Pontiff or Politician? The Pope’s Dilemma with Duality and Subjective Conscience

If one takes Pope Benedict XVI’s word at face value that he merely wanted his talk delivered at the University of Regensburg, Germany, on Tuesday September 12, 2006, to be taken as “an invitation to frank and sincere dialogue, with great mutual respect” then the inescapable conclusion one must draw is that the Pope has not a clue how to engage in such dialogue, because his original statements and the attempts to defend them have not shown mutual respect, nor have they invited sincere dialogue. Unfortunately, the street response by Muslims to the Pope’s remarks is hypocritical and out of proportion, and the responses of too many of the leaders of Islam also have not shown mutual respect nor the required criticism of Muslim violent overreaction to invite any kind of sincere dialogue. The great irony of the affair is that the Pope’s view of European culture is much more in line with the orthodox view of Islam than with modern European views.

With this state of religious leadership, it will be a long time before sincere dialogue with mutual respect will actually take place. This inability to dialogue stems directly from the inability to deal with dualities in any other way than to literalize them as opposites, and from viewing the human dilemma of subject and object as being resolvable only by the objectification of God through the written word of objective revelation that removes the possibility of subjective revelation from the modern spiritual quest. This objectification of God and its literal belief in the written word of revelation leads the Church, the Temple, and the Mosque to the literalization of evil and the self-image of themselves as institutions of literal good. How the Pope’s Regensburg talk leads to this conclusion it the subject of this essay.

While I was mulling over whether or not even to write about Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg insult to Islam the Vatican spin doctors via the Vatican Secretary of State issued a so-called “apology” in the Pope’s name that settled the matter for me and gave me the title to this piece. Then yesterday, Sunday, 9/17/06, the Pope made a personal statement of sorrow that added nothing substantive to the prior press release. His “apology” (I can’t bring myself to write it without quotes) was the stereotypical politician’s apology saying nothing more than, ‘I’m sorry that you’re wrong about me.’ It is not a true apology that admits error.

The word pontiff means “bridge maker” and the Pope is supposed to be a maker of bridges between humans and God. One presumes that this can’t be done in a vacuum and without the goal of also making bridges between peoples, especially peoples in conflict. However, the Pope has acted like the quintessential politician, first sending his spokesman out to make his “apology” for him, then following it up with a brief statement that continues the spin and refers one to the previous press statement.

In his statement on 9/17/06 the Pope said, “At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims.” The prior statement of the Vatican Secretary of State said, “The Holy Father thus sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful, and should have been interpreted in a manner that in no way corresponds to his intentions.” He is only sorry about how others took and reacted to his words, not about his words. In neither of these statements does the Pope accept or admit that in fact his words not only did sound offensive, they were offensive. He says if anyone was insulted it is because they did not “understand the correct meaning of his words.” He is only sorry for other’s reactions not for what he said; he only regrets that his words “could” have sounded offensive. In other words, anyone who was offended was wrong about what he really meant. EXCUSE ME, that’s not an apology! No one interpreted those words in a manner that did not correspond to the meaning of the words. His words precisely meant that Islam is a religion that condones violence, that Muhammad preached conversion by the sword. There was no other purpose than that meaning for the inclusion of his gratuitous remarks. To call this an “apology” is merely putting salt into the wound of insult.

Well, maybe I’m going too far with the word apology. What the Pope has done is to go back to the old meaning of the word apology. Today we use apology to mean “an admission of error”, but that is certainly not what the Pope has done. He has not admitted any iota of error at all. What he has done is go back to the earlier meaning of the word apology as “justification” and “defense” for what he said. He has only defended his words, he has not admitted any error in them.

What did the Pope say? Here’s the main passage of insult presented at length from the Regensburg talk so the reader may have the full context:

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry. (Italics added.)

The Pope has drawn the battle lines very clearly: (1) "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached"; (2) spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable; (3) violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul; (4) God is not pleased by blood, and (5) therefore the unstated conclusion is inescapable: Islam is violent, unreasonable, bloody, and incompatible with the nature of God. There could not be a much more direct attack on Islam.

Now the Pope and his Vatican defenders would have us believe that this is just an inadvertent misunderstanding of the Pope’s words. Only a fool, or the Washington Press Corps, would buy that sort of spin when the words speak plainly for themselves. The Pope clearly connects the “Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent,” with being an unreasonable view that, because it is not “in accordance with reason,” is thus “contrary to God's nature.”

The Pope claims his intent was to foster inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue. If that is the case then the Pope is totally inept at communication and dialogue. One doesn’t encourage dialogue with another religion by insulting another’s religion, calling is an unreasonable violent religion incompatible with the nature of God. (Of course it should go without saying that the same applies to Muslims and the religious leaders of Islam who are guilty of the same ineptness.) The way to encourage dialogue at this level of discourse is for one to admit one’s own wrongs and to show to the other that one is able to grow morally and change one’s conduct.

At the Bavarian university the Pope said, “To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...", if he wanted to dialogue with Islam he would not have left the distinct impression he was talking directly about Islam’s use of “strong arms and weapons.” Instead he would have said immediately that he was not singling out Islam or any other religion, even his own. Or he would have said at that point, “And one can only feel sorrow for the many victims of the many Holy Fathers of this holy office who did not heed the Emperor’s admonition and instead sought to spread the Roman Catholic faith by blood and violence throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas with blood and violence.”

His Vatican defender says he “simply used [the Emperor’s quote] as a means to undertake - in an academic context, and as is evident from a complete and attentive reading of the text - certain reflections on the theme of the relationship between religion and violence in general, and to conclude with a clear and radical rejection of the religious motivation for violence, from whatever side it may come.” But unfortunately the Pope did not reject the history of violence of the Catholic Church and only pointed his finger at the history of violence in Islam.

Only by fully admitting first and foremost his own Church’s sins carried on in the bloody spread of Catholicism can he hope to engage in discussion with Islam and broach the question of violence within Islam. One wonders at the complete failure of the Pope and his handlers to not understand this elementary principle of human interaction. Only politicians can equal this degree of failure of understanding on an ongoing daily basis. This is not the dialogue of a bridge maker but of a cold warrior. During the Cold War the leaders of the camps were experts at pointing out the other’s errors and weaknesses but totally failed to admit a single error or weakness in their own sides. This is the Pope’s failure too. If the Pope wants to engage in dialogue he must first admit the bloody and violent history of Roman Catholicism in “converting souls,” such as the Crusades, the burnings of witches, the enslavement of indigenous peoples throughout the world, and not least of which was the fate of Italy’s own scientists at the hands of the Vatican.

The Pope claims his remarks about Islam “were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.” That is contrary to the clear purport of his speech. The Pope quoted the opinion of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and then did not in anyway distance himself form those quoted words in his Regensburg talk. The Pope’s use of the words of others appears to be his common rhetorical tactic when he criticizes other religions, as well as how he maintains a plausible deniability at the same time. This recalls his 1997 remarks criticizing Buddhism where he used the same tactic.

The Pope was asked in an interview in L'Express magazine of April 1997, reprinted in April 2005. if he feared that Catholics would lose their soul’s while dialoguing with other religions, like Buddhism. He answered:

Dialogue between the religions is necessary in a world tending to unify. But the danger is that a superficial dialogue is established. Because the relativism which has seized spirits today develops a sort of moral and intellectual anarchism leading people to no more accept a single truth. To affirm the truth from now on passes for a mark of intolerance. However a true dialogue is not a movement in a vacuum. It has a goal: the common search of the truth. A Christian cannot renounce his knowledge of the truth, revealed to him as Jesus-Christ, the only son of God. If seduced by Buddhism, it is because it appears to have a possibility of touching infinity, in happiness without having concrete religious obligations. A spiritual autoeroticism, to some extent. Somebody had precisely predicted, in the 1950s, that the challenge of the Church in the 20th Century would not be Marxism, but Buddhism.

Here we see his use of the quotation tactic where he says “somebody” predicted Buddhism would be a greater challenge to Catholicism than Marxism. Not saying whether he agreed or disagreed with that somebody conveys the clear indication that he agreed. To call Buddhism "the challenge" in that context is clearly calling it the greater enemy of the Church because as a Godless religion it is more dangerous than a Godless politics like communism. Yet he doesn’t say it himself and lets another’s voice say it for him, so he doesn’t have to own it. Whether “somebody” said it or a “Byzantine Emperor” said it, it is the Pope making it clear he is saying it if he doesn’t immediately say why he disagrees.

