Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/22/the-dalai-lama-does-a-pretty-g.html
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Like Trump is gonna put up getting mocked by some bald, cross-dressing Loser! You’re on his List now, Mister Lama!*
- Trump 2016!
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I think “sympathy” is meant rather than empathy. But don’t worry. The Dalai Lama has progressed beyond affirmation and negation, beyond yes and no. For him, there is no karma. He can experience Piers Morgan - or even Trump - without his mind being disturbed.
I want what has has there in handy sized bottles, because I think for the next few years I’m going to need gallons of it. British gallons, they’re 25% bigger than American ones.
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“Smile luv, yer on camera”
The world really doesn’t have enough fucks for Piers Morgan to go suck
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“You have twelve million followers on Twitter. I only have five million…”
That’s because he’s the leader of the fourth largest religion in the world and you’re Piers fucking Morgan.
Furthermore, is a TV interview the appropriate place to humblebrag about your millions of idiot followers?
Ass.
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Is he?
According to Wikipedia “Buddhism” is the sixth largest religion in the world by numbers. But I really do not think Protestanism and Catholicism are the same religion - the theological and practical differences are comparable to those between Protestantism and Islam - Islam breaks quite distinctively into Sunni and Shi’a, and I do not think a majority of the world’s Buddhists recognise the leader of a Tibetan sect (Yellow hats) as having general authority. I suggest that the number of people who officially recognise him may be fewer than the number of Jews in the world.
My point is, I hope, not about showing off or snark and I’m sorry if it comes over like that; my point is that the Dalai Lama is important despite the fact that the number of people who “officially” recognise him is not really that great and his religion is rather small in adherents compared to the mainstream ones. His position is very much one of personal celebrity, and much as we may hate it, the same applies to Morgan and Trump.
Seriously?
Or do you mean the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism are comparable to the differences between Sunni and Shi’a?
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Well, it’s a long time since I read theology. But in lists Hinduism is treated separately from Buddhism, though the links are possibly as close as those between Protestantism and Catholicism. (I know one Gurkha family where the father is Buddhist, the mother is Hindu and the eldest son is Episcopalian, when I asked how it works the son replied “a lot of festivals.”)
For a long time the Catholic Church regarded Islam as a schism - a split off the main branch - and the same is true of Protestantism. In my experience fundamentalist Protestants are very willing to say Catholics are not Christians whereas Catholics regard Protestants in various different ways, because the Catholic Church is itself very broad. But from a sociological point of view the two religions are rather distinctive, with Episcopalians, Anglicans, Lutherans and so sitting more or less uncomfortably in the middle.
So I would say yes, more and better evidence might modify my views but the traditions, theologies and authority structures of the two big wings of Christianity are sufficiently distinct to regard them as different religions. I don’t pretend to be right all the time, but that’s my opinion.
No, not really. He’s the living incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, which is a pretty big deal to a specific minority of Bhuddists, and seems to be a pretty nice guy. Totally agree with the rest of your post, though!
@Enkita, the Hindus claim that Buddha is an incarnation of one of their gods*, typically Vishnu, and thus that Buddhism is part of Hinduism. The actual Buddhists vehemently disagree. The split between Shi’a and Sunni Islam is fairly profound (and it’s not a simple two way split, either) and roughly comparable to that of Protestantism and Catholicism, but these subjects are far too theologically complex for the comparisons to be very meaningful.
It is commonplace for both Protestants and Catholics to insist they are the only True Christians, basically because most of them are not familiar with the Bible, which specifically and repeatedly says that anyone who truly believes in and gives allegiance to Jesus the only son of Y’hw’h will have the benefits thereof. In other words, no Christian is allowed to decide whether or not somebody else is Christian, that decision is completely out of their control.
* Hindu gods are aspects of divinity and thus tied to a single divine overprinicple, in much the same way that trinitarians regard the Holy Trinity as different faces of a single Abrahamaic god. Thus, if Catholicism is monotheism, so is Hinduism… unless you’re hindu.
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“…so you’re more popular than me. And I’m fine with that”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
Dalai Lama isn’t fooled by your false humbleness.
