Our Buddhist Future?

David Brooks says cutting edge neuroscience will pose a new kind of challenge to the traditionally religious: "The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism."

You can see Ross, who thinks this is more like a kind of pantheism, for a theological take on this but here's another kind of thought -- if India and China (and other smaller Asian countries) keep growing, we're going to see much more cultural prestige and geopolitical importance attached to non-monotheistic societies. Fareed Zakaria goes so far in The Post-American World to describe India and China as places where people just don't have religions. I wouldn't put it that way (he's basically defining Christianity and Islam as the only "real" religions) but there is a real difference between Christianity and Islam on the one hand, and all these other practices that try to meet spiritual needs by focusing on specific and personal religious obligations -- obligations to caste or to ancestors or to the Jewish community -- plus some somewhat separate ideas about universal ethics and personal spirituality.

Comments

Fareed Zakaria goes so far in The Post-American World to describe India and China as places where people just don't have religions.

the social science shows that south asia and east asia are very different. south asia is more like the middle east; lots of association, identification and belief in, institutional religion. in east asia a lot less strength for institutional religion, a more diffuse belief in supernatural concepts.

some data on china. look at south korea vs. india. i assume most readers of this blog will know that south korea is far more religious than japan and china? (25% christian, 25% buddhist, 50% no religion)

Posted by razib | May 15, 2008 5:48 PM

Fareed Zakaria goes so far in The Post-American World to describe India and China as places where people just don't have religions.

the social science shows that south asia and east asia are very different. south asia is more like the middle east; lots of association, identification and belief in, institutional religion. in east asia a lot less strength for institutional religion, a more diffuse belief in supernatural concepts.

some data on china. look at south korea vs. india. i assume most readers of this blog will know that south korea is far more religious than japan and china? (25% christian, 25% buddhist, 50% no religion)

Posted by razib | May 15, 2008 5:52 PM

I agree with Matt. In my opinion, the main broad differences are, first, that the semitic religions are 90% moral and 10% spiritual, whereas the indic religions are the opposite, and second, that the monotheistic religions are necessarily intolerant ("You shall have no other gods"), whereas the polytheistic religions and atheistic religions are tolerant, or at least not necessarily intolerant.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 15, 2008 6:04 PM

It is interesting that you put Judaism in with the non-monotheistic religions (especially since it is the first* monotheistic religion).

But I think I understand where you are coming from in that many American Jews view their Judaism as a continuity of a tradition. An obligation in much the same way as the other sets of beliefs you described.

Posted by yep | May 15, 2008 6:05 PM

It is interesting that you put Judaism in with the non-monotheistic religions (especially since it is the first* monotheistic religion).

But I think I understand where you are coming from in that many American Jews view their Judaism as a continuity of a tradition. An obligation in much the same way as the other sets of beliefs you described.

Posted by yep | May 15, 2008 6:06 PM

The Chinese in particular are very pragmatic about religion. Religion is valuable insofar as it will help you get something that you want.

It can't be merely an accident that religious wars have been mostly a feature of the monotheistic religions.

Posted by blah | May 15, 2008 6:13 PM

I've read some pretty good arguments as to why it's likely that Asia will leave us in the dust in regards to biological sciences... their religious/cultural backgrounds don't provide as many barriers as Judeo-Christian thought does. This stem cell stuff isn't the end of religious opposition to various scientific techniques... it's just the tip of the iceberg and a lot of people are going to get weirded out here about things coming down the pipe that just wouldn't happen in Japan or South Korea.

This is why your anti-robot rhetoric is so damaging. Who is going to defend us against their hordes of giant mutant soldiers? Big shiny robots, that's who. You best get with the program before it's too late.

Posted by J.W. Hamner | May 15, 2008 6:18 PM

About our Buddhist religious future in America, I don't think any of us or our grandchildren will live to see meditation and metaphysics replace rituals and myths in American culture. I'm pretty sure we are the least spiritual nation in world history, or maybe that's Britain and we're number two.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 15, 2008 6:20 PM

Re: "The Chinese in particular are very pragmatic about religion. Religion is valuable insofar as it will help you get something that you want. "

I didn't know Obama was Chinese!

Posted by Reg | May 15, 2008 6:28 PM

It is a common misunderstanding that Hinduism is not a monotheistic religion, perpetuated more by the fact that even many Hindus do not really understand the basic Hindu philosophy.

Posted by gregor | May 15, 2008 6:28 PM

The guy in the office next to me was from India. It would surprise the hell out of him to learn that he didn't have a religion. (It surprises me. He'd "softly" sing religious songs to himself every morning while he went about his devotionals. I wish I could have told him to can it because they weren't really religious.)

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 15, 2008 6:29 PM

It is a common misunderstanding that Hinduism is not a monotheistic religion, perpetuated more by the fact that even many Hindus do not really understand the basic Hindu philosophy.

In my opinion, your definition of monotheism is much broader than common usage. I assume you're talking about ideas found in the early Upanishads, Vedanta, and Yoga, which are monistic, not monotheistic, by ordinary definitions.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 15, 2008 6:38 PM

I've rtfa, and it sounds plausible on the face of it. My gut feeling is that if scientific findings push "us" to choose either 1) a more "Buddhist" mindset w/in Christian worship, or 2) an anti-scientific counter reaction, I think our experience thus far is that #2 will trump.

I've periodically attempted to point out to acquaintances that the Lord's Creation is what it is, and science merely describes its shape, and that any value judgement a researcher draws from the description is moot. However, I think a great many people are too invested their childhood vision of the Lord as a super wizard waving a magic wand.

Posted by cmholm | May 15, 2008 6:44 PM

'Fareed Zakaria goes so far in The Post-American World to describe India and China as places where people just don't have religions."

As to India, this seems quite strange to me. India has always been described as a land of many religions , where religious festivals, tewmples, and imagery are ubiquitous. Even if you call only monotheistic religions " real religions", there are 150 million Muslims, 30 million Christians, and tens of thousands of Jews and Zoroastrians.
With regard to China, you should remember that China is a Marxist society which suppresses religion ( Google Falun Gong for a recent example). Should China stop repressing religion, my guess is that you would find an efflorescence of religion , as happened in the former Soviet Union.