The Pope’s attack on Buddhism is based on his view of Buddhism as Godless. He calls it “autoerotic spirituality” because he sees Buddhism as a self-stimulating spirituality in contrast to Catholicism which a God-stimulated spirituality. The Pope’s attack on Islam is based on his view of Islam as unreasonable and thus spiritually opposed to God’s reason, and he used his Regensburg talk to spell it out.

The Pope’s avowed aim of the Regensburg talk, was to assert the that Christian faith and Greek reason are conjoined in a Hellenized Christianity, that on the one hand the reason of science without faith is mere subjective relativism and on the other hand not to act with logos is contrary to God’s nature. He criticized Islam for asserting a God whose nature is transcendent and not bound by categories of reason and is thus capricious rather then reasoned. He also stated that the Jewish Bible was correctly revised and rewritten in the Greek version to create the Hellenized Christianity which is the full flowering of Christianity as God intended. However, his premise fails totally due to his inability to present his arguments in a manner that demonstrates reasonableness.

The Pope expresses a nationalistic Christianity. He says that Christianity as the convergence of Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry “with the subsequent addition of Roman Heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.” Exactly which Europe the Pope speaks of is a mystery. The real Europe of today was created in direct opposition to the Biblical faith which, let us remember, was the faith that tortured scientists using “a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death” to coerce compliance with the Church dogmas of Biblical faith. The truth is that the creation of Europe as we know it was forged in the divorce from Biblical faith, not in the conjunction with it.

What single Pope in the history of Roman Catholicism prior to the creation of Europe practiced the admonition of the Byzantine Emperor that “spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable” and “not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature”? It appears from history that the Popes ware to a man acting contrary to God’s nature when they supported the use of violence in spreading the Church.

Today, Pope Benedict XVI would have us believe he is an advocate of reason because he says the Church is founded on the Hellenistic belief that “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God.” However, his definition of reason is one that is intrinsically unreasonable, because it defines as truth a revelation that Jesus Christ is the only son of God. He defines his truth as reason and any conclusion contrary to this revealed truth as unreasonable. A revealed truth such as that is merely a presumption of the conclusion and is thus not reasonable by definition.

The Pope alleges that “disturbing pathologies of religion and reason” necessarily erupt “when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.” First, one wonders which religions he means because he does not name any but Islam as being unreasonable. Second, one wonders what he could possible have in mind when the historical truth is that the pathologies of the Catholic Church have erupted precisely when it has reduced and drowned out reason by swelling the questions of religion and morality with a hyper concern, not when they on longer concern it. The history of Europe coming out of its dark pathology of religious persecutions is the history of the enlightened conjunction in society of reason and ethics without religion, one that reduced the concern for questions of religion to the personal sphere not the social realm.

This should be the starting point for discussion between Catholicism and Islam. If the Pope could testify to the benefits to Europe and Catholicism both as a result of the Church having been separated from the State and from direct involvement in politics, then perhaps the Pope might have something to say to the leaders of Islam about the problems of violence arising in Islam from the lack of separation between Mosque and State. But the Pope’s failure to engage in this kind of frank and sincere dialogue stems from his Church’s, and presumably his own, inability to deal with the dualities of consciousness that have locked philosophy into the very conundrum that the Pope would have us appreciate.

The core of the Pope’s Regensburg talk was a continuing chapter in his argument against scientific reason without faith in God. Here the Pope is on good footing with his warnings about the limitations of scientific reasoning if it limits itself too severely to the single view of materialism. The Pope warns against a narrowly conceived science that says certainty only results “from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements.” This is a good warning, but it may be misunderstood to imply scientific certainty where none is proposed even in science. Science is often misrepresented as asserting certainty when in fact science more often asserts what is better described as probable hypotheses of varying degrees. What makes science interesting is the continued exploration of its hypotheses to determine their degrees of certainty. So the Pope’s criticism of science is actually a criticism of misunderstood science, not of science itself, though this misunderstood science is too often portrayed in the media and entertainment as the real science.

The Pope’s second point is that science when limited to math and empiricism “excludes the question of God” making the question of God “appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question.” Again, the Pope’s criticism is only a half-truth. The Pope would have it both ways so that the question of God is seen not excluded as scientific yet the question would never be put to the questioning process of the scientific method. If the Pope wants the question of God to be included in scientific inquiry, the Pope can not predetermine the answer to that question. But the Biblical faith that the Pope espouses does exactly that, and the Pope is blinded by that faith to see it. The Pope says that science may not challenge the Biblical revelations, so to that extent it is the Church that excludes the question of God from scientific inquiry, NOT science.

Fundamentally, this problem arises because the Church that the Pope represents has no way of dealing with duality other than to assert the primacy of belief in the Biblical word as revelation that has settled all such doubts. Actually, this dilemma is the core dilemma of Catholicism and its historical attempt to control the terms of Christian belief. This dilemma is in fact shared by both Islam and Judaism, the two other religions of the Levant tracing their lineages back to Abraham and Moses. The Pope’s dilemma. Let me be clear, the dilemma of human duality is shared by every human being and every religion. What is historically unique to the religions of the Levant is the particular relationship that they have to the revealed texts of their religions, making them the answers to the question of subject and object by objectifying God as objectively separate from the subjective human.

In Regensburg the Pope stated this by referring to his view of a narrow-minded science as consisting of only mathematical and empirical elements:

[I]f science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science", so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.

Here we see the Pope’s true enemy, “the subjective conscience.” Indeed, this, not the Devil, has been the true enemy of the Church since its birth. This is the enemy that led to the bloody persecutions of Christians by the Church in its formation as it used the “strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death” in establishing itself and its hegemony over every other form of Christian belief and practice. Every institution of this kind holding state power, whether it is religious or political like the communists in the Soviet Union, sees its true enemy as the individual who asserts “subjective conscience” against the institutional prerogatives of a totalitarian faith.

As a practical matter of psychology, this means that as long as the Pope holds subjective conscience to be the enemy of the Church he must view subjective conscience as an evil and seek some objective source as the arbiter of good. Since he can find no ethical system in mathematics the only appearance of objectivity is to be found in written words which stand by their very nature of having been written down as objective reality. As an historical event, the Church has taken the available writings and decided which are authoritative and which are not. Those determined to be authoritative become the objective truth of the Church. Obviously, the inherent and insurmountable flaw in this view of objective ethics is that the subjective revelation does not become objective merely by being written down on the page. It is simply a circular argument that the subjective origin of revelation is transcended merely because of the historical fact that Church officials used their subjective consciences to determine what was objective truth.

The same dynamic holds for Islam’s reliance on Muhammad’s Quran as objective revelation. In fact Islam does Catholicism one better by asserting that the mathematical aspects of the written Quran, such as the number of suras, verses, and words and their arrangements, are evidence of both its miraculous origin and its objectivity as revelation.

It is one thing for a religion to say this or that written book is their orthodox teaching as determined by the consensus of their teachers, but another thing altogether to say that such orthodoxy is an objective fact transcending the subjective conscience of the writer and of the religion’s teachers who acknowledged the writing. Though the Pope would have it otherwise, the individual is the primary element making up the fabric and energy of society, and it is the respect for the subjective conscience of the individual that is the grounding force that distinguishes a balanced functioning society from a super-charged mob or polarized totalitarian state.

The Pope states unequivocally that reliance on subjective conscience “is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.” His analysis fails because it depends on his false assumption that a social system of ethics based on subjective conscience is merely a personal ethics that cannot create a community if it is not based on the written revelation of the Bible. In other words, the Pope refutes the very foundations of Western democracy as articulated by the European-American Enlightenment of the 18th Century in which it is asserted that the highest ethics of a community are those that are established by each member of the community using his or her subjective conscience to determined the shared ethics of the community. In this the Pope is much more in line with Islam than with post-Enlightenment European sensibilities.

The Pope assets that “disturbing pathologies of religion and reason” erupt necessarily “when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it.” The historical evidence is against the Pope. He is wrong because he fails to distinguish between religion and ethics, assuming from his preconceived assumptions that they are identical. The correct statement is that both reason and religion may become pathological when the ethics of subjective conscience no longer concern them. The history of Catholicism unequivocally demonstrates that the combination of religion and reason are pathologically deadly when they are combined under the claim of objective reason derived from Biblical faith. When Catholics were in charge of European society and claimed that their ethics were based on reason and the Bible they subjected Europe to a bloody Inquisition and the rest of the world to bloody conquest.

