Monthly Archives: December 2005

DNA test could show executed man innocent

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Virginia’s governor is preparing to order DNA tests that could show that a coal miner executed for a rape-murder in 1992 did not commit the crime.

If the tests, which Democratic Gov. Mark Warner is expected to order before he leaves office in mid-January, clear Roger Coleman, death penalty opponents say it would be the first time in the history of the American death penalty that an executed convict is scientifically shown to be innocent.

“The final argument (of death penalty advocates) is that no innocent person has been executed,” said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., group that seeks to end capital punishment. More

One point of view

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All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the raison d’être of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel.

– John Horgan

What are so many afraid of?

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Every year I’m perplexed by the way people become so prickly around the winter holidays. It’s as though the whole shebang was only about them and their personal beliefs. Each season around this time, we begin to see articles in newspapers, blogs, and other forums–not to mention all the email forwardings–reminding us that Christmas is about Jesus, or it’s not really about Jesus, it was co-opted from the Pagans by the Christians, or the ancient Greeks, or the Zoroastrians, or it was a substitution for the Jewish winter holidays, and on and on, blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum. Amen.

I have difficulty grasping the reasons for such fervor, just as I have with the Evangelicals versus Hallowe’en thing. It seems to me that a few hundred years of tradition, with no apparent harm done, establishes the right of the various factions to celebrate as they please–or, for that matter, to wish others a non-denominational “Happy Holidays!” (Of course, we need always remember that most of the world’s problems are caused by folks who won’t mind their own business.)

People have doubtless been celebrating the Festival of Light that marks the mid-point of Winter since the first hunter-gatherer noticed that the lengths of the days affected the weather and the availability of food. We Buddhists have celebrated the Enlightenment of Gautama Buddha as our winter holiday for two and a half millennia. It was, no doubt, a replacement for a Hindu feast day, but I haven’t heard any Hindus complaining that we ripped them off, nor any Buddhists, Hindus, Jews or Inuit griping about the Christian observances, never mind the Pagans’. One wonders what the militants are afraid of, that they feel such a powerful need to impress their preferences on all the rest of humanity.

Please celebrate, enjoy, and forget the history lessons and intrusions into others’ beliefs. God obviously couldn’t care less, or She would have settled the matter thousands of years ago.

Namasté

Rules

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The trouble with rules is that they cause lawyers.Any time anyone, anywhere, comes up with a code of conduct, law, morals or what-have-you, there immediately is created a class of people who will begin looking for loopholes and ways to take advantage of them. Some of the greatest blowups in history have occurred because people were unable to agree on the rules. Often they occur when, for one reason or another, someone decides that the rules that “everyone” agrees upon no longer apply to him (Henry VIII and the schism of the Church of England from the Church of Rome), or when someone decides that the rules are simply wrong (Martin Luther and the 95 Theses).

The harder we try to pin things down, the more difficult it becomes. We either end up having to ignore the rules altogether, or we have to become our own moral lawyers–and encouraging people to justify their own behavior by dancing a little sidestep is not a good idea. It can be habit-forming.

We cannot carry a spiritual advisor around in our pocket to tell us how to live. Imperatives such as “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” by trying to pin things down specifically, leave too much need for loopholes. Clearly there are times when we must kill, if we ourselves are to survive.

Is it possible to have guidelines for living that are applicable to real life? Yes–but only if we allow for human frailty and error. We need precepts that draw us toward ideals, but that allow for human imperfection. Here are some that have served well for many centuries.

  • Ethical people do not kill, unless it is necessary to preserve life.
  • Ethical people do not take what is not given, except to prevent greater harm.
  • Ethical people are not sexually irresponsible.
  • Ethical people do not lie, except to prevent greater harm.
  • Ethical people do not sell intoxicants, or use them in ways that are harmful to self or others.
  • Ethical people do not speak falsely about others.
  • Ethical people do not take credit for what they have not done.
  • Ethical people share with those in need according to their ability.
  • Ethical people do not harbor anger or ill will and seek to resolve differences with others in ways that are fair to all.
  • Ethical people try always to act within the spirit of these precepts.
Try ‘em on for size. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Namasté

A Couple of Thoughts on Creationism and Creationists

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I’ve had a good education in science and the scientific method, and let me say up front that I am a firm believer in the Theory of Evolution.* I am also well-educated, however, (or trained, if you will), in religion, philosophy and ethics, and I pride myself (ah, pride) on looking at all sides of an issue before forming my body of opinion about it.

I must admit to having been remiss in that regard, with respect to my view of creationists and their opinions about evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design. It took a recent article by William Salaten in Slate to set me straight. Among other things, he writes

They just want science to stop short of denying God’s possibility. A little bit of mystery, a parcel of unspoiled divine wilderness, is all they ask.

I was practically poleaxed by his well-reasoned and beautifully written piece. Is it possible that all that’s necessary to close this great divide among us is for scientists to simply admit, in so many words, that which is implicit in the scientific view to begin with: There is nothing in science that contradicts the existence of a god or gods?


Perhaps those of us who pride ourselves on our skillful thinking — and it is pride — need to give Mr. Saletan’s thoughts our consideration.

Namasté

*One needs to understand, and it may as well be mentioned here, that scientists do not use the word “theory” in the same way as laymen. To a layperson, a theory is an idea that may or may not be true, as in “Well, it’s only a theory, after all.” Scientists call that a “hypothesis.”

To a scientist, theory refers to a scientific concept supported by a specific body of fact, and presumed to be correct as far as it is currently understood — unless proven otherwise. Thus science gives no ground in referring to evolution as a theory. It is laypeople with an unskilled understanding of science and the scientific method, who give to the word less gravity than it requires.

Bodhi Day

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This is a particularly good day to be beginning this blog. Today is Bodhi Day in the Buddhist traditions, the day that commemorates Gautama Siddartha’s enlightenment approximately 2600 years ago. In the Buddhist calendar it is roughly analogous to Christmas, since it is literally the day that the Buddha became a buddha (“buddha” being Sanskrit for “enlightened one”).

Many people believe that the Buddha is thought to have become some sort of god on that day, just as so many believe that Buddhists “worship” Siddartha. That could not be farther from the truth. Enlightenment, to Buddhists, is the condition of being aware of reality. Certainly no man who was truly in touch with reality could believe he was a god, and the Buddha neither believed that nor taught it to his followers. To the contrary, he took great pains to make it clear that he was just a man, and nothing particularly special at that — that anyone who put their mind to it could achieve exactly what he had, and that many had previously and would do so in the future.

Just as followers of other buddhas have taken liberties with the facts about their leaders, over the past two and a half millennia some of Gautama Buddha’s followers have taken the view that after he died he achieved some sort of godhood. Most, however, take pride in the fact that they are followers of a philosophy propounded by a man such as they, that grants benefits equally to all who are willing to work for them. Buddhists honor him, as Americans honor George Washington, but those who claim godhood for the man are not living by his teaching, but by the less-skillful ideas of some who later interpreted his teaching and his legend.

One cannot help wondering how many other times that has happened throughout history.