Posted by stonetools | May 15, 2008 6:48 PM

Gary Sugar,

I would disagree with you about your 90/10 split. Christianity is pre-eminently a set of metaphysical (spiritual) claims and only secondarily a code of moral behavior. Its essential claims are claims about the atoning death and resurrection of the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ, and not claims about any particular moral teachings. Ultimately we are saved through the grace of Christ and not through adherence to a moral code.

Gregor,

I'm not sure that there is a 'basic Hindu philosophy' since there is not a codified set of beliefs one must profess to be a Hindu (I'm from a party Hindu family for what its worth). Nevertheless I would agree that it can be understood in a monotheistic framework.

Posted by Hector | May 15, 2008 7:09 PM

There are huge differences between India and China. India is hyper-religious, while the Chinese mostly believe in things like luck, magic, and fate (which helps make them the world's most avid gamblers).

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 15, 2008 7:11 PM

Matt,

Didn't you study any Spinoza while getting your philosophy degree at Harvard? You ought to discuss how his ideas (and, in contrast, Leibniz's) are related to this discussion.

Posted by Fred | May 15, 2008 7:11 PM

I can only speak for China, but it is safe to say that China doesn't have 'religion' in the sense that it exists in the West. Religion is a word that was introduced from the West (through Japan, I believe) and didn't originally exist in Chinese. They do have activities that involve mediating between the human and divine realms, ideas about an afterworld, etc. But the separation between the religious and the secular, and ideas about what it means to believe in a certain religion, or the mutual exclusivity of belief (if I'm a Buddhist, I'm not a Christian) are different.

The link to data about religion in China that razib provided is very misleading. If you were to ask an American that goes to Church one day a year if they are Christian they would probably say yes. I know plenty of people who do not attend any organized religious activity and to whom a given religion is not a major part of their lives who profess to be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.

The same is not necessarily true in China. I've had conversations with Chinese people who were lighting incense and prostrating before gods in Daoist temples, who said that they didn't believe in Daoism and weren't religious. I've spoken to people who have Buddhist shrines in their houses who do not profess to believe in Buddhism.

So I wouldn't assume that the question "do you believe in a religion" has a constant meaning across societies that would allow you to compare between them. Those statistics are only meaningful when understood within the conventions of the individual cultures (and in that sense you couldn't necessarily look at all of China, but would need to account for variation across regions and between urban and rural divides).

The various commentators who have suggested that intolerance is only a feature of monotheism are probably unfamiliar with the Boxer Rebellion, the White Lotus Rebellion, recent militant Hindu massacres of Muslims in India, etc. There's plenty of hate and violence to go around, unfortunately.

Posted by justaguy | May 15, 2008 7:11 PM

Most Hindus I've met get pretty upset when you call their religion polytheistic. While it does have polytheistic origins, modern Hinduism is based mostly on the Bhagavad Gita. In it, Krishna makes it very clear to Arjuna that all of the gods are actually the same entity, the Brahman. The Brahman is obviously a different kind of entity than the God of Abraham, but it's still basically one god. The Brahman is no more polytheistic than the Christian concept of the Trinity. Of course, Muslims consider the Trinity to be a form of polytheism, so I guess it all depends on our definition of polytheism. As for India not having religions, that's just plain offensive. In fact, India has an incredible diversity of religions.

Posted by fostert | May 15, 2008 7:16 PM

I posted while I just read the first set of survey numbers in the post that razib linked to (The pitfalls of ADD...). Below that is a good analysis of religion in China that I would definitely agree with.

Posted by justaguy | May 15, 2008 7:17 PM

I posted while I just read the first set of survey numbers in the post that razib linked to (The pitfalls of ADD...). Below that is a good analysis of religion in China that I would definitely agree with. Except for the fact that urban centers are more religious than the countryside. My understanding is that there is a lot more religious practice, shamanism, festivals, etc. in the countryside.

Posted by justaguy | May 15, 2008 7:19 PM

When Brooks writes:

Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

he seems unaware that Richard Dawkins, that bastion of atheism, is the person famous for publicizing the idea that selfish genes lead to "deep instincts for fairness, empathy, and attachment." That was kind of the whole point of The Selfish Gene, more than 30 years old.

Posted by Charlie | May 15, 2008 7:20 PM

Buddhism and Taoism aren't technically religions because the adherents aren't supposed to worship the deities or spiritual figures involved. Rather they are more properly called "spiritual philosophies" in that the adherents are supposed to attempt to emulate the deities or spiritual guides. It's more like Western Gnosticism than Western monotheistic religions.

Of course, most adherents end up "worshipping" Buddha or Taoist deities despite the whole point of those philosophies being to free yourself from such limitations.

The big deal over people prostrating themselves before Buddha's alleged toenail or whatever it was that was on display recently illustrates the point.

Zen is even worse from that standpoint. The whole point of Zen is to become a "Zen man" who is completely free from any such commitments to gods, the state, society, even family while behaving "appropriately" in any circumstances.

The highest reaches of a number of spiritual philosophies - including Ismailism and perhaps Sufism in the Muslim world - are intended to produce such a result.

Back on point, yes, the technology that will be developed by nations based on such philosophies will be considerably more radical than what will be "allowed" in Western societies, to some degree anyway. There's a reason most of the cyberpunk sci-fi stories emphasize the influence of Asian nations. Leon Klass is probably not likely to be a big influence in Asia.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 15, 2008 7:34 PM

Didn't you study any Spinoza while getting your philosophy degree at Harvard?
Posted by Fred | May 15, 2008 7:11 PM

Haha. American philosophers are interested in rationalist metaphysics (real philosophy) only inasmuch as it annoys them.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 15, 2008 8:11 PM

"Buddhism and Taoism aren't technically religions because the adherents aren't supposed to worship the deities or spiritual figures involved. Rather they are more properly called "spiritual philosophies" in that the adherents are supposed to attempt to emulate the deities or spiritual guides. It's more like Western Gnosticism than Western monotheistic religions."