The Pope has some valid criticisms of modern science, but he doesn’t have a valid explanation for the causes nor does he have valid solutions. All of the Pope’s valid criticisms of modern science when looked at with an unbiased view, that is a view that does not equate religion and ethics, show that his valid concerns about science arise when science does not include ethics, not when science does not include religion. For example, while Popes have argued for disarmament, which Pope has condemned the manufacture of nuclear weapons and stated that an individual’s work on nuclear weapons is un-Christian and that the nation that builds and stockpiles such weapons of mass destruction is an un-Christian nation and not acting ethically? Only subjective conscience touches this directly.

In June 1998, 75 U.S. Catholic bishops issued a statement on The Morality of Nuclear Disarmament in which they acknowledged the error of the Church. In fact their statement is an example of subjective conscience in action within the institutional structure of the Church. The bishops stated, “For the past fifteen years, and particularly in the context of the Cold War, we, the Catholic bishops of the United States, have reluctantly acknowledged the possibility that nuclear weapons could have some moral legitimacy, but only if the goal was nuclear disarmament. It is our present, prayerful judgment that this legitimacy is now lacking.” Thus the bishops implicitly recognized that there was no Church teaching directly from the Vatican against the very creation and existence of nuclear weapons, only against using them in war.

While the Church has the obvious problem with subjective conscience arising from the fact that subjective conscience cannot be controlled by the institution, the core of the problem goes even deeper to the objectification of God as the basis for the Church’s very existence. The dilemma of a personal ethics based on conscience is that it turns the individual inward to listen to conscience rather than turning the individual outward to institution and dogma for the answers. Ever since Jesus said “The Kingdom of God is within” the Church has had to come up with ways to convince its followers that Jesus did not mean what he said. Objectifying God and worshiping the Bible as objective revelation are the two primary weapons in the arsenal of the Church’s war on against the conscience of the Kingdom of God. The Roman Catholic Church has had a very difficult time in its history with personal Christianity. Until successful armed revolts against Catholic domination, the Catholic Church has used the most violent and bloody means possible to eradicate any personal view of Christ and God that deviates from Church dogma. Therefore, historically speaking, for over fifteen hundred years “the question of God” was not excluded by anyone but the Catholic Church itself. That is the impressive irony of the Pope’s complaints now about the question of God being excluded by science.

By the objectification of God the Pope closes the door on the empirical verification of God by so-called subjective conscience. For it is the path through personal conscience that verifies God not any objective writings found in a written text. By calling personal experience of conscience merely subjective, the Pope denies that the Kingdom of God is within. Thus, the objectification of God is the greatest sin of any religion, because it closes the door to the personal contact with the living God.

And by reliance on Biblical authority as the objective revelation of truth, he denies the real possibility of the dialogue between cultures and religions that he claims to desire. When two religions base their beliefs on written text, there is no common ground upon which to meet except on demonstration of common passages in those written texts. And even then, because the common text must be interpreted in the context of the other uncommon passages and the different circumstances and doctrines of the books creation, there is very little ability for even common text to establish common ground. Personal conscience can play no role in such an objectified encounter.

The objectification of God is also why the religious institutions have such difficulty distinguishing between belief and faith. When religion has the need to objectify its religious basis it must establish objective truths for its beliefs. But religious faith is inherently personal and cannot be established by objective truth in the conventional sense of rational discrimination of reality into subjective and objective distinctions. Religious inquiry takes one outside of the usual subject-object divisions of reality and consciousness. This is the common root of all religions that has such labels as the perennial philosophy or the mystical experience of the source of life. The “I am” of God is not an objective experience of belief, but a deeply personal experience of faith. To confuse the two, that is objective belief and personal faith, is a fundamental error of religion and a misunderstanding of the psychological source of religion that the inquiry of reason has provided in the Western world.

The Pope would have us believe that theology is the “inquiry into the rationality of faith”, but in fact his theology is the avoidance of that inquiry, because as he said in his 1997 interview: “A Christian cannot renounce his knowledge of the truth, revealed to him as Jesus-Christ, the only son of God.” If the revelation is by definition a non-renouncible truth, then there is no room for inquiry. In other words, the Pope would only allow a reason subservient to Biblical revelation with no possible verification or falsification by experimentation.

By contrast, the Buddhist begins with the analogous revelation of truth that “Every sentient being is one with Buddha nature and it is only ignorance that obscures this truth.” But the inquiry begins with the acknowledgment of the doubt that asks why does this truth not appear to be the truth. It is the personal resolution of this apparent opposition of faith and doubt that is the Buddhist inquiry. From the Buddhist point of view, this dilemma cannot be resolved by affirming the objective and denying the subjective, but only by resolving all doubts about the apparent opposition of subjective and objective through experimental verification and falsification by meditation. It is this reliance on personal experimentation that most dramatically distinguishes Buddhism from the religions of the Levant and distinguishes Buddhism as a religion of reason. This is why Albert Einstein said:

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.

I don’t assert that Buddhism is the only religion that can cope with modern scientific needs, but for the religions of the Levant, such as Catholicism and Islam to do so, there must be a radical change at the root of their dogmas retracting the position of non-relative objectivity of their revealed texts before they can expect to cope with modern scientific needs. The Pope concluded in Regensburg:

In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.

The fact is that the “divine” is not excluded from the universality of reason; it is the objectification of the divine without objective evidence that becomes the self-imposed exclusion of such religions. Conviction based on a revelation that will not submit itself to scientific scrutiny is a shallow conviction only, not a profound conviction. When religion bases itself on the depths of personal experience then there is no basis for exclusion from the universality of reason because personal experience is universal. Reason is not deaf to the divine, because it is reason that is asking directly what is meant by “the divine”? It is religious culture that is deaf to this question and refuses of offer a reasoned answer, other than the circular arguments of Biblical or Quranic revelation.

Near Death and Great Death Experiences

Near Death and Great Death Experiences
By Gregory Wonderwheel
(c) 2006

There was no limit to the outpouring as I came to the rapturous awareness of the infinite nature of God's love. There was no place that God did not exist and I was within God. I am an inseparable part of the light. The truth of who I am, indeed, who we all are, is perfect love as a creation of God. All of God's creation is one creation and I am one with creation. God and I are one, Creator and created.

I had spent a lifetime of fear of judgment and now, standing with God, I had been known completely and found faultless. I knew God regarded me as perfect. God loved me because love is the totality of God. God loves without limit. Finally it all made sense. God could only love me because God is only love, nothing other than love. The only reality is God; there cannot be another and GOD IS LOVE.

I had reached my true home. I turned to Christ and said, "This is beautiful. I am home. This is where I want to be. I want to stay." And Christ answered, "You can stay for a little while and then you must return."

http://www.near-death.com/stewart.html

I recently came across this fascinating account by Linda Stewart of her near death experience. It is wonderful reading, and I thank Linda Stewart for sharing it. Here, I want to discuss how Linda's account demonstrates why these experiences are called "near death" experiences and are not the "Great Death" experience of awakening in Buddhism.

Cross culturally, modern Western near death experiences (whether viewed in Christian terms or not) are very similar to the reports of the American Plains Indians’ vision quest, African shaman journeys, Christian desert mystics, etc. These paths of spiritual inquiry may lead to Great Death experiences, but it is not usual, just as it is not usual in Buddhist communities that every meditator experiences Great Death.

As fascinating and wonderful as these reports are, one should know that near death experiences are not Buddhist awakening experiences because even though the experience of the infinite light is reached the person does not go past the light, and instead only bathes in it. You can see from Linda's account that she still objectified "God" and kept a subtle self in subjective relationship with the infinite light. Though she says "God and I are one" she immediately adds "Creator and created" which shows the subtle self still lingering.

In Buddhist terminology she first met Avalokiteshvara (Ch. Kwan Yin, whom she called Christ) and then she met the Buddha of Infinite Light (A.K.A. Amitayus, Amitbha, or Amida, whom she called God). As Linda says, the names don't really matter as every culture and spiritual path has its own name for these experiences. Of course the problem for some folks who haven't experienced this is that the name still does mean more to them than the experience, and an account like Linda's becomes incorporated into their belief structure of "Jesus Christ" as the one and only Son of the Infinite Light God and all others are still wrong to use a different name, even though the person telling the account explicitly relates how the name is for convenience only.

I do not want to downplay the wonderful joy of a near death experience such as Linda's nor do I deny the awe inspiring sense of belonging and acceptance that it engenders, but in the Buddhist path this is one of the stages along the path of the jhana states of rapture, joy, equanimity, and abiding peace not the full awakening.

