied around Gandhi when he went to prison for his beliefs.  Even the Chinese artist Weiwei has risked prison to draw attention to his country’s repressive policies.

What if the Dalia Lama went face to face with the Chinese regime instead of selling face time to the elite of the western world?  Think what an impact he could have by standing beside his people instead of poolside with Richard Gere.  After the Dalai topples communist China, we could ask the Pope to sell the Vatican’s wealth and live like Jesus.   I know it’s unrealistic to expect spiritual leaders to take action on the real world, but a fella can dream, can’t he?  

The Bible - an excellent source of words

Someone once said to me “Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to admit the Bible contains a lot of wisdom”. This sounds like a reasonable argument until you examine the facts. Does the Bible actually contain “a lot of wisdom”?

Unlike most Christians I have actually read the Bible cover to cover. I did this over a period of a year in my late teens when I was a Christian. Most Christians place more emphasis on the New Testament than the Old. (After all Jesus is more important than Moses.) So like many Christians I was pretty familiar with the stories and talking points of the New Testament. But I was curious to learn what was there in the 800 pages proceeding the so-called “good news” of Jesus Christ. So I diligently slogged through those ancient books. If you think slogged is too harsh a verb, you have obviously not read the Old Testament.

Sitting on my desk is a copy of the King James Bible. It is over 1000 pages long and I’m told it contains nearly three-quarters of a million words. That a lot of words, but how many actually express wisdom? 

Other than fundamentalists, who have selectively memorized the Bible chapter and verse -more often for promoting creationism, homophobia, bigotry and hatred, than for wisdom’s sake- most typical Christians would be hard pressed to identify more than a few dozen parts of the good book that are in fact, wise. These are usually the popular quotes we hear at weddings, funerals and Sunday sermons.

 We might all agree that there is wisdom in the ten commandments, in the Beatitudes, in many, but certainly not all the words attributed to Jesus, and perhaps a few gems scattered randomly through out other parts of the Bible. One could realistically say perhaps a few thousand words of the Bible would be considered “wisdom” by even the most generous definition of the word.

Yet for every wise word, we find hundred pages of meaningless genealogy, tribal rituals, and horrific justification for war, rape, slaughter and slavery. We find all types of rules, laws and advice that are not only unwise, but, in fact, outright stupid and dangerous.

 So the answer is, No, I don’t find the Bible an excellent source of wisdom. The ratio of wisdom to nonsense, of wheat to chaff, is really no greater than any other collection of stories, myths, poems and oral histories. The one thing I have learned from the Bible is that if we raise people to believe something is true, it will be accepted as truth. I am not sure that is the same thing as wisdom

Chimps share 96% of our DNA, but do we worship the same God?

Recently I saw a small science article that pondered whether non-human species have religious ceremonies. Absurd idea? Maybe, but then the author pointed out this example: Apparently during violent thunderstorms, male adult chimpanzees have been observed climbing down from trees carrying sticks that they bang against tree trunks and brandish in the air while making loud cries. The author postulates that, as intelligent as the chimps are, they have no scientific knowledge of nature; not knowing what causes storms they fall into a collective ritual behaviour to scare away the unseen power that is attacking them.

We humans know it is impossible to stop a storm by waving a stick, but do the chimps realize there is no causal connection between their ritual and the storm’s inevitable ending? We cannot know for sure what chimpanzees believe but to me the image of male apes banging sticks, shouting in fear and pointing at the sky sounds a lot like a religious ceremony. One of the obvious purposes religion serves is to provide comfort in the face of a chaotic universe. If waving a stick and shouting helps achieve this, then isn’t it a religious ceremony, as valid as breaking bread, burning incense or praying to Mecca?

In another article I read some years ago, anthropologists described a small tribe they found deep in the Amazon jungle. This group, living at a subsistence level as hunter- gatherers had no living memory of contact with other tribes. They had lived the same way for unknown centuries. Luckily their language were similar to known tribes allowing the researchers to get to know their customs and beliefs.
One of the beliefs the tribe held was that pregnancy is caused when a woman sleeps outside under a full moon. In other words, these people did not know there was a connection between sexual intercourse and pregnancy. They had come to attribute pregnancy to the moon. In some ways their fallacy makes sense. After all it would be weeks after sex before a swollen belly would show. Without an understanding of science, why would they relate an act of pleasure one night with a birth many months later? Perhaps the moon’s shape is similar enough to a pregnant belly to lead to this moon theory. One thing was certain: the tribe was absolutely convinced that their belief in moon pregnancies was a fact. The anthropologists’ attempts to explain about sperm, ovum and monthly cycles was met with much laughter and shaking of heads. What a silly idea, everyone knows that the moon creates babies.