A common misconception. There are thousands of Daoist and Buddhist temples with thousands of statues that people leave offerings to, pray to and otherwise worship. There are forms of Buddhism that are very popular in the West that are more psychological, but there is a much wider world of Buddhist practice that involves the worship of deities. Look at Pure Land Buddhism, for example.

Ideas about Daoism in the West come from Christian missionaries who sought to delegitimate Chinese religious practice. It was then picked up by Hippies, New Agers and the like. Here's a good run down of that: http://kirkland.myweb.uga.edu/rk/pdf/pubs/pres/TENN97.pdf

Posted by justaguy | May 15, 2008 8:11 PM

Buddhism and atheism are not incomparable per we. Buddhist morality closely resembles models put forth by Peter Singer and others; and a fundemental interpretation of its philosophy requires objective and subjective analysis of all truth. Faith, central to the theistic traditions, is anethema to Buddhism. Assuming rational inquiry continues to make inroads in America and assuming that humans do have an appetite for spiritual matters, Buddhism may very well enjoy growth in the West.

Brooks' article, while a bit incoherent, reflects something I've been thinking about for some time. Advances in cognitive science are sort of doing for a number of religious concepts.

Posted by roboticghost | May 15, 2008 8:13 PM

While it does have polytheistic origins, modern Hinduism is based mostly on the Bhagavad Gita.

Not so. Indigenous Indian religion runs the gamut from popular rural religion (e.g. sprinkling the blood of chickens on the wheels of ratas) to various "Brahmanical" traditions, or sampradāyas, to various more recent reform movements that grew out of the encounter with Western civilization (e.g. Arya Samaj). There are some that lie far from the prototype of Hinduism, like the Viraśaivas. There are polytheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic Hindus—with the usual caveats about describing a religion using foreign terms. Americans should understand that virtually all Hindus they interact with represent an incredibly small and unrepresentative sample of Hindus.

That "Hinduism" covers this entire range is both an accident and an anachronism: my ancestors would have called themselves Śrīvaiṣṇavas, but they wouldn't know the term "Hinduism" or any equivalent term. If asked to discuss a central text, they'd probably pick the Vedānta sūtras or Rāmānuja's commentary on them.

Posted by Raghav | May 15, 2008 8:19 PM

Not to mention the idea that "You shall have no other gods" is foreign to (types of) Hinduism is totally wrong. Most of the major works of the Brahminical tradition are polemical and sometimes harshly so, whether against Buddhism (Śaṃkara, the āḻvārs), the advaitins and pūrvamīmāṃsākas (Rāmānuja), or the Jains. Kāñcipuram and other cities were major centers of religious debate, and kings regularly converted religions—the Cōḻa king Kulōttuṅka was known for his persecution of Vaiṣṇavas, and Viṣṇuvardhana is said to have been a convert from Jainism.

My grandparents, and to a lesser extent my parents always disapproved of even visiting non-Śrīvaiṣṇava temples; though admittedly, my family was considerably more conservative than average.

Posted by Raghav | May 15, 2008 8:29 PM

"Buddhism and Taoism aren't technically religions because the adherents aren't supposed to worship the deities or spiritual figures involved."

You're basically taking the characteristics of Abrahamic religions, defining them as 'technically religious' and circling your argument from there. That really won't hold up. And as someone's already pointed out, that's not even true from a literal sense for much of Buddhism as it's actually practiced.

These days there's pretty much a consensus from academics who study it--Roger Lopez, Malcolm David Eccle, etc.--that Buddhism should be defined as a religion, not a philosophy or whatever else. That goes pretty consciously against the history of Western appreciations of Buddhism, starting with Colonel Olcott and the Theosophists, but it really fits better with how Buddhism's been practiced throughout its history.

Posted by bh | May 15, 2008 8:30 PM

Raghav, in my opinion you are arguing that broad differences don't exist because there are some exceptions, which does not follow.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 15, 2008 8:38 PM

My point was precisely to refer to Buddhism and Taoism NOT "as actually practiced" but as they were DEFINED by their originators.

I specifically said that the adherents treat them as religions, whereas they are not SUPPOSED to treat them as religions.

What part of "aren't technically religions" didn't you understand? What part of "technically" is not comprehensible? What part of "most adherents end up 'worshipping' Buddha or Taoist deities" did I NOT write?

Go back and read what I actually wrote before attempting to demonstrate your superior knowledge.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 15, 2008 8:41 PM

I read what you wrote, and you still have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. It's not going to get fixed in a comment section, though. Go read either of the people I mentioned--either one would do--and go from there.

Posted by bh | May 15, 2008 8:50 PM

"My point was precisely to refer to Buddhism and Taoism NOT "as actually practiced" but as they were DEFINED by their originators."

How would you know what the intentions of the originators of Daoism were? Is there any historical Daoist before the 19th century that interpreted Daoism as an abstract philosophical system separate from the worship of spirits and gods? Would such a separation be meaningful in Chinese culture before the introduction of western categories like religion, philosophy, secularism, etc.?

Yes, you said that you have more insight into the true meaning of Daoism and Buddhism than the majority of adherents. I would ask where you got such a superior understanding.

Posted by justaguy | May 15, 2008 9:01 PM

"Religion" does not necessarily mean "belief as we usually practice it." There's a lot of defining things through a Western/monotheistic frame here.

The same is not necessarily true in China. I've had conversations with Chinese people who were lighting incense and prostrating before gods in Daoist temples, who said that they didn't believe in Daoism and weren't religious. I've spoken to people who have Buddhist shrines in their houses who do not profess to believe in Buddhism.

Sounds like all the religious skeptics in this country who still give presents as Christmas.

Posted by Persia | May 15, 2008 9:06 PM

Raghav, in my opinion you are arguing that broad differences don't exist because there are some exceptions, which does not follow.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that I argued that there aren't broad differences between Christianity/Islam and Indian religions? I didn't mean to say that, and I don't believe that.

But historical Hinduism's insistence on doctrinal uniformity (or "intolerance," if you like) wasn't an exception; it was the rule. I daresay it's still the rule for many (most?) Hindus; just not the expatriates and urban Indians that most Westerners are likely to meet.