Jhāna (nt.) [Sanskrit, dhyāna. The popular etymology from meditation on objects & from burning up anything adverse] literally meditation. But it never means vaguely meditation. It is the technical term for a special religious experience, reached in a certain order of mental states. It will be seen that there is no suggestion of trance, but rather of an enhanced vitality. In the descriptions of the crises in the religious experiences of Christian saints and mystics, expressions similar to those used in the jhānas are frequent (see F. Heiler Die Buddhistische Versenkung, 1918). Laymen could pass through the four jhānas. The jhānas are only a means, not the end. To imagine that experiencing them was equivalent to Arahantship (and was therefore the end aimed at) is condemned as a deadly heresy. (Entry abridged, full Pali Text Dictionary entry on Jhana)

First Jhana

But to look at Linda's account a little more closely, it is important to note the stages that she took. First was the letting go of the idea of a physical body. That is the giving up of corporeality. "The decision to leave this world hung suspended in an extended moment of absolute quiet." That is samatha, the stopping of disturbance. This is the sometimes spontaneous immediate meditation that is brought on by extended pain or acute trauma which lets a person who has not formally practiced meditation still have the letting go experience. This feeling of having let go of corporeality is the first jhana of rapture born of withdrawal.

Second Jhana

She continues, "I observed my new reality with tranquility. Slowly I looked around and below me I saw a vast, endless blackness. Like a void or black hole, I was irresistibly drawn toward the darkness. Gradually, I felt myself sinking toward it. I thought, without fear or any emotional reaction, "Isn't that strange?" " Here she is encountering the fear gate of the Bardo realm she has entered. If she had reacted with the fear of the "blackness" that she expected she would not have been able to meet the light. This is a crucial part of the transition. The fear reaction would have sent her back to the body or to another Bardo state of confusion. Having no fear born of evaluation of the "blackness" she entered the second jhana, the rapture born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation.

Third Jhana

Having no fear arise, Linda next says, "Offering no resistance, I released my hold on any remaining shred of consciousness and personal identity." This is the entrance to the third jhana state equanimous and mindful, having a pleasurable abiding. She says, "I became aware of a deep sense of peace and warmth that permeated my senses." Here she encounters the Bodhisattva of Compassion, the beingness of love and mercy known as Avalokiteshvara, Christ, etc. "I did not see the Spirit as I had seen Jesus of Nazareth depicted in paintings, but the innate knowing of my heart remembered and acknowledged Christ. The radiant Spirit was Christ, the manifestation and expression of pure love." She adds, "Safe in the gentle yet powerful embrace of his love, I rested, secure that everything was okay, exactly as it was supposed to be." This is a perfect statement of the third jhana, as a sutta says, "He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the pleasure divested of rapture."

Fourth Jhana

Then, she goes on, "Ascending ever farther, I lifted my eyes to see a great light in the vast distance." "The light moved over and through me, washing every hidden place of my heart, removing all hurt and fear, transforming my very being into a song of joy. I had thought the love I felt from Christ was complete, yet, the light toward which we were soaring was the fulfillment of my search, the loving Source of all that exists, the God of truth and unconditional love, the origin of creation."

Here she is in the fourth jhana, purity of equanimity and mindfulness. What a wonderful experience. A Sutta describes it thus, "He sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. Just as if a man were sitting covered from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; even so, the monk sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. There's nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness."

The Attainments of the Formless Heavens

Still, that is not the ultimate in Buddhist terms, but unfortunately in Christian terms it is seen as the ultimate achievable in life until actual death takes us to heaven, and it is most difficult for Christians to proceed beyond this point. Not because of any inate difference, but because the mind-set of the teaching framework doesn't teach to go further and so one rests satisfied with a feeling and doesn't go to the cessation of perception and feeling. This was also true of Brahmins and the wandering shamans in India at the time of Buddha. It was Buddha's greatest discovery to see that jhana/dhyana/chan/zen practice must proceed past the jhanas and not be satisfied with even the purity of unconditional love and bright awareness or the sense of being one with the origin of creation – while a subtle self still maintains an objective relationship with God as an object of experience.

As Linda says, "I had spent a lifetime of fear of judgment and now, standing with God, I had been known completely and found faultless. I knew God regarded me as perfect. God loved me because love is the totality of God. God loves without limit. Finally it all made sense. God could only love me because God is only love, nothing other than love. The only reality is God; there cannot be another and GOD IS LOVE."

As wonderful as this is for Linda, as it is for anyone who experiences this state, Buddha teaches that there are more formless states to pass through before complete awakening. The four jhana states that arrive at the perception of Infinite Light and Love are the heavens of form. Beyond the Heavens of Form are the Formless Heavens and the attainment of these perceptions are the threshold of the final attainment of emptiness.

In the formless states even the notions of God and creator are let go. When the light completely burns away any lingering sense of subject and object then, going beyond the light, there is the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of space. Letting go of the infinitude of space one enters Manjusri's diamond-like castle of the perception of the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness. When Manjusri's sword destroys even the sense of consciousness then one discerns the perception of the dimension of nothingness. Letting go all sense of nothingness then one comes to the singleness based on the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception.

The Theme-less Concentration of Awareness

Finally, letting go of even the state of neither perception nor non-perception, then one attends to the singleness based on the theme-less concentration (samadhi) of awareness. This is the true Dharma rain. In this state the meditator "discerns that 'This theme-less concentration of awareness is fabricated & mentally fashioned.' And he discerns that 'Whatever is fabricated & mentally fashioned is inconstant & subject to cessation.' For him — thus knowing, thus seeing — the mind is released from the effluent of sensuality, the effluent of becoming, the effluent of ignorance. With release, there is the knowledge, 'Released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'”

"He discerns that 'Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the effluent of sensuality... the effluent of becoming... the effluent of ignorance, are not present. And there is only this modicum of disturbance: that connected with the six sensory spheres, dependent on this very body with life as its condition.' He discerns that 'This mode of perception is empty of the effluent of sensuality... becoming... ignorance. And there is just this non-emptiness: that connected with the six sensory spheres, dependent on this very body with life as its condition.' Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there. Whatever remains, he discerns as present: 'There is this.' And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, pure — superior & unsurpassed."
The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness

Great Death

This is the description of the Great Death as "entry into emptiness according with actuality." Many people fear Buddhism because they think emptiness means forgetting or losing the awareness of God's or Buddha's Infinite Light and Love, but this is a superficial understanding. This going beyond to full emptiness (a wonderful oxymoron) does not mean losing or forgetting infinite light and love, it means seeing their place in the whole scheme (Dharma) of things (dharmas). Here there is no forgetfulness, as one bodilessly abides as all three bodies (body of reality, bliss body of infinite light and love, and appearance body among the myriad forms) simultaneously.

The above analysis of states on the path to final attainment is what the Indian Buddhist Dhyana masters excelled in. In China, Chan developed (which of course became Zen in Japan, Soen in Korea, and Thien in Vietnam) which was not so interested in the fine-toothed analysis of dhyana states but in the direct realization of the final "stage" of the themeless concentration of awareness as the direct threshold of awakening.

The point is that after the Great Death is the Great Life. As Zen master Seung Sahn said of life after awakening, "Great Love, Great Compassion, and the Great Bodhisattva Way come from this attainment." That is because even though one has discerned that there is nothing further in this world, one's continued presence in this world of appearances is now informed by all the jhanas including the knowledge of Infinite Light and Love that one has passed through. Though people with near death experiences usually do not find the state of mind of theme-less concentration of awareness, they too are informed by the shared plateau of perception of Infinite Light and Love and for this they and we may all be grateful.

Enough said,
Gratitude and bows,
Gregory

Earth Is No Longer a Planet!

By Gregory Wonderwheel
(c)2006

Technically speaking, by definition Earth is no longer a planet!

At a meeting of star gazers in the Czech capital, Prague, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) held a 10-day General Assembly of members. The IAU is the official nomenclature body for astronomy that is responsible for naming stars, asteroids and other celestial bodies. On August 24, 2006, in a strange adjustment that demonstrated scientists can act as unreasonably, capriciously, and arbitrarily as any political body and in an act that will go down in the history of science rivaling the stupidity of denying that Galileo saw objects orbiting Jupiter through his telescope, the IAU adopted a new definition of “planet” that does not include Pluto, thus stripping Pluto of the status of planet.

