One Nation Under Buddha

The Buddha. Click for photo credit.

I'll probably never convert to an organized religion. Or a disorganized one, for that matter, though that might suit me better. But in the unlikely event that I do get religion, I guess Buddhism would be the most likely candidate. I was really into Zen Buddhism once, and I still think there's a lot of wisdom in Buddhism. But if I ever do convert--to Buddhism or any other religion--I hope I'll remember that mine is one of many religions in this country, and that I shouldn't go around trying to impose it on anyone else. I hope I will remember the First Amendment, which forbids the establishment of any official religion, while protecting the free exercise of all religions.*

Just in case I ever do convert, I think I'll go ahead and make some promises, and put them in writing. If I forget them you can show me what I wrote here.

OK then. Be it known that if I ever become a Buddhist, I promise I'll never do any the following things:

• I'll never try to keep members of another religion from building a church or temple simply because I don't like the religion.

• I'll never try to get "In Buddha We Trust" onto our money, or insert "Under Buddha" into the Pledge of Allegiance."

• I'll never campaign to put a monument to the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path on government property. Unless people are putting up monuments to other religions, and then I might, just to make a point. But I'd rather avoid all that. Let's keep it all on private property, where it belongs.

• I'll never insist that government officials (including public school officials) begin functions with a Buddhist prayer. Unless they begin them with prayers from other religions (see above).

• I'll never have a bumper sticker that says, "America is a Buddhist country!" Because it's not--it's a country with many religions, and many people who aren't religious.

• I'll never support Buddhist teachers proselytizing to students in the classroom, or leading them in Buddhist prayers. If they were (quite rightly) told not to, I wouldn't say call it an attack on freedom of speech. But I would support all kids being able to pray or meditate at school--as long as they weren't being disruptive or forcing it other kids, and as long as it was their idea.

• I'll never insist that Buddhist creation stories be taught in science class.

• I'll never try to get Buddhist scriptures encoded in the law. If I think something is harmful enough to be illegal, I won't point to the Dhammapada and say, "Because Buddha said so." Quoting the Dhammapada to a non-Buddhist would be like quoting the Bible to an atheist...who would do that? Instead, I'll try to explain--based on evidence and real world examples, not scriptures--what makes the behavior so harmful that it should be illegal.

• I'll never discriminate against someone and call it "religious freedom."

• I'll never assume everybody in a room with me is Buddhist. If people tell me they aren't, I'll never be shocked or tell them I feel sorry for them, and I'll certainly never tell them (in a "bless your heart" tone of voice) that I'll pray for them. I'll never try to make a non-Buddhist take Buddhist oaths. I'll never say non-Buddhist morals have no real foundation, or that a non-Buddhist can't be a real patriotic American. 

• If an overbearing minority of Buddhists does do these things, I won't take see criticism of them as criticism of all Buddhists, or of me. And if people told that overbearing minority that they couldn't lead classrooms in Buddhist prayers, or teach Buddhist creation stories, generally try to boss the rest of the country around, I would support them. I certainly wouldn't say they were getting offended for no reason, and tell them to get over it.

• Finally, if ever convert to Buddhism, and I'm told I can't do any of the things I just said I'll never do, I will never, ever declare that there's a War on Buddhism, or that Buddhists are being persecuted. Especially if Buddhism were the most powerful religion in the country. Because that would really be ridiculous.

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* As long as such free exercise doesn't infringe on the rights of others, obviously. If someone decided to revive ancient Aztec religion and start offering human sacrifices to insure the sun kept coming up, I'm afraid the only thing to do is tell them no.

Dr. Evil and the Big Lie

This isn't the post I want to write today. I want to write about the "religious freedom" bills that have been emerging in states around the country. I see these bills as yet another instance of what I rail against most in this blog--people doing hurtful things based on unproven religious beliefs.* But I've written post after post on that topic, and there's no sense in rehashing the same arguments again. So, I'm going to write what I don't feel like writing about. It's something I need to remind myself about, because it's hard for me to remember right now.

The thing is, most people I don't agree with--even most people I see as doing very hurtful things--don't do them because they're bad people. I know, crazy, right? It's easy, and even perversely comforting, to think our ideological opponents are simply bad. This way of thinking is so common, and so harmful, that I've started thinking of it as The Big Lie.

We like to think life is like a Hollywood movie, where there are good guys and there are bad guys (some people in law enforcement and the military actually use this terminology.) We like to think actual villains are common. What I mean by "villain" is a person who is bad, knows he's bad, and does what he does because it's bad. Think Dr. Evil; the kind of guy who revels in his own badness. But Dr. Evil is a caricature. Hardly anybody is really like that (though the phenomenon of the internet troll has convinced me a few are.) The fact is, many people--even the ones doing serious harm--do what they do because they think it's the right thing to do.**

Take the people currently proposing laws that would allow discrimination against gays on the basis of religion. My knee-jerk reaction is to see those people as Dr. Evils--as doing it just to hurt somebody. But my knee-jerk reaction is wrong. Some do just want to hurt people, but most are proposing such laws because they truly think they're morally right. They believe that refusing to participate in a gay wedding, or perhaps even refusing to serve a gay person at all, makes them a better person. That's hard for a liberal like me to process, but it is how they see it.