Posted by Raghav | May 15, 2008 9:16 PM

"Should China stop repressing religion, my guess is that you would find an efflorescence of religion , as happened in the former Soviet Union.

Posted by stonetools | May 15, 2008 6:48 PM"

Maybe, but my understanding of the situation is (though I am nowhere near certain of this) is that the average Soviet person never became such a self-professed atheist. This is most obvious in terms of the Muslims of the former Soviet Union, who often kept their religion (if practicing it in secret), but I doubt that Russian Orthodox belief would be this widespread and hegemonic today if so many families hadn't secretly kept the faith. After all, if soon after October your family was forced to adopt atheism and it actually took, 80 years later you probably wouldn't feel the same connection to your family's old religion that would prohibit you from some spiritual experimentation. If you never even heard your grandmother talk about attending Russian Orthodox services when she was a kid, that personal connection to your family's old religion would probably be weak. If you are the type of person who would be interested in becoming religious once it became legal, why not take up Catholicism or Buddhism?

Posted by Reality Man | May 15, 2008 9:41 PM

I've READ Taoist literature, idiots. The same literature the adherents read. Except I'm not an "adherent" so I can read it without socially conditioned preconceptions.

Go read the literature. It's not a religion ikn the Western sense and quite clearly was never intended to be.

Where the hell in Lao Tzu does anyone here find the "worship of spirits and gods"? Let alone in Zen?

The closest thing to a "god" in Taoism is the basic concept of the "Tao". That this is not referenced in any personalized way is clear from every Taoist text. Any lay person reading a translation of a Taoist text - whether translated by a Westerner or a Chinese translator - can see that.

We've got some people commenting here who are just blowing it out their ass.

Then they complain about people in the West only knowing things through Western eyes, then they refer me to Western scholars for an explanation.

What's wrong with this picture?

Wikipedia provides a more practical overview:

"There is debate over how, and whether, Taoism should be subdivided. Some scholars have divided it into the following three categories:[2]

1. "Philosophical Taoism". (Daojia). A philosophical school based on the texts Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi;

2. "Religious Taoism". (Daojiao). A family of organized Chinese religious movements originating from the Celestial Masters movement during the late Han Dynasty and later including the "Orthodox" (Zhengyi) and "Complete Reality" (Quanzhen) sects, which trace back to Lao Zi or Zhang Daoling in the late Han Dynasty;

3. "Folk Taoism". The Chinese folk religion.

This distinction is complicated by hermeneutic difficulty. The categorization of Taoist sects and movements is very controversial.[3] Many scholars believe that there is no distinction between Daojia and Daojiao.[4] Taoism's start is traced back to Lao-Tzu (Or Laotse)"

In other words, as I said, the basic philosophical treatises of Taoism have little to do with the "folk religion" or the sects which developed later in Taoism's history.

As to the basic concept of the Tao, Wikipedia says:

"Tao can be roughly stated to be the flow of the universe, or the force behind the natural order.[6] Tao is believed to be the influence that keeps the universe balanced and ordered. Tao is associated with nature, due to a belief that nature demonstrates the Tao.[7] The flow of qi, as the essential energy of action and existence, is compared to the universal order of Tao. Tao is compared to what it is not, like the negative theology of Western scholars.[8] It is often considered to be the source of both existence and non-existence.

Tao is rarely an object of worship, being treated more like the Indian concepts of atman and dharma.[9] The word "Taoism" is used to translate different Chinese terms. Daojiao/Taochiao (道教 "teachings/religion of the Dao") refers to Daoism as a religion. Daojia/Taochia (道家 "school of the Dao") refers to the studies of scholars, or "philosophical" Taoism. However, most scholars have abandoned the dichotomy of "religious" and "philosophical" Taoism."

As you can see, again, there is a distinction between Taoism as a "religion" and Taoism as a "philosophy". The fact that scholars don't care is basically irrelevant to the fact that the basic treatises of Taoism do not refer to the worship of deities as much as they do to philosophical principles or concepts of universal order.

Finally, although popular Taoism refers to various deities, Wikipedia points out:

"While a number of immortals or other mysterious figures appear in the Zhuangzi, and to a lesser extent in the Tao Te Ching, these have generally not become the objects of worship. Traditional conceptions of Tao are not to be confused with the Western concepts of theism and monotheism. Being one with the Tao does not indicate a union with an eternal spirit in the Hindu sense, but rather living in accordance with nature."

And finally, "Taoism does not fall strictly under an umbrella or a definition of an organized religion like the Abrahamic traditions, nor could it be studied as the originator or variants of Chinese folk religion, for the simple reason that these were not the tenets or core teachings of Taoism or those in Tao te Ching [91]. Robinet further and rightly asserted the nature of Taoism can be better understood as a psyche, and a way of life rather than a religion[92], as the adherents do not view Taoism in the manner analysed by historians who were neither Taoist and who did not understand the subject[93].

Indeed many scholastic work did conclude Taoism is a school of thought with a quest for Immortality [94][95]. In this light Taoism can not be compared with other religions."

Which is precisely my point.

And let's not here anything about Wikipedia, as almost all of my quotes here have citations, including from authors cited by my critics here.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 15, 2008 9:45 PM

bh is essentially correct. However as scientific priniples enter the practical mainstream, their religious counterparts recede socially. The world is demonstrably flat until some guy you know sails around it, for instance. Eventually the meme progresses to the point where it becomes the common assumption. Physically apparent claims where science and relgion have conflicted have had easier resolutions than matters of subjective experience. Advances in MRI technology and the business of empirically defining human nature will likely alter the dynamic as the implications move beyond the academy and yield demonstrable applications for those who are not directly engaged.

Posted by roboticghost | May 15, 2008 9:47 PM

Richard, thank you for making a point that would be cumbersome here in a bar watching the hockey game and punching words into my iPhone :) it is also worth pointing out that most in Chinese and other like cultures one is not limited to one specific tradition but usually syncrenistically fuses elements from several traditions into their worldview.

Posted by roboticghost | May 15, 2008 10:02 PM

I love when people describe the "big three" as monotheistic.

So cute.