But (in this case of the Emperor’s new cloths) it is an even more incredible fact that the new definition does not include Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune as planets. They are designated as planets only by the divine grace and fiat of a papal-like indulgence found in a footnote that arbitrarily designates them as planets whether or not they fit the definition! What an absolute legislative sausage that only shows these astronomers to be the space cadets of science. If scientific definitions are worth anything it is only because they are based on observation and rational classification and are not capricious outcome driven definitions.

The initial proposal was one that would have broadened the definition to include several additional bodies orbiting the sun. But there was a backlash of concern for the proposed new definition that pointed out several weaknesses yet offered a proposal with even greater weaknesses that was finally approved.

Nearing the last opportunity to vote before the meeting ended and the definition would have to wait until the next General Assembly, one of the IAU scientists addressed the relatively few astronomers remaining by stating that if they did not adopt a definition after so much debate that they would “look like idiots.” Well, upon that exhortation they adopted a definition that instead of preventing the appearance of idiocy, guaranteed it. This is how fear works. Stampeding in fear to avoid something, the mob rushes right into it.

The IAU has around 10,000 members of which about 2,700 astronomers attended parts of the 10-day General Assembly, but only 424 astronomers remained on the final day of the assembly when the vote took place.

A Definition Is Needed

The problem began when Mike Brown and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology discovered three years ago an object currently designated 2003 UB313 that was being called by some the "10th Planet". The object was measured to have a diameter of 3,000km (1,864 miles) which is a few hundred km more than Pluto. Astronomers were then faced with the question whether this new object was or wasn’t a planet. Since its creation in 1919, the IAU had never before adopted a definition of a planet. So a new definition was needed.

The initial proposal by the IAU's planet definition committee chaired by Professor Owen Gingerich would have immediately added three new planets to the Solar System - the asteroid Ceres, Pluto's “moon” Charon and the distant world known as 2003 UB313. Actually, it has been held for quite a while by not a few that Pluto and Charon are a “double planet.” Quite understandably the official recognition of Charon’s planetary status caused the fear that Earth’s moon might be recognized as a planet next! Additionally, a large minority of astronomers felt that the three new planets were simply the camel’s nose entering the proverbial tent and that there could eventually be dozens if not a hundred objects in the solar system that would become recognized as planets. Obviously this would cause great consternation among school children who have to learn the names of the planets.

While it may seem strange at first glance to lay persons that the “asteroid” Ceres was included as a planet, this is not illogical. Ceres is spherical and contains water-bearing minerals, and possibly a very weak atmosphere and frost. Infrared observations show that the surface is warm. So Ceres definitely does not fit the usual picture of an asteroid as an irregularly shaped cold rock in space.

So the first proposal was chucked into the black hole of parliamentary procedure by being tabled. During subsequent days of debate there were four separate proposals that were also tabled. The core of debate seemed to pit two types of astronomers against each other. On the side of the original proposal were the planetary geologists who wanted to create a definition that relied on the physical description of the celestial body. On the other extreme were the dynamicists - those astronomers who study the motion and gravitational effects of space objects. Astronomers are supposed to have their heads in the heavens with their feet on the ground of scientific method, but here they have shown themselves to have no place to stand and to be no more immune that any other set of people, such as Catholics and Protestants, Sunni and Shia, when it comes to sectarian rivalry over turf wars.

IAU’s Embarrassing New Definition

The adopted definition has gone completely wrong because the scientists were voting on the basis of patently unscientific reasons. What it came down to was that the scientists voted, not for a definition with scientific integrity, but on an outcome, whether or not scientific, that made the number of planets stable at eight. The BBC World Service reported such renowned scientists as
Iwan Williams, the IAU's president of planetary systems science, as saying, "By the end of the decade, we would have had 100 planets, and I think people would have said 'my goodness, what a mess they made back in 2006'." Mike Brown the man who led the discovery of 2003 UB313 absurdly stated, "Eight is enough,"

As someone who grew up with the belief that science is an ongoing endeavor of hypothesis and re-hypothesis with the goal of developing as consistent description of reality as is humanly possible, it is very difficult to hear scientists arguing for a definition on the basis of whether the definition will make eight or 100 planets. My word! Don’t these astronomers know that a definition must have scientific integrity, so that it describes reality regardless of how many objects are found to fit that definition? What a bloody mess these so-called objective scientists have created. They have all apparently spent far too much time with their eyes glued to something other than their telescopes.

Some of the IAU scientists have kept their heads. Professor Gingerich said afterwards that the IAU General Assembly had been “hijacked.”

Dr Alan Stern, head of the US space agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto who was not in Prague for the vote called the new definition “embarrassing” and told BBC News: "It's an awful definition; it's sloppy science and it would never pass peer review.”

Some members are now describing the IAU as the "Irrelevant Astronomical Union".

The New Definition

So, according to the IAU’s newly adopted definition, a "planet" is defined as a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

Well, this definition is so looney that it has to have a footnote explaining that the only bodies that meet this definition are the eight planets minus Pluto. This led to one astronomer at the assembly to quip, “Why didn’t they just adopt the footnote as the definition?”

The third criteria of the adopted definition is just plain illogical, lacking all internal consistency. It states that a planet must have "cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit". This means that the gravitational influence of the world on nearby objects will clear the material in their paths either by pulling it into the planet or sweeping it out of the way with a gravitational tug that sends it away. There’s only one problem with this definition: it doesn’t work!

Pluto fails the neighborhood clearing test because its highly elliptical orbit overlaps with that of the much bigger Neptune. But, this is also the first obvious example of the illogical failure of the “cleared neighbourhood” measures because the planet Neptune likewise has not cleared it’s orbit of Pluto, the very planet the definition was designed to remove!

But even more serious, and causing the greatest dubiousness of the definition, is that in addition to Neptune, the new definition removes the Earth, Mars, and Jupiter from the status of planets, because they too have not cleared their neighborhood orbits. Every time there is a prediction of meteor showers or we see a shooting star, we are reminded that Earth still has space rubble in our path that has not yet been cleared. Sweep, sweep, sweep that neighborhood orbit, and eventually you too can become a planet in the eyes of the IAU.

How stupid can you get? The astronomers have adopted a definition of planet that removes five of the nine planets from planethood! As stated above, they inserted a footnote to the definition that arbitrarily designates Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune as planets whether or not they fit the definition, and they left Pluto off the list in order to exclude it from this capricious dispensation.

Pluto was relegated instead to the second-class status of “dwarf planet” with absolutely no logical boundary or observational basis for the dividing line between planet and dwarf planet. The first members of the new "dwarf planet" category are Ceres, Pluto and 2003 UB313. But the astronomers believe themselves to be clear on one point: a dwarf planet is not a planet since dwarf planets and planets are “distinct classes of objects,” which of course is clearly as absurd and as denigrating as saying that a dwarf human is not a human.

Clearly the entire fiasco of this new definition has no other purpose than to remove Pluto from the ranks of planethood. When five of the nine planets do not meet the scientific sounding standard of “cleared the neighborhood around its orbit” it becomes clear that the criterion is mere smoke and mirrors to create the magician’s distraction from the real purpose: to declare there are only eight planets no-matter what the definition says.

Well, by this colossal mistake the astronomers have proven they are human too. Hopefully they will have the human capacity to say mea culpa and fix their erring ways by adopting a definition that includes both scientific integrity and common sense.

Another New Definition Is Needed

What kind of definition is needed? First, the astronomers must be committed to a definition that describes reality regardless of the number of objects that may eventually fit that definition and does not need a footnote to include objects that don’t fit the definition.

Second, the first two of the criteria that were adopted (orbit around a star while not being a star and being spherical) are based on observation and are perfectly appropriate. In fact some astronomers believe these are the only two criteria required. Dr. Marc Buie, of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, was one of the first to advocate this position. Before the convocation of the General Assembly, he told the BBC, "I believe the definition of planet should be as simple as possible, so I've come up with two criteria. One is that it can't be big enough to burn its own matter - that's what a star does. On the small end, I think the boundary between a planet and not a planet should be, is the gravity of the object stronger than the strength of the material of the object? That's a fancy way of saying is it round?"

The problem with this definition for many is that it would make many moons, as well as asteroids like Ceres, into planets. For example the Earth and its moon could be recognized as a paired or double planet grouping in a single orbit. For some the objection to this definition amounts to a plain emotional offense and distaste at calling Earth’s moon a planet.

So third, any additional criteria added to the basic two common sense observations must itself meet a test of common sense and observational verification and should be adopted on the basis of scientific peer review methods, such as publication, and not on the basis of emotional political voting at a meeting.

