Obama reacts to Trump's "radical islam" terminology gripe

[popobawa4u]

I agree with your comments here. But as a small aside for the sake of clarity:

@anon50609448

Religions are sort of identity driven (and hence we’d be tempted to use self-identification as the test for religious inclusion) but they are also kind of private clubs that have rules of inclusion. That’s obvious when you have a religion with a specific figure head like the pope or the dalai lama who can literally dictate who is in the club and who is not. But there is, to some extent, a consensus model in other religions.

The Dalai Lama is a famous figure of modern Buddhism, but he is the leader of one of the five main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. There are other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as other kinds of Buddhism than those from Tibet. There are many different lineages of Buddhism, many of which do not have anything specifically to to with the Dalai Lama. As a fringe tantrika myself, I could probably be considered “heretical” by many under the respective Hindu and Buddhist umbrellas. I may not know much, but I know well enough that there is not a central hierarchical club which dictates standards for membership - despite what some may claim.