Posted by brenna | May 15, 2008 10:18 PM

I wonder -- if Christian scientists, or science in Christian societies, is inhibited vis-à-vis science in Buddhist societies by Kass-style views on human life being made in God's image, etc, could Buddhist scientists, or science in Buddhist socities, be inhibited vis-à-vis science in Christian societies by ahimsa-based injunctions on doing horrible things to animals to get scientific data? (Not, of course, that Buddhists always have a radical Francionist take on animals or are categorically opposed to such experiments, or that all Christians are completely indifferent to the moral issues involved in animal experimentation -- just seems like more of an issue to Buddhist ethics than to Christian ethics.)

Posted by Julian Elson | May 15, 2008 10:32 PM

Good point about Dawkins, Charlie. It's nice that Brooks' column has provoked a debate about the taxonomy of religion, but we shouldn't overlook the basic point: that this column, like so much else of Brooks' writing, is half-informed, cleverly worded bunk.

The fact that evolutionary theorists are talking about morality and that neuroscientists have found brain correlates of transcendental experiences does not indicate some kind of detente between religion and materialism. It just indicates that the materialist theory has become developed enough to begin to describe things like mental states. Nothing in the scientific developments he describes indicates any reason that 'self confident researchers' might doubt that 'the idea might exist outside the body is ridiculous'. In fact, they all indicate ways that phenomena generally explained by the spirit can be explained physically. Buddhist ideas have always been more compatible with materialism than the abrahamic religions - there's nothing new here.

I'm not going out on a limb here to make a claim of hard materialism. I'm just making the much more easily defensible claim that Brooks doesn't know what he's talking about.

Posted by lackluster | May 15, 2008 10:34 PM

Richard.

1. You suggest that you are outside of a religious tradition and thus are better equipped to see what it means unhindered by cultural biases. That doesn't really work. You have cultural biases, just different one's than most Daoists have.

There are two ways of looking at a religious text - confessional and historical. Confessional asks what the text means to you as a reader and historical asks what it has meant to a specific individual or group.

You are conflating a confessional reading (what the Daodejing means to you) with a historical one (what it mean to Laozi).

In doing so you are in good company - scholarship on Chinese religion has done so up until fairly recently for a variety of reasons.

2. Wikipedia's entries on Daoism are crap. Completely and utterly unreliable. If you want to talk about specific scholars and their opinion, we can do that. Perhaps the best discussion of the fallacy of "philosophical" vs "religious" Daoism is Nathan Sivin's 'On the word Taoist as a source of perplexity" http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/perp.html

The article that you quote even says that most scholars have abandoned that division. The distinction between philosophy and religion entered into China in the 1800s from the West. That division is not inherent to the nature of reality, but has a specific history within the history of Western thought Were there identical categories in China before then?

3. I point to Western scholars because they publish in English. I don't think that all Westerners are incapable of critically studying Daoism. I just make a distinction between making Daoist teachings relevant to individuals in the West (the Tao of Pooh, etc.) and critical scholarship on Daoism.

4. There are organized schools in Daoism (Quanzhen, Tianshi, Shangqing, etc.). Yes they are different than Abrahamic religions. They are also different than philosophy. There is more heterodoxy and heteropraxy in Daoism than any Western religion, making a concrete characterization of the 'true' and 'authentic' nature of Daoism impossible.

5. The Dao is not an object of worship as far as I know, but Luzu, Taishang Laojun, etc. are. You can say that that is less authenticly Daoist than the search for immortality if you want. But in doing so you aren't making a statement about the historical nature of Daoism, you're saying what Daoism means to you.

Posted by justaguy | May 15, 2008 10:36 PM

Actually roboticghost brings us back to the main point: that neuroscience will eventually determine where religious beliefs - indeed, all human behavior - originate.

There's a fellow up in Canada who can hook you up to a helmet that generates magnetic fields in your brain. He can make you think you're in the presence of your dead Grandmother, aliens, or God.

Michael Persinger Wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Persinger

Also see Francis Crick, "The Astonishing Hypothesis".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astonishing_Hypothesis

Combine our eventual discovery of the neural mechanisms which lead to religious belief and combine that with the knowledge of historical and anthropological origins of religious beliefs - and there pretty much isn't anything left to base them on.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 15, 2008 10:39 PM

While it does have polytheistic origins, modern Hinduism is based mostly on the Bhagavad Gita

That's close to the funniest thing I've ever read. And I've read a lot.

The aryan religion (hinduism) and it's offshoots [by Hindu prince Siddharta Guatama (buddh) and Hindu Prince Mahavir] are all based on the 4 canonical aryan texts, the 4 Vedas, followed by the 2 great epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata (the latter of which the Gita is a subchapter, 5% or less of the whole epic).

Posted by foo | May 15, 2008 11:08 PM

Justaguy, Kirkland's piece is ranting lunacy. His point seems to be that what Americans know of Taoism is Lao-Chuang rather than real Taoism. And using Lao-Chuang to interpret Chinese religious Taoism is a mistake, so in the context of this thread, he's more or less right.

But he seems consumed with rage at the fact that a lot of Westerners are more interested in Lao-Chuang than in religious Taoism. And he has a long list of villains: hippies, dilettantes, Protestants, Catholics, orientalizing orientalists, and the Enlightenment. This is bad enough already, but then he goes after Chuang Tzu (not really a Taoist), Pao pu tzu (not really a Taoist), Wang Pi (not really a Taoist), and finally even the very redactor of the Tao Te Ching -- who produced a stripped down work which could be read by non Taoists.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything that intemperate by a competent and respected scholar.

Posted by John Emerson | May 15, 2008 11:12 PM

but there is a real difference between Christianity and Islam on the one hand, and all these other practices that try to meet spiritual needs by focusing on specific and personal religious obligations . . . obligations to caste or to ancestors or to the Jewish community

Huh? Judaism has obligations that are personal and communal as well as universal. What does, e.g., Islam have that Judaism doesn't in this regard? I totally don't get what you're saying

Posted by A DC Wonk | May 15, 2008 11:23 PM

Justaguy:

"1. You suggest that you are outside of a religious tradition and thus are better equipped to see what it means unhindered by cultural biases. That doesn't really work. You have cultural biases, just different one's than most Daoists have.