A Taxonomy of Planets

One possible scheme (which I tend toward) is to adopt a taxonomy of planets using the seven chief groups that make up a system in scientific classification of living things. The groups are: (1) kingdom, (2) phylum or division, (3) class, (4) order, (5) family, (6) genus, and (7) species. The kingdom is the largest group. The species is the smallest.

I would propose that there are two kingdoms of celestial bodies, in the first kingdom are the stars that burn their own matter (the autocombustibles) and in the second kingdom are the bodies that don’t burn themselves (the noncombustibles).

In the kingdom of the noncombustible space objects there are two obvious divisions: those that orbit stars (the stellar orbitals) and those that don’t (the interstellar isolates).

In the division of orbitals there are several possible classes: those objects with gravity stronger than the strength of the material of the object thus forming a spherical shape (planets), those irregular rocks whose gravity is not strong enough to shape the object and which orbit a star (asteroids), those irregular rocks that orbit planets (minor satellites), and those objects of ice and dust in highly elliptical orbit transecting the orbits of the planets that shed their materials in tails as they near the sun (comets).

In the class of planets there are the two obvious orders of solid planets and gas planets.

In the order of solid planets there might be division of families based on the materials that compose them. For example, those that are composed primarily of geologic substances such as the silicates and metals might be one family (the stoney planets) and those composed primarily of ice such as the double planets of Pluto and Charon and 2003 UB313 might be in another family (the icy planets).

In the family of stony planets are the logical genera differentiating between the different kinds and amounts of atmosphere (e.g., listing by the element that is greatest in the atmosphere) and the degree of protection of atmosphere by magnetic field.

In the genus of nitrogen rich atmospherics are the species of planets with or without biologic life.

Thus a taxonomy could look like this:
I. Kingdom: Autocombustibles (stars, black holes, etc.)
II. Kingdom: Noncombustibles
A. Division: Stellar Orbitals
1. Class: Planets
a. Order: Solid Planets
1) Family: Stony Planets
a) Genus: Nitrogen Primary Atmosphere (Earth)
(1) Species: Biological Life Planet
b) Genus: Carbon Dioxide Rich Atmosphere
c) Genus: Atmosphere Deprived
d) Genus: (other atmospherics)
2) Family: Icy Planets
b. Order: Gas Planets
2. Class: Asteroids
3. Class: Minor Satellites
4. Class: Comets
B. Division: Interstellar Isolates

This is an admittedly undeveloped draft classification by a layman engaged in brainstorming, and it could, of course, benefit from an intelligent debate by scientists of the IAU. And isn’t this the type of imaginative debate the astronomers of the IAU need to engage in, rather than debating whether having more planets than eight is a burden on the public imagination?

Whatever the final outcome, it is clear that the current absurd definition can not stand if astronomy is not to be held up as the laughing stock of science. So every time you see a shooting star, you may console yourself that though Earth is not yet a planet, we are still working at it.

-end essay-

Appendix:

BBC News stories:

“Crunch time for Planet Pluto” By Nicola Cook, BBC Horizon
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5099292.stm

“Pluto vote 'hijacked' in revolt” By Paul Rincon, Science reporter, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5283956.stm

News from IAU XXVIth General Assembly:
http://www.iau2006.org/

IAU RESOLUTION 5A
The IAU therefore resolves that "planets" and other bodies in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:

(1) A "planet"[1] is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape[2] , (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

(3) All other objects[3] except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar-System Bodies".
------------------------
[1]The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
[2]An IAU process will be established to assign borderline objects into either dwarf planet and other categories.
[3]These currently include most of the Solar System asteroids, most Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), comets, and other small bodies.
------------------------

IAU RESOLUTION 6A
The IAU further resolves:

Pluto is a "dwarf planet" by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.

-end appendix-

Thank You John Pilger For Your Courageous Words

Dear Mr. Pilger,

Thanks for your direct and courageous words against the US Empire and the UK's complicity in the plunder of the Middle East. We know that the Islamic countries of the Middle East have a lot to do to improve how they deal with human rights, but it is the continuing violations of human rights and international law by Israel -- and the support for those violations by the USA and UK -- that prevents, without a laming hypocrisy, the discussions of the human rights and wrongs of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, etc..

Rather than taking the party line of Empire by saying Israel must be supported at all costs because it is the only democracy in the region, I say that the other countries of the region can't consider democratizing while Israel continues as the visible and painful hypocrisy of democracy.

Thanks again,
Gregory Wonderwheel

Mr. Pilger's truth in journalism may be read at his website at johnpilger.com

The Heart of Humanity Speaks in the Congo

The BBC World Service has done the world a great service by a report on the Congo election via the internet. Here is the link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5213400.stm


Reporter Joseph Winter set up a live laptop link from a market place in Democratic Republic of Congo's second city, Lubumbashi, connecting local people with others aroung the world.

Today, as I came across this exchange and read it my heart leapt with joy to hear the authentic voices of people who cry out for the shared truths of life: a good life with family, work, and an honest government.

In the USA we get so much distorted news about Africa that we think the African people are somehow as corrupt ats their leaders. Here, we hear from the people themselves who share the concerns about corruption in government and wish only for people to be elected with good ideas for their nation.

What this report shows is that people around the globe share the desire for true democracy and that democracy is only threatened by corrupt leaders, not by the aspirations of the people.

Here's an example of a question and the answer from some of the locals:

Question from Charlotte, Edinburgh to the voters, 0947 local time (0747 GMT / 0847 BST)

Q: What do the voters think is the most important thing that a new government should deliver on?

Ikos: We want the government to encourage investors to rebuild our country.

Schadrac: Rehabilitation of Congo's economic-social-cultural tissue.

Viviane: Self-sufficiency in food.

Demaman: Rebuild schools.