For me, these are perfect examples of the roots of religion and its mythological hold on groups. When confronted with the unkown, whether a scary storm or a mysterious birth, primates seek an explanation. Lacking facts, they will fabricate an imaginative theory because any explanation is better then uncertainty and fear. Before long it becomes an accepted cultural Truth. And later, when new facts don’t fit the belief system they are denied, often violently, and at very least, rationalized away.

A human tribe with no access to science, tries to explain these seemingly random births. The answer is the moon; again myth becomes fact. And if a woman who sleeps outside doesn’t get pregnant, obviously the moon was covered by a cloud or the woman faced the wrong way. The chimpanzee’s stick ritual didn’t stop every storm, but it “worked” enough to become a belief within that tribe. Only an idiot or a madman (or in this case a madchimp) would doubt the power of the tribal ritual.

True-believers filter reality through their belief system; they can always find a way to make the facts fit what they know to be true. The history of humans is strewn with beliefs posing as facts: the earth is the centre of the universe, the world is flat, certain races are inferior and suitable for slavery, disease is caused by demons and strong-willed women are witches to be burned. Because we now have factual information we know these beliefs as absurd, dangerous and crippled human advancement. And yet the battle between faith and facts continues to play out around the world.

We may never know if chimpanzees and people worship the same god but we can see that both species create myths to explain an often mysterious universe. Perhaps not god, but the “need to believe” gene is what we share.

Faith Healing – the Tip of the Irrational Iceberg

Faith healing is an odd and entertaining concept, unless you happen to be a small helpless child of religious fanatic parents, then it can be deadly. Yesterday in Oregon Christian parents who kept their child from a life-saving medical treatment were convicted of criminal mistreatment.

In this case the little girl survived because the court intervened, but other children of the faithful have not been so lucky. How bizarre that a fundamentalist belief in God could outweigh what we assume is the most natural instinct, to love and protect our children. This is the dark side of the irrational belief in prayer.

And it is irrational. The one scientific study of healing prayer that has ever been conducted demonstrated that prayer did not heal people; there were no better results for those who were prayed for versus this who were not. Of course the believers then thought of reasons why the study was flawed, including the astounding explanation that God does not like to be tested. A perfect example of the odd “logic” of faithful: how dare you test the Lord thy god, and to make a point He will ignore your prayers and let some people suffer and die. That’ll teach you to doubt him.

Sure, there are many anecdotes about people being healed by prayer, but there are just as many stories about people being abducted by aliens, seeing big foot or spontaneously bursting into flames. Many seemingly rational people will laugh at a UFO abduction story, while embracing the equally irrational power of prayer.

People will pray for someone who is ill (or in some extreme cases pray that a person will get ill). And some people’s diseases do mysteriously go into remission. Believers say this proves that prayer works, but they chose to ignore this simple fact: just as many people go into spontaneous remission without anyone praying for them.

Of course, believe in healing prayer begs the big question: why doesn’t prayer work all the time? Two small children from two religious families have cancer. Their equally devout parents pray for a cure. The members of their church pray. One child is cured; producing the predictable “it’s a miracle” chorus. The other child dies a slow and painful death. Not only do the parents suffer the loss of a child but now they question why their prayers didn’t work: perhaps their faith wasn’t good enough, their hearts weren’t pure enough or maybe they were being punished for past sins. So their painful loss is covered with a thick layer of self-blame and guilt.

Of course religion is nothing if not the perfect rationalization mechanism. Their religious leaders will assure them this is a test of their faith and trot out the oldest clichés of the faithful: it was the child’s time, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and it’s all part of God’s mysterious plan.

I have religious friends who say rather self-righteously, “Science doesn’t have all the answers.” I agree, science doesn’t have all the answers, but it has more of them, and more sensible ones than religion. Look, I say to my friends who are true believers, if you really believe in prayer over science, then instead of buying eye-glasses, just pray to God for 20/20 vision. Or when you get a bad toothache, don’t see a dentist, just pray and God will fill your cavity.

They usually sputter something about how ridiculous my suggestion is. And I agree. Why would an all powerful God waste his powers fixing your eyes or teeth? Isn’t that why we have science? But these same people believe God can cure you of cancer. Not all the time, of course, that would make too much sense. And, God, as we witness every day, works in mysterious ways, if he works at all.

Faith, is indeed, an odd and entertaining thing.

God's Perfect Business Plan

If I believed in God I would pray for Harold Camping to be sent straight to hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Or in Camping’s case do not collect the millions of dollars taken in on his run up to the Rapture. His Family Radio organization filled a 2009 tax return with $18.3 million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks. Apparently threatening to end the world is extremely good for business. He’s done it twice.

While I poke fun of people naïve enough to fall for the Rapture hype; far worse are the evangelical preachers like Camping who exploit their followers in the name of God. Unfortunately, religion, by its very nature, creates the power imbalance that leads to exploitation, whether financial, sexual or politically.

The true believer gives power to the God of their choice; sadly God comes with an entourage. The handlers interpret God’s word, set the goals and determine the pay scale. The believers always foot the bill. No business model makes more money with less overhead than savings souls. And there are always more souls to save. Camping’s followers believed they were helping save people from hell by donating money to his Rapture, an event that didn’t take place, and conveniently, doesn’t come with a money back guarantee.

Recently I watched the 1972 docomentary Marjoe, which follows former child preacher Marjoe Gortner on his last revivival circuit tour. Marjoe was a child preacher who raked in millions in donations that went into his parent pockets. As an adult, he colludes with the film makers to reveal how revivals work and how preachers use melodrama, theatre, sentimentality and good old fashion lying to rake in thousands a night, usually from people who can least afford to donate.

Marjoe, a confessed non-believer, exploses exactly how religious fraud works: by selling people false hope and reinforcing the beliefs they have; always with a call for donations to continue the Lord’s work. We see him and the other preachers counting buckets of cash each night, a sweaty Rapturous glow on their faces. Yet when the movie came out -and even now on websites- Christians claimed Marjoe was an insincere conman, not like their churchs. They swear on a Bible that their own preacher is sincere, that their religion is not exploitive, that their donations are going to good works. Their passionate denial (and random Bible quotes) are a testimony not just to their faith, but their inability to admit that maybe their religion is just as exploitive as Harold Camping or Marjoe.

In the weeks to come Harold Camping will talk his way out of his failed Rapture prediction. Maybe his math was off (again). Maybe God took pity on his people as he watched them give away their money or dison their heathen relatives. Or perhaps God was only testing his followers, like a fire drill for our souls. One thing we do know there will always be other Harold Camping and there will always be true believers willing to do anything to save their soul, even if it means denying all common sense. There is a reason is it called “blind faith”.

I’m Enjoying the End-Times Fever

According to the website the Rapture will occur today at 6 pm, local time. Yes, it said local time. Why should those snobby Euro-Christians get raptured first? Everyone knows America has the best born-agains. USA! USA! According to Rapture “expert” Harold Camping about 200 million people will be raised up to Heaven, leaving 7.8 billion of us to be punished by God. Vengeance is mine, sayeth Lord.

Those of us who are rational struggle to understand the End-Times Fever. Why do so many believe in the Rapture? Obviously, there are a lot of sad little people in the world. And by sad I don’t just mean stupid but unhappy. People whose lives are so miserable they cannot wait for it to end. And what could be more appealing to the poor, the downtrodden or the just plain dumb than instant heaven? Why struggle with a job, a mortgage, car repairs and kids, when you can go to your eternal reward today?

Other Rapturists are simply full of hate. They hate secular society because it doesn’t fit into the tiny Christian shoebox where they live. These people are happy to sit at the right hand of the Lord, but even more delighted to watch their enemies get tortured by Satan, at the bequest of their all loving Father. And their enemies are legion: gays, abortionists, sexual active women, blacks, Jews, liberals, Hollywood, Obama – you name it and they can tell you why that group deserves to burn in hell. And they can tell you when – after 6 pm today.

Conspiracy theorists love to feel important. And the Rapture is the mother of all conspiracies: a special few who know the truth about hidden powers, evil plans, and events only they can understand. And most importantly secrets. Rapturists have secret and you don’t. They want to tell you the secret but if you don’t believe them, it’s because you are too blind to see, or you’ve been duped by Satan or Obama, who many Rapturists feel are the same person.

Think how special the Rapture crowd feels. Out of the billions on the planet, they are the chosen ones. “God loves everyone”, but a Rapturist knows “he loves me more than you.” How reassuring to be that special. Moderate Christians dismiss the extremist Rapture crowd for not being loving and Christ like. But Jesus himself really set the tone here. After all if you claim to be the Son of God and tell the world they have to believe in you to get to Heaven, then don’t be surprised when your followers become arrogant. Christians can sugar coat their beliefs with that “gosh I’m just trying to be a good person” rhetoric, but bottom line they know that they are the Chosen Ones because the Bible, the Pope, their parents or voices in their head tell them it is so.

“How silly,” main stream Christians say, “to believe that Jesus will literally come down and take people away.” Is it any less absurd to think Jesus died and after three days rose from the grave? That he had special powers to raise the dead, cure blindness and turn water into wine? But, Christians protest, Jesus was the son of God and God can do anything. Except, I guess, vacuum 200 million believers into the sky at 6 pm today. Apparently that’s just too much to believe even for most believers.

The amazing thing about religion is not the moral code, the sense of community, or the will to do good. No, the true miracle of religious belief is that people want to believe so badly that they filter reality through a sieve, only keeping what fits, and rationalizing the rest. As a non-believer, I’m not waiting for Heaven, not at 6 pm today nor the end of my life, but at 6:05 I look forward to hear the believers explain why God changed his mind.