There are two ways of looking at a religious text - confessional and historical. Confessional asks what the text means to you as a reader and historical asks what it has meant to a specific individual or group.

You are conflating a confessional reading (what the Daodejing means to you) with a historical one (what it mean to Laozi)."

I see - now you're an expert on MY thought as well as an expert on Taoism.

Bullshit. You've simply demonstrated your own biases in this matter.

I said nothing whatever about what Taoism means to me. I said that the defining texts of Taoism have nothing to do with religion in the Western sense of the term. And that is based on the direct reading of the texts. Again, one can quibble over the translations and thus the meanings of those texts, but no where in them will you find a Western religious sensibility regardless of the translation. That's all I said. It has nothing to with how I interpret Taoism in any personal sense.

You might also wish to consider that if I have some unnamed and un-described "bias" in the matter, that you might as well. It cuts both ways, necessarily.

"2. Wikipedia's entries on Daoism are crap. Completely and utterly unreliable."

Based on what? The fact that they cite the same authors you do? You can't cite any specific error, can you? And even if you could, it would be irrelevant to my points. What you're mad about is that obviously people with enough knowledge and interest in Taoism were able to edit Wikipedia's entry, drawing on cited works, to support the position I've taken.

"Perhaps the best discussion of the fallacy of "philosophical" vs "religious" Daoism is Nathan Sivin's 'On the word Taoist as a source of perplexity" http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/perp.html"

And why should I regard this gentleman as being any more authoritative than anybody in Wikipedia? I don't know him, either. What's his bias?

This is not relevant anyway. I - and Wikipedia - have already acknowledged that there is a controversy over whether Taoism as a movement can be considered exclusively a religion or a philosophy.

That was NEVER my point. My point was that Taoism was, according to its defining TEXTS, never intended or defined to be a religion in the same sense as Western religions, i.e., whether a deity or deities are worshipped and deferred to.

Again, you ignore this in your attempt to establish yourself as some sort of expert on the subject, whereas I am relying on the texts on which Taoism is based. We may quibble over this or that translation - and certainly the scholars have done so for decades - but the bottom line has never been in doubt by anybody: the Tao is not a deity and Taoists are not urged to "worship" anything more than they are urged to emulate in accordance with the universe.

This DESTROYS the notion of Taoism being primarily a religion in the Western sense. Period. No amount of scholarship concerning the origins of Taoism from Chinese folk religion or the development of later Taoist sects can change the fact that the defining texts of Taoism do NOT extol the worship of a deity and thus were not intended in terms of its belief system (as opposed to its social impact) to be a religion in the Western sense.

"The article that you quote even says that most scholars have abandoned that division. The distinction between philosophy and religion entered into China in the 1800s from the West. That division is not inherent to the nature of reality, but has a specific history within the history of Western thought Were there identical categories in China before then?"

Again - irrelevant. I was and am talking about the defining texts of Taoism - NOT the sects, not the scholars, not the history of the movement.

I can understand your point that it is possible that the writers of the defining texts themselves did not distinguish between "religion" and "philosophy". That is not relevant in terms of present day discussions. We DO make such a distinction, and I AM making that distinction.

The founders of Taoism may well have wished to have a "religious" impact on their society, but there is no evidence in the texts themselves for this, nor is there any similarity between such texts and the beliefs described there and Western monotheistic religious beliefs concerning the worship of deities or other religious practices.

"3. I point to Western scholars because they publish in English. I don't think that all Westerners are incapable of critically studying Daoism. I just make a distinction between making Daoist teachings relevant to individuals in the West (the Tao of Pooh, etc.) and critical scholarship on Daoism."

In other words, you point to those who read the texts and the history of the movement and then decide what is correct or not. Yet, you complain when I do exactly that, if by less than scholarly devotion.

I have never referred to any of the popular treatments of Taoism in my comments, so "The Tao of Pooh" is completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. I am referring to recognized translations of the standard basic texts.

"4. There are organized schools in Daoism (Quanzhen, Tianshi, Shangqing, etc.). Yes they are different than Abrahamic religions. They are also different than philosophy. There is more heterodoxy and heteropraxy in Daoism than any Western religion, making a concrete characterization of the 'true' and 'authentic' nature of Daoism impossible."

Which again is precisely why I refer primarily to the basic texts of Taoism, not any organized schools. I am well aware that there is a great variety of opinion in Taoism.

I disagree that the we cannot determine the basic nature of Taoism. That basic nature is set out in the Tao Te Ching and other basic texts. We may quibble over the meaning of the words in those texts, as scholars and translators have for decades, but no where in any reputable translation that I am aware of will you find any mention of worshipping the Tao in the manner of a religion or any intent of establishing Taoism as a religion in the manner of a Western religion or even the indigenous Chinese religions of the times.

Which was entirely my point. Taoism may have been intended to have a spiritual or even religious SOCIAL impact by its founders - and indeed, it may even be correct to say that they did not distinguish between religion and philosophy in their thought (although I see no evidence of that in the texts). But the bottom line is that Taoism was clearly not conceived as a religion in the Western, monotheistic sense (or even an Eastern non-monotheistic sense of multiple gods), nor do I see any evidence that it was conceived in the manner of the indigenous Chinese religions of the times.

"5. The Dao is not an object of worship as far as I know, but Luzu, Taishang Laojun, etc. are."

Again, irrelevant to my point. Again, I am not talking about the popular practice, I am talking about the foundational texts. You are forced to acknowledge that the central concept of Taoism is not an object of worship. What other religion can say that?

If you use the Wikipedia definition of religion, which is extremely broad, you can certainly lump Taoism under it. But this is not what most people refer to - nor what I refer to - as Western religious practice or even most Eastern religious practice.

Worship is the central concept and practice of most religions, monotheistic, non-monotheistic, pagan or otherwise. There is nothing in the defining texts of Taoism to emphasize the notion of "worship." "Emulation", yes - "worship", no. That is what makes Taoism a "spiritual philosophy" and not a "religion", except in the absolute broadest sense.