Chinabu: Good governance and a strong currency.

~~~

The reason I find this so moving is that from the generalized picture painted by the media in the USA there are no such people as Ikos, Schadrac, Viviane, Demanan, and Chinabu on the streets in Africa.

I hope that these dear people will have some success with their election and that the people of the USA could be half as intelligent as these voters in understanding the role of the USA and multinational corporations in fighting democracy in Africa and keeping places like the Congo poor and in political unrest.

Reply to Sam Harris’ “An Atheist Manifesto”

Sam Harris has written an essay title "An Atheist Manifesto" that is available on line at
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto/



First, a somewhat sophomoric joke:

Q: What do you get when you cross a Jehovah's Witness with an atheist?
A: Someone who comes to your door for no reason at all.

*

There is a meaning in the madness of that joke for those with ears to hear. Who comes to your six doors and for what reason?

*

This is a response from a Buddhist who feels that both theism and atheism are one-sided views, both part correct from their sides but both therefore part wrong.

I certainly agree with Sam Harris about some of the inconsistencies of religious belief and the downright violence of conduct based on the absurd premise of taking religious myth as fact, still, in my mind he goes too far in throwing out the baby of reality with the baptismal bath water. Yes it is obvious to me, as he says, “that much of what passes for public policy in our country conforms to religious taboos and superstitions appropriate to a medieval theocracy,” still that does not confirm any atheist conviction nor does is guarantee that atheists know any better how run a country or avoid atheist taboos and superstitions.

The core problem is that both theists and atheists don’t speak the same language. When either theists or atheists get control of state power, if they are zealots and fundamentalists (yes there are fundamentalist atheists such as totalitarian-minded communists) they will use that state power to oppress others who disagree with them. This connection between fundamentalist theists and atheists can be seen in Harris’ comment, “While fundamentalists justify their religious beliefs with extraordinarily poor evidence and arguments, at least they make an attempt at rational justification.”

Atheists believe that rational language is all that is needed, so they ignore the sources of conflict in the human imagination that arise from the deep image-making roots of consciousness. Theists on the other hand tend to believe that irrational feelings, along with the imaginings that make sense of those feelings, may be taken literally as presented to their consciousness, and not only taken literally by oneself, but should be adopted by others who may even be being moved by their own feelings and imaginings in other directions.

By saying “One wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to shake the world’’s faith.” Harris shows that he doesn’t understand the well springs of faith nor does he seem understand the difference between faith and beliefs. Beliefs can be shaken and changed or given up. But faith is lost or found in a different context than belief. Faith is what leads a person to consider what is going on in life on the basis of birth and death. Faith is what leads a person to question catastrophes and their meaning for human life. If that questioning doesn’t lead to an experience of awakening, then it is the fault of beliefs getting in the way, not the faith.

For example, Harris says,”people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering.” That is erroneous. It is people of belief who assure one another that God is not responsible, because that is their belief. People of faith don’t have such assurances about God and their faith leads them to search while in the condition of not having any assurances. Belief creates assurances, faith opens the mind regardless of or in spite of the assurances of belief. People of faith experience what God’s responsibility means without any assurance that God will meet or satisfy their picture of the characteristics for God. Faith is why the mystics of all religions have no quarrels, belief is why the true believers have quarrels with other religions or with atheists.

The Biblical God is definitely a fiction, but it is a mythic fiction that arises from the inherent archetypes of the mind, including the dark, mysterious, and profound areas of the mind called the unconscious. Any atheist who thinks such a fiction can be taken off the air like a T.V. sit-com or drama knows nothing about the grip of the archetypes on the emotions and imaginings. Harris wants to reassure himself by saying “As Richard Dawkins has observed, we are all atheists with respect to Zeus and Thor” but that statement is simply not true as for “we all”. It is a flippant denial that presumes the God of Abraham is not Zeus or Thor. It doesn’t recognize the tremendous archetypal influence that the “father God” has even today though he goes by a different name in Christian, Jewish, or Islamic circles. Simply changing the name doesn’t make the God go away or make him into a different God. To paraphrase Jesus, to know a God you have to look beyond the name to the fruits, that is, to the function and activity the God takes in the realm of human dynamics and relationships.

Harris assumes that “The incompatibility of reason and faith has been a self-evident feature of human cognition and public discourse for centuries.” However, as Siddhartha Gautama Buddha demonstrated 2500 years ago in his explorations of human cognition, there is no fundamental incompatibility of reason and faith. The incompatibility is between reasonable and unreasonable beliefs, or diametrically opposed beliefs that both seem reasonable to their bearers. Harris confirms this by saying, “Either a person has good reasons for what he strongly believes or he does not.” Of course, Harris is the arbiter and judge for what is a “good reason.”

Harris correctly notes a dangers in the observation that “Religion is the one endeavor in which us-them thinking achieves a transcendent significance.” Still this confuses religion with transcendence. For example, the transcendent significance of nationalism and patriotism are ignored.

Essentially, Harris presumes that religion has either no reasons or bad reasons for its belief and atheism has all good reasons for its beliefs because he defines what is or is not reasonable to meet his criteria. This type of self-serving premise is unreasonable as it assumes the conclusion..

As stated earlier, in the social realm the conflicts between beliefs arise when someone believes their beliefs should be socially enforced on others. In other words, when someone doesn’t accept that pluralism is the reasonable basis for society. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, has said what makes clear sense to me: that in the social context, religion should be a personal affair and governing society should be on humanitarian pluralist grounds that do not oppress the individual’s religion. Here’s how he says it.

“Therefore, for the individual, the concept of one religion and one truth is very important. Without this, one cannot develop genuine faith and follow it faithfully. With regard to the community, we obviously need the concept of several religions and several truths — pluralism. This is both necessary and relevant. This is the way to overcome contradictions between several religions and several truths and one religion and one truth. Thus, I believe that one has one religion and one truth on the individual level, and one has several religions and several truths on the community level. Otherwise it is difficult to solve this problem.” (from Live in a Better Way by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, pp. 132-133.)

The countries that Harris praises as least religious are in fact pluralistic societies that allow for the variety of the nonreligious as well as the religious, which reasonably accounts for their successes, rather than their being nonreligious countries.

Yes, I agree with Harris that “If we want to uproot the causes of religious violence we must uproot the false certainties of religion.” That is a logically circular argument. Likewise if we want to uproot the causes of violence having nothing to do with religion we must uproot the false certainties having nothing to do with religion. It is false certainties framed in us-them contexts of every kind, e.g., religious, tribal, ethnic, national, etc., that lead to violence, not religion per se which is only one arena where false certainties are the cloth that people wrap themselves within.

When someone comes to the door of your senses what false certainties do we have about them? Perhaps the certainty that they are an “other” is one that is false? Do we presume that God or Buddha will look like one thing or another and fulfill our expectations? If the knocker at the door doesn’t meet that picture do we reject God or Buddha? What if the greatest mistake we make as human beings is to presume with false certainty that God or Buddha is an object outside the door who comes knocking for a reason?

God or Buddha isn’t a person with characteristics to be identified like a suspect in a line up. Faith and reason are at home together when we don’t turn to an image of God or Buddha outside of ourselves by which to identify ourselves, but we turn to our mind to discover the identity of the one who is within the doors hearing the knocking.

The Difference Between Capitalism and Socialism.

Capitalism regulates greed.
Socialism prohibits greed.


The difference between capitalism and socialism is often, if not usually, presented in terms of ownership with the political and economic homilies that capitalism is private ownership (and thereby control) of the means of production and socialism is the state or collective ownership of the means of production. However, such rubrics do not address the real issues at the root of the capitalism-socialism debate such as the nature of greed and its place in human consciousness. By focusing on the status of ownership, the capitalists have succeeded in framing the debate in a manner that ensures its outcome in their favor.

The fundamental question about any society's economic system must address its relation to greed as a basic aspect of human consciousness. When I look at capitalism and socialism in this light it seems obvious that the basic goal of capitalism is to regulate greed while the aim of socialism is to prohibit greed.

Capitalism thus approves, authorizes, sanctions, and regulates greed in what it's proponents see as socially acceptable ways. Capitalism says that greed as a motivator is a social utility and without it there would be no "progress" in human development.

Socialism, on the other hand, views greed as fundamentally flawed and denies any inherent social utility of greed. Instead of merely regulating greed so that the greedy can have free competition to acquire as much as possible, socialism sees that the desire, attempt, and actions to acquire property beyond what is actually needed for health and comfort are all causes of a multitude of social problems, not the least of which is the basic fact that, when property is finite, the more one person has the less is available to others.

In Buddhism, greed is one of the three basic "poisons" of life, along with delusion and hate. Thus, if taken on the basis of doctrine alone, the outlook of Buddhism toward economics is basically socialist in orientation. However, such things are not quite so simple; since in Buddhism, as with all religions, there has been a distinct and inherent problem when the separation of religion and the state is lost and Buddhism becomes a supporter and rationalizer of the state rather than a teaching for the enlightening of people.

Like socialism, Buddhism teaches the renunciation of greed for its followers, but unlike socialism, Buddhism in itself does not seek to impose its beliefs on non-followers. This short essay is not intended to delve into the deep concerns of what has happened to the Buddha Dharma where it has sought some form of state sanction, but like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism, it doesn't take much analytical ability to see that the basic tenets of the religion quickly become perverted when it conjoins with state power.

The obvious reason for this is that the desire for state power is itself a form of greed. Where socialism or Buddhism seeks state power beyond what is necessary, even for the "good intention" of prohibiting greed, then that desire too falls into greed. No state power, whether held in the hands of a king or emperor or in the arms of a political party, will give over that power selflessly. The only result of active collaboration with that state power will be a subtle co-optation into justifying and enhancing that power.