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I’m not sure where in your post you are actually saying I am incorrect, if you are at all, but this paragraph gives me the impression that you yourself may be a member of some Biblical-literalist sect. Since I made it clear in my post that I do not care - to put it no more strongly - whether the Bible is “true” or not when looking at sociology of religion - it appears that we are not just arguing from different premises, we are on different sides of the continent.
For some value of Buddhists…since I cited a family I actually know that do not think that, I can offer you a black swan right there.
Again we are on different sides on this; I happen to make a very clear distinction (at least in my own mind) between theology (which you can do on a desert island) and religion, which is an identifiable and very complex collection of social behaviours, and which you can’t. To me, the theological arguments of the different Abrahamic religions are of little importance since they are mostly thought up to justify religious practice. What matters is behaviour. For instance,anybody looking at the fences and walls in parts of Northern Ireland would rapidly conclude that, however similar the underlying theoretical beliefs may be, here is a very real social schism. Theological arguments at Vatican II tended to be proxies for social argument; we don’t perhaps know enough about the hinterland of the great Church Councils but we do know that many of the renewal attempts in the Catholic Church had a theological basis, but were really about social goals.
I honestly have not the faintest idea what this is supposed to mean, though I have a suspicion that what you are repeating here is the attempt of some well meaning 18th century divines to cast Hinduism as a kind of precursor or shadow of Christianity - having got all excited at realising that Sanskrit is related to Latin and Greek, but not at that point having grasped the actual significance.
Actually just trying to inform. If I’m reading you correctly, you’ve got some misconceptions.
I study theology a bit. Currently I am learning about the effects of Sunni propaganda on the development of the Nizari Ismaili Shi’a Muslims, with a side trip into the role of the “Mad Caliph” in the Druze religion. The Seveners in general are fascinating, and the misrepresentation of their beliefs by European historians in the 19th century has led to a lot of confusion.
I bow in the general direction of your superiority and will not trouble you further with my ignorance.
I’m sure you know lots of stuff I don’t, so don’t sell yourself short! And remember even us religious types disagree all the time. 
Is it? The Protestants I know are pretty chillax about Catholics or any other Christian sect. I know a Catholic or two who see their sect as more orthodox but they’re certainly accepting of Protestants as fellow Christians. Maybe it’s different in Europe, but I just don’t see that divide here in the States.
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Well, when I say it’s commonplace, I mean it happens a lot. That doesn’t mean a high percentage do it!
@Enkita’s point about many people being more engaged in the social practice of religion than the theology that created and sustains any particular sect is valid.
My personal favorite example is my buddy’s wife who insists that when she was in Catholic school the nuns taught her that Protestants don’t say the Lord’s Prayer and have their own bible called the Apocrypha. I have no reason to believe she’s lying about what she was taught, but wow.
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A slight wrinkle: the Catechism teaches that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church, but you are only imperiled (as a matter of eternal reward) if you both (a) acknowledge that the Catholic Church is the one true Church and (b) reject it anyway. It’s not that Protestants-raised-Protestants are in trouble. Heretics we can live with – it’s apostates who are the ones in trouble.
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Is it? The Protestants I know are pretty chillax about Catholics or any other Christian sect.
Glad to hear that is true for you. It certainly hasn’t been true in my experience. My evangelical in-laws equated my Catholic background with Satanism (I’m not joking) when I first met them. It took a decade and half before they got past that. I’m not even a very good Catholic.
There’s also this document from an esteemed theologian.
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Yah, as a born and bred Buddhist, we’re just as fucked up into millions of insane and often contradictory little sects as everyone else. He happens to be the leader of one group, generally recognized as a sort of weird mix of buddhism and local shamanistic beliefs. But at least it’s popular with westerners though eh?
That being said, I’d bet that most Buddhists (whether tibetan or not) accept that he’s a wise spiritual leader, whether or not you buy into the little details like whether or not he’s a reincarnation of a line of lamas etc… That may be the weird thing about Buddhism, that you don’t necessarily have to buy into the ritual or even particular beliefs of a particular sect to accept that the leader is a wise or enlightened dude. That being said, there is a lot of dickish infighting about insignificant shit just like any other religion.
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Okay, okay! Geez.
FTFM.
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