I make the - useful - distinction between a "spiritual philosophy" which is primarily concerned with dealing with matters of meaning and personal conduct and comprehension of one's place in the universe vs a "religion" which is a more rigidly codified set of notions about the nature of the universe and one's obligations to specific deities and specific practices.

Most religions that I am aware of adhere to the latter. Buddhism and Taoism do not in my understanding of their tenets, although, again as I pointed out, the popular practices do indeed resemble the latter more than the former.

Now, you can deny that such a distinction is useful or valid. Fine, whatever. We agree to disagree on that. But that is the point from which I made my statement that Taoism is not a "religion" in the Western monotheistic sense or even a non-monotheistic sense.

"You can say that that is less authenticly Daoist than the search for immortality if you want. But in doing so you aren't making a statement about the historical nature of Daoism, you're saying what Daoism means to you."

No, I am saying that the foundational texts - which by the way, as far as I know, have little to do with the development of the practice of Taoist immortality, which I understand to be a MUCH later development - have nothing to do with religion in the Western sense. The Taoist interest in immortality is irrelevant to that position and has nothing to do with what interests me about Taoism generally as a philosophy.

I find the Taoist interest in immortality to be particularly pleasing, being a Transhumanist, but that is irrelevant to the basic nature of Taoism as I understand it.

I can understand your point that from a practical standpoint, there is little difference between Taoism as a "religion" and Taoism as a "spiritual philosophy". But that wasn't the point I was making originally. My point was again that TECHNICALLY Taoism was not intended to be a religion in the usual theistic sense - Western or Eastern - based on the basic tenets as described in the defining texts - nothing more.

So I think to some degree we are arguing past each other here.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 15, 2008 11:31 PM

Richard, you should read the first link Justaguy posted. It's over-the-top, but Kirkland is basically right that Lao-Chuang is distinguishable from the Taoist religion practiced by many Chinese (often very seriously, as monks or hermits.) Of the "founding texts", Kirkland recognizes only "Lao Tzu" as important to the Taoist religion, and he even has reservations about that one.

Posted by John Emerson | May 15, 2008 11:40 PM

If one takes all the complaints about the curse of multiculturalism in the west seriously, it will be hard to fathom why so many comments here about non-western religions betray so much prejudice if not ignorance.

Posted by gregor | May 15, 2008 11:50 PM

Richard,

You're saying that you can read the foundational texts of Daoism and know what they mean. Thus, I take you at your word when you are saying that you are basing your understanding of Taoism on your understanding of the texts that you've read. I'm sorry if that offends you.

Of course I approach the Daodejing from my own biased viewpoint. I have a notion of what it means to me, and a notion of what it has meant to various people at different periods of time. I don't worry about how accurate the former is - only how useful it is to me - and the latter is something that I'm definitely willing to abandon in the face of superior evidence. And I have a bias towards academic writing on Daoism (although I recgonize that Daoist studies is very flawed).

You seem to think that a text has a meaning independent of its encounter with individual readers. I simply disagree. It has a large number of meanings at different periods of time as it encounters different readers. So I think that your trying to see the 'true' meaning of the Daodejing is impossible.

Who's meaning would that be? The author? There are various versions of the text that have been edited through time, there is no one author to try to read the mind of. The language is ambiguous and open to multiple readings.

And what are the 'foundational texts of Daoism'? The one's that you choose? That individual scholars do? That different Daoists have used? That you can find at Borders?

I would argue that neither the ideas in the texts nor the practices that are based on them can fall under the Western category of religion. Why would they, the idea is not inherent to Chinese culture. Neither is that of philosophy (spiritual or otherwise).

But you started this off by saying that you understood the 'true meaning' of Daoism better than the thousands of individual Daoists in the lived history of Daoism in China. Color me skeptical on that point.

Posted by justaguy | May 16, 2008 12:15 AM

I didn't say that at all. That is your interpretation. I said I understood the texts as they have been translated in the West and commented on by both Western and Chinese interpreters to clearly establish that Taoism did not require religious worship in the theistic sense.

I'm not saying that necessarily means my understanding is the "one true understanding" that actually existed in history when the basic Taoist texts were written.

But claiming there is no such and that such is "unknowable" is not what you argued for either. You argued that Taoism is a religion more than a philosophy and that it was a religion as practiced. I argued that it's ORIGINAL intent was not to be a religion in the specific religious sense of establishing something to be worshipped. I said that its adherents treated it as a religion, which was an incorrect interpretation of its tenets.

I stand by that. I think it is quite clear from the texts as they stand - whether in Chinese or English, whether translated by Westerners or Easterners - that there is no intent to treat the Tao as an object or worship, or that the various Taoist figures should be treated as objects of worship. Furthermore, there is no discussion of worship at all. The texts are entirely about recognizing the order of the universe and conducting oneself accordingly. This is philosophy, not religion. It is spiritual because it applies to the conduct of humans in relation to society and the universe. But it is not religious in any theistic sense whatsoever.

And therefore those adherents who act in a religious manner do not understand the nature of their own religion.

It's really that simple. And it's not surprising. MOST adherents of MOST of the religions, East or West, do not understand the details and the complexities of their own religion, let alone the scholarship and history of those religions.

Why is this a surprise?

"You seem to think that a text has a meaning independent of its encounter with individual readers."

The meaning is that assigned by the author(s). You are correct that many of these texts have been edited and changed by many others over history. This merely complicates the issue. The Bible is the perfect example - literally hundreds of Gospels were shrunk down to a few at the Council of Nicea, then the whole thing was translated from a language with no punctuation into numerous other languages.

So, yes, one can argue over the exact wording and thus meaning of the texts. But if one is willing to say the meanings are entirely personal and thus essentially have no meaning other than the personal, then there is no point to the scholarship and interpretations at all. Ignore them.

But even that is irrelevant here. ALL of the translations and all of the translators and interpretors that I am aware of that are taken seriously by said scholars have never interpreted the texts to indicate that worship is a central tenet of Taoism. And without that, you have no religion, except, as I said, in the broadest sense - which is not the sense I was referring to.

It's all quite simple. Taoism at its heart is not a religion in the sense people think of a religion and was not evidently intended to be so by whoever wrote the defining texts.