The highest ideals of socialism and Buddhism to overcome greed can themselves become perverted by the state powers-that-be when brought into the tent of power. The adage that power corrupts is true, especially when that power is based on the threat of violence for its enforcement (whether by police or the military). It is an oxymoron to have a Buddhist army, yet in history we have witnessed Buddhist monks, such as in Tibet and Japan, supporting nationalistic and military endeavors even to the extent of personally taking up weapons on the front lines.

Democracy, as the dispersal of power among a sovereign people, attempts to manage this problem of the power of power to corrupt. Unfortunately, political parties such as the Democrats and Republicans demonstrate how easily democracy can be undermined by vested interests becoming political intermediaries selling legislative favors much like the medieval Roman Church selling indulgences for the remission of sins. The two political parties who share control have brainwashed the citizens of the USA into believing that democracy and capitalism are synonymous. The reason for this is obvious: both parties are controlled by capitalists who pay for their political expenses and thus for their ability to secure political power.

The hope for human kind is to find a way to inform and educate the populace to individually renounce greed and then to democratically realize and manifest that personal renunciation in political forms and structures that prohibit greed in society using the most nonviolent forms of enforcement.

Returning to the theme of ownership, the central avenue for this change is the revisioning of the role of corporations in democratic societies. The corporation as originally conceived was a collective form of ownership that bridged the gap between private enterprise and public good works. The various original and historical restrictions on corporations up until the mid-nineteenth century all recognized this unique function of a collective ownership in society along with the concomitant unique hazards of such collectivization of wealth and power.

Since the time after the US Civil War, the people behind business corporations have succeeded in eroding every major limitation on corporate wealth and power and have used corporations as the economic vehicle to amass wealth and control society hiding the damaging corporate greed behind spin control and capitalis propaganda. Today, a corporation may engage in any capitalist business it desires without having to demonstrate, as in the past, that the purpose of the corporation is a benefit to society. Today, the people behind the business corporations use the corporations as vehicle of greed and the driving force behind the arms race at all levels, from large space based missile programs to small weapons manufacture and sale throughout the world. The giant transnational corporations prevent local democracy from limiting their power through the use of international monetary funds and bye supporting and equipping standing armies of intervention.

We can transform society by returning to the original limitations on corporations and requiring that corporate charters be given only for specifically recognized purposes that benefit the public and that no corporate licence will be extended to any organization that violates its charter's commitments.

This short presentation only scratches the surface of the deep interplay of economics and greed, but hopefully it will contribute to understanding and bring some small light on the process of greed in human consciousness as it manifests in social interactions.

Faith and Reason

The new PBS series “Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason,” consisting of seven programs of interviews with writers at a literary festival on faith and reason, is yet another great foray into enhanced human communication by Mr. Moyers. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/watch2.html

While, Mr. Moyers has created engaging and wonderful dialogues with interesting people, in the end I’m left unsatisfied by the discussion as it falls short of defining the terms it uses and simply relies on objectified consciousness rather than being an original and explorative inquiry into mind.

Last nights episode interviewing Mary Gordon and Colin McGinn demonstrated the problems with Mr. Moyers’ gentle approach that warmly embraces the interviewees and then fails to question their underlying assumptions and the premises of discussion. There is no radical attempt to get to the roots of their ideas.

For example, the segment interviewing Mary Gordon began with her saying the following:

“Without faith we would be paralyzed. We believe that all men are created equal. That our mothers, or at least our dogs, love us. That the number four bus will eventually come, all these represent a belief in the unseen. The question is not then are we people of faith, which we as a species seem to be. But rather, what then is the nature of that faith? And what actions does it lead to?”

Unfortunately, her statement uses the terms “faith” and “belief” interchangeably and completely confuses them. Mr. Moyers shares her confusion when he asks her, “Mary Gordon, as a Christian, did you feel out of place at a festival of writers so many of whom are not believers?” and said, “Agnostics and atheists however stand outside the frame of belief. They stand outside the language of belief. They stand outside the experience of belief.” Of course agnostics and atheists are “believers” in their agnosticism and atheism! To deny them their belief is exactly an expression of the kind of fundamentalism that Mr. Moyers is so passionately hoping to educate us against.

Using these terms belief and faith as if they are interchangeable is the large lacuna of the program so far. A program on Faith and Reason that fails to distinguish faith from belief doesn’t suggest that much reason is at play either.

Ms. Gordon quite clearly said, “the history of religion proves that religious people are no better than people who are not religious.” As a Buddhist, I accept that the history of Buddhism also confirms this truth. Yet there was not an adequate inquiry as to why this is. Other than a vague reference to the abuse of power by religious institutions the question of this very evocative point was dropped. I suggest that one important reason for this phenomenon is that as many religious people as non-religious people, as do Ms. Gordon and Mr. Moyers, fail to distinguish faith from belief. By confusing faith and belief, there is no clear awareness of why those in power in religious institutions fail to distinguish themselves from those in power nonreligious institutions.

Of course Mr. Moyers and Ms. Gordon are not to be faulted for failing to make the important distinction between belief and faith. The Western world view generally fails to do this. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary treats belief and faith as synonyms meaning to assent to the truth of something offered for acceptance, where belief is used without reference to the certitude in the believer and faith almost always implying certitude even where there is no evidence or proof. This clearly shows that the confusion is created by focusing on the certitude of the person and not on the nature of the truth that is being offered.

I posit that the distinction between belief and faith is exactly based on the nature of the truth being asserted or the question being asked. Belief is about objectified things; faith is inquiry beyond objectification. The items listed by Ms. Gordon, such as whether mothers and dogs love us, the number four bus is on time, or people are created equal, are all items taking things of the world as objects. None of these have anything to do with the basis of faith, which is an inquiry into the nature of the world and of our existence beyond that which determined by things, or that transcends things as objects.

Ms. Gordon showed an inkling of this distinction when she said, “I think there are two major narratives in the world, the narrative of fundamentalism and the narrative of consumerism.” Consumerism is the belief in things without faith, and fundamentalism is the mistaking of faith as a belief in things, such as believing that God is a thing or person. Ms. Gordon is quite right that these two polarities of world view narrative are in major conflict, today as they have ever been, but neither she nor Mr. Moyers seemed to be aware of the importance of this polarity, instead they seem to take this polarity itself as an objectified thing of belief instead as a gate into an inquiry of faith..

The Buddha teaching on Dharma is on point here. The term “dharma” has meanings that include both belief and faith. They are distinguished in the English language by using the word with or without a capital. Capital “D” Dharma means the Truth of the universe, the teaching of the One Mind, the awareness of awakening. The small “d” dharma means the things of the universe, the things of the personal mind, the objects of awareness. In this narrative, to use Ms. Gordon’s terminology, we have belief in dharmas and faith in Dharma. When we see the universe as things then we are seeing dharmas, and when we see the universe as the One Mind of Awakening then we are seeing Dharma.

The narratives of both fundamentalists and consumerists remain within the shared view of the universe as things and objects. This is why consumerism makes money, the valuation of things, into God while fundamentalists make God into a thing to be traded like currency saying, “My God has greater value than your God.” Neither fundamentalism nor consumerism has any faith, they are only expressions of their true believers.

Buddhist inquiry relies on three things: faith, doubt, and perseverance. Faith is the faith in the absolute unity of being; doubt is the question of this unity in the face of the appearance of disunity caused by the belief in things as they appear to be separate objects; perseverance is the undertaking to resolve this apparent dichotomy or polarization of faith and doubt derived from belief in spite of those counter influences, oppositions, or discouragements that are aroused once we are determined to make this journey.

In the Buddhist narrative, the holding of both faith and doubt together is the only reasonable approach to inquiry of the mind and of our fundamental nature. The fundamentalist denial of doubt in the name of belief has nothing to do with such a journey of inquiry. The certainty attained by denial of doubt and belief in God is not the same as the non-attained certainty that comes from awakening to the unified nature of Mind, God, and the Universe.

Without clarifying the difference between belief and faith, Ms. Gordon actually recognizes the essential connection of faith and doubt when she says, “The ability to question, the ability to take a skeptical position is absolutely central to my understanding of myself and my understanding of myself as a religious person. It's very important to experience doubt. I think faith without doubt is just either nostalgia or kind of addiction. And I'm not interested in that.”

Ms. Gordon’s personal inquiry which has included this connection between faith and doubt has apparently taken her past her own Church’s dogmatism of belief for she says, “And I think that I have to go back to a religious position, which is that if reading the Gospel means anything, if Jesus means anything, it's about seeing everybody, every human being as Jesus.” This is of course an awakening of faith to the unified nature of Mind, God, and the Universe. It may be liberal Catholicism, but it is not the belief of the Roman Catholic Church that holds Jesus Christ is God's one and only incarnation, being simultaneously Son of God and God. Seeing every human being as God’s one and only incarnation and simultaneously both a Child of God and God may be Ms. Gordon’s faith, but it is not the belief of the Church, and in another age she would have died like her hero Joan of Arc for expressing that faith.

This expresses quite clearly another difference between belief and faith. Belief, in its extremity, will kill for dominance, while faith will never do so because faith never objectifies truth as something that can be tarnished by false belief. For example, in the first program of Bill Moyer’s on Faith and Reason, Salman Rushdie asks, "What kind of a god is it that's upset by a cartoon in Danish?" It is not a God at all that is upset by such things, nor a mind of faith, but the mind of belief that reacts violently to such things.

In the Brahmajala Sutta, Buddha says that if people should disparage the Tathagata (a title of Buddha meaning “the one thus come”) faithful should not get upset, angry, or resentful, for such reactions are an obstruction and hindrance to them. Instead they should merely state in what way such disparaging remarks are incorrect. And likewise, if people should praise the Tathagata the faithful should not get smug, elated, or pleased because such reactions are also an obstruction to them. Instead they should merely state in what way such praise remarks are about what is correct.

These are the words of faith and reason.