And here's the thing: it's hard for them to process the fact that we're trying to do what's right. They're just like us that way--if they're not careful, they'll start thinking we're simply bad people who like doing bad things. They'll start thinking of us as Dr. Evil. How many times have you heard conservatives say that liberals want to see the United States fail, or that they support abortion because they like the idea of killing babies? We know better, but it happens all the time. But then, it's also common for us to say the same things about them: that people who don't agree with gay marriage must hate gays, or that pro-lifers are motivated by a desire to oppress women. Yes, there are some haters and oppressors, but the fact is that most of them are motivated by things other than hate and oppression.

However counter-intuitive this may be, it's true, and it's not helpful to pretend it isn't. First, the Dr. Evil view is simply an inaccurate view of reality. Take pro-lifers, for example. If someone actually thinks each life is created by God and begins at conception, and that is their motivation for being pro-life, then it doesn't serve any purpose to claim they're motivated to keep women down. It's much more helpful to understand people's actual motivations than their imagined ones. (Some people seem to think understanding equates to approval, but that's just silly). Second, the Dr. Evil view of the other side perpetuates the nastiness of the culture wars we're seeing in this country, and has been the root of many of the wars throughout history. It's a very, very destructive impulse.

When we understand that most people on the other side are trying to do the right thing, it lets us see them in a more positive light, and maintain a little more empathy for them. It also means the situation isn't as hopeless as we may have thought, because we have common ground with those on the other side. We both, for the most part, want to do the right thing. How about that--something we actually agree on!

What we don't agree upon, unfortunately, is what the right thing to do actually is. That's where we need dialogue. If we mostly want what's right, then let's talk about what that might be. What doesn't need to happen is more demonization and name-calling. If we don't want them calling us evil, we need to stop calling them evil. The problem isn't that people on the other side are bad. The problem is that it's so hard to figure out and agree upon what's actually good.

And that is a great big horrible problem. The sad fact is, many of the worst things people have ever done to each other have been a result of trying to do what's right, not what's wrong. But that's a topic for another post. For now, let's focus on the fact that The Big Lie really is a lie. Dr. Evils are rare, and most people aren't trying to be bad. They're trying to be good, and that's very good news.

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* I've realized lately that what bothers me isn't the target of this hurtfulness--gays are the currently preferred target, but there have been many others throughout history. What bothers me is the rationale--people basically saying "What you are doing is wrong, because this one particular ancient book says it's wrong." Some people will think I'm evil for saying that.

** At the very least, they convince themselves that what they're doing is justified. Even complete sociopaths like Pablo Escobar spend a lot of energy explaining their actions. If you read Mark Bowden's book Killing Pablo, you realize Escobar thought of himself as a great guy who was just misunderstood. This is a man who would kick handcuffed people to the bottom of pools, and once blew up an airliner because he wanted one person on it dead.

The Girl Who Found a Dinosaur

Allosaurus and Stegosaurus at DMNS. Click for photo credit.

"Wow...," she said. "Wow...wow...wow..." I was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the little voice was coming from the other side of the Stegosaurus. I looked around it and saw a little girl around four years old. She was gazing up at the Allosaurus (the toothy gray dinosaur on the left) and seemed to have slipped into a kind of dinosaur-induced rapture.

I wanted to tell her what I had just read on the plaque in front of the display: that the dinosaur she was so impressed by had been discovered by a young girl. But I thought her parents might look askance at a stranger talking to their little girl, so I just smiled and moved along. Maybe I should have showed the plaque to them.

When I got back home, I looked up the story of the girl and the Allosaurus. In 1979, a thirteen-year-old girl named India Wood was visiting a family ranch in the plateau country of western Colorado, near Dinosaur National Monument. She had been finding fossils there since she was 8 years old, but this time she found a dinosaur bone sticking out of a hillside.

Naturally, she started digging it out. And she kept digging over the next three summers; stashing the bones under her bed back in Colorado Springs. In 1982 her mother convinced her to contact the museum in Denver. The curator, Don Lindsey, drove down to Colorado Springs, and was amazed when the 17-year-old started pulling gorgeously preserved dinosaur bones out from under her bed. Knowing talent when he saw it, he hired India as a field assistant to help him dig out the rest of the great beast's bones. They were stored in a back room for several years, but in the early '90's the Allosaurus was mounted next to its old foe Stegosaurus, which had been found decades before in Canon City, Colorado.

In a People article from 1984, India said she wanted to go into paleontology. Later on, she became more interested in other fields, so she went to Dartmouth and studied English Literature. She went on to get an MBA from MIT, and today she owns a business research firm in Boulder. I don't know if she ever wishes she had become a paleontologist, but I'm guessing she would have been continued to be great at it.

As for the little girl at the museum, I hope somebody tells her India Wood's story. Who knows, maybe it will inspire her to go out and find her own dinosaur.

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India Wood Makes No Bones About It: Her Colorado Dinosaur Find is a Real Monster

Allosaur Find, Nearly Thirty Years Later

Paleontology: Discovering the Ancient History of the American West