What happened afterward is not relevant to that point.

James Miller illustrate this error:

"The history of Daoism can conveniently be divided into four periods: Proto-Daoism (aka "Philosophical Taoism" in an older (mis-)understanding), Classical Daoism, Modern Daoism and Contemporary Daoism. Although these labels suggest a gradual historical development, it does not follow from this that Daoism has been steadily developing in a linear fashion towards some ideal state, nor is it mean to imply that the "classical" period is somehow "better" than the "modern" period or vice-versa.

The first period, Proto-Daoism, covers the time from antiquity up to the 2nd century C.E. The reason why this period is called "proto-Daoism" is that we have no knowledge of any formal Daoist religious organizations at this time. The classic works that were written during this period, the Daode jing, the Zhuangzi in particular, were highly influential upon the flourishing of the classical Daoist tradition. Many textbooks on world religions still take this period as representing the essence of Daoism. This is simply an obtuse and misleading interpretation of the whole history of Daoism."

In other words, when the original authors of the classic Taoist texts created them, there was no religious organization. Since the rest of Taoism developed further from these texts, according to Miller - and you - this period is not important in understanding Taoism as a religion.

Of course it isn't - if understanding it as a religion is one's goal. If understanding the intent of the original texts upon which the religion was founded - and those texts are STILL TODAY considered primary texts - is one's goal - in other words, if understanding Taoism's core meaning is one's goal - then clearly, as I said, this period IS the most important and the intent of those texts clearly was NOT to establish a new religion (at least in the abstract sense, as opposed to a social sense).

Clearly those early texts were of a philosophical and spiritual bent, not a religious bent. Whether or not such a distinction existed in Chinese thought at the time is not relevant. The distinction exists today and is important to understanding the very basic principles of Taoism as it was initially conceived. The fact that Taoism developed a whole line of thought subsequent to that time, as well as a whole line of religious concepts and practices, and a whole history of over two thousand years, is also not relevant to the point I was making.

Lao-Tzu - or the personage or confluence of personages attributed to him - existed a couple centuries before the Taoist religion per se begans This is why I'm not terribly interested in Taoism scholarship which invariably is totally oriented around the subsequent history. The core, the origin, of Taoism is Lao-Tzu and the Tao Te Ching. That is what I am referring to as the defining text of Taoism. That may not be accepted by every scholar, but it's quite clear that the vast majority of Taoist works do acknowledge that. Can one imagine Taoism without Lao Tzu?

And that text says nothing about religion in any theistic sense.

That's it - I can't make it any clearer than that.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 16, 2008 1:39 AM

"Haha. American philosophers are interested in rationalist metaphysics (real philosophy) only inasmuch as it annoys them."

That's too bad.

Posted by Fred | May 16, 2008 2:40 AM

Re: I agree with Matt. In my opinion, the main broad differences are, first, that the semitic religions are 90% moral and 10% spiritual

Huh? Buddhism's whole thrust is ethical rather than theological. Ditto for Confucianism. And Hinduism (which is also very theological) comes with a whole catalogue of moral strictures.

Re: their religious/cultural backgrounds don't provide as many barriers as Judeo-Christian thought does.

They didn't have as many barriers to heliocentrism either but somehow they failed to take the lead there either. No did the Pope's opposition to smallpox innoculations back when they were first devised stymie future developments in immunization.

Re: I doubt that Russian Orthodox belief would be this widespread and hegemonic today if so many families hadn't secretly kept the faith.

I don't know about "secretly keeping the faith". Many Russians simply went aong to get along, and their children knew no better. The revival (such as it is) of Christianity in Russia is I think the result of a general revival of interest, if only because so many secular institutions failed and also because Orthodoxy was culturally a very Russian thing, even for Communists and atheists. Case in point: when the Nazis initially rolled right over Stalin's armies he brought the Orthoox Church out of the Gulag and positioned it as the rallying point for Mother Russia (and true to his bargain, he allowed it a certain amount of freedom afterward when the danger was past.)

Posted by JonF | May 16, 2008 7:54 AM

Hinduism may have originated as a religion; but it morphed into a meta-religion by the time brahma sUtrAs (aka vEdAmta sUtrAs) were laid down.

Saivism, Vaishnavism, etc. are religions that subscribe to this meta. That is why their founder's based them on what they argued to be the right interpretation of the brahma sUtrAs.

It is really this theological flexibility that made it possible for Saivism, Vaishnavism and other such religions to flourish under the canopy of what is lazily labeled Hinduism - after all, as the RgvEda said, 'The truth is one, but there are many paths to It.'

Once you realize that, there is no contradiction between what Raghav said and the objections to his statements: they are just looking at different things, like the proverbial blind men describing an elephant.

Raghav is talking about the religions, and the historical fact that Indians have done their fair share of religious persecution - significantly, though, the 'religious' persecution was always in terms of Saivism, Vaishnavism, or something of that kind.

Clashes between Hindus and Muslims are different: the Muslims saw fighting Hindus as a religious duty, but Hindus saw fighting Muslims as a communal (or patriotic when it was a foreign Muslim aggressor) affair to ensure their own material viability. Hindu-Christian clashes are also of this nature.

Finally, to Matt's point: it is not because Indians are irreligious that they have no objection to things like evolution etc. It is because of the concept of daSAvatArAs - the ten incarnations, progressing from Fish to man - which is strikingly similar (at least superficially) to evolution. Interestingly enough, 'samudraka' is a samskrit word for the body; it comes from 'samudra', which means the sea. Again, striking similarity to evolution.

Anyway - time to stop rambling :)

Posted by Sreedhar | May 16, 2008 8:41 AM

@Richard Steven Hack "The core, the origin, of Taoism is Lao-Tzu and the Tao Te Ching."

One of the most debated issues in early Chinese thought is the place, timing and significance of the Daodejing. It is far from clear that it does not have religious implications, and even less clear what the author's purpose was - assuming that it had a traditional author, rather than being an accumulation of various types of wisdom literature. It is more likely that the Laozi emerged from a variety of strands of thought, some of which were vaguely yogic, some involved discