Charles Stross' Diary (RSS Feed)
08-23-2007, 12:34 PM
There's a fun little novelty news item that's been doing the rounds recently; here's Newsweek's (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/) take on it:
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.While at first glance this sounds like an amusing novelty item, and at second glance seems like an amusing novelty item designed to ding the bell of outrage against those nasty Communist occupiers of wonderful, idyllic, pre-invasion Tibet (http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html) (see also: theocracy, mediaeval), there's a much less palatable subtext running through this article: an unthinking and implicit endorsement of really silly superstitious beliefs and the right of those who hold them to use them to manipulate political opinion. As the author of the piece goes on to add, "According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view."
Here's the rub: reincarnation is a load of rubbish (http://skepdic.com/reincarn.html). There's a slight problem of there being a striking lack of supporting evidence for it. I'm not going to go into the whole false memory syndrome controversy here; but for proponents we've got on the one hand cranks, and and on the other hand, clergy in a system where reincarnation is professed and used in practice as a means of transferring wealth and temporal power. Unlike other pernicious superstitions this one asserts there's a miracle that is supposed to be happening in the here-and-now and is in principle observable; moreover, it's supposed to happen to everyone. What do you recall of your previous lives? Nothing much? Gotcha. It's tosh — but it's a superstition that retains political clout.
Those who pick the poor kid who gets to wear the monk's robes — in this case, the anointed successor to the Dalai Lama. The divinely detected reincarnation (in the body of a young boy) is trained and steered by the elders who identify him, and effectively becomes their mouthpiece. Whereupon, Ignatius of Loyola's aphorism about brainwashing comes into play: "give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" (paraphrased). And guess what? Those trainers — high ranking priests themselves — were promoted by — surprise — the current Dalai Lama. So, just in case the dynastic implications of the process weren't obvious enough, belief in reincarnation is used to legitimate the propagation of a complex of political beliefs from beyond the grave ...
While one might question the Chinese government's motives, it's hard to call this anything other than a very non-supernatural — and in the context of Tibet a political — activity.
So here's my beef:
Why is this being reported in terms of religion? Is it because for some reason Newsweek and their siblings in the American press have been trained to give a free pass to anyone who declares that the motives for their behaviour is belief in religion?
Pick a religion — any religion — and collect your free pass from criticism!
The knee-jerk instinct to bend the neck before expressions of faith is one of the more distasteful aspects of the modern media circus. It doesn't get remarked on enough, because usually the religions being knelt before are the locally privileged belief systems; but it becomes impossible to ignore when the same privilege is extended to random superstitions that we haven't been conditioned from infancy to respect.
To call this decree by the Chinese government "absurd" is to dismiss the legitimacy of any political or social objection to religious activities, however bizarre or just plain batshit insane they may be. Which leads me to conclude that Newsweek's editors have, quite simply, lost their grip on reality.
It's no bloody wonder we seem to be descending into a dark age of superstition — having beliefs is the next best thing to holding a diplomatic passport.
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/08/pernicious_reporting.html)
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.While at first glance this sounds like an amusing novelty item, and at second glance seems like an amusing novelty item designed to ding the bell of outrage against those nasty Communist occupiers of wonderful, idyllic, pre-invasion Tibet (http://www.swans.com/library/art9/mparen01.html) (see also: theocracy, mediaeval), there's a much less palatable subtext running through this article: an unthinking and implicit endorsement of really silly superstitious beliefs and the right of those who hold them to use them to manipulate political opinion. As the author of the piece goes on to add, "According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view."
Here's the rub: reincarnation is a load of rubbish (http://skepdic.com/reincarn.html). There's a slight problem of there being a striking lack of supporting evidence for it. I'm not going to go into the whole false memory syndrome controversy here; but for proponents we've got on the one hand cranks, and and on the other hand, clergy in a system where reincarnation is professed and used in practice as a means of transferring wealth and temporal power. Unlike other pernicious superstitions this one asserts there's a miracle that is supposed to be happening in the here-and-now and is in principle observable; moreover, it's supposed to happen to everyone. What do you recall of your previous lives? Nothing much? Gotcha. It's tosh — but it's a superstition that retains political clout.
Those who pick the poor kid who gets to wear the monk's robes — in this case, the anointed successor to the Dalai Lama. The divinely detected reincarnation (in the body of a young boy) is trained and steered by the elders who identify him, and effectively becomes their mouthpiece. Whereupon, Ignatius of Loyola's aphorism about brainwashing comes into play: "give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man" (paraphrased). And guess what? Those trainers — high ranking priests themselves — were promoted by — surprise — the current Dalai Lama. So, just in case the dynastic implications of the process weren't obvious enough, belief in reincarnation is used to legitimate the propagation of a complex of political beliefs from beyond the grave ...
While one might question the Chinese government's motives, it's hard to call this anything other than a very non-supernatural — and in the context of Tibet a political — activity.
So here's my beef:
Why is this being reported in terms of religion? Is it because for some reason Newsweek and their siblings in the American press have been trained to give a free pass to anyone who declares that the motives for their behaviour is belief in religion?
Pick a religion — any religion — and collect your free pass from criticism!
The knee-jerk instinct to bend the neck before expressions of faith is one of the more distasteful aspects of the modern media circus. It doesn't get remarked on enough, because usually the religions being knelt before are the locally privileged belief systems; but it becomes impossible to ignore when the same privilege is extended to random superstitions that we haven't been conditioned from infancy to respect.
To call this decree by the Chinese government "absurd" is to dismiss the legitimacy of any political or social objection to religious activities, however bizarre or just plain batshit insane they may be. Which leads me to conclude that Newsweek's editors have, quite simply, lost their grip on reality.
It's no bloody wonder we seem to be descending into a dark age of superstition — having beliefs is the next best thing to holding a diplomatic passport.
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/08/pernicious_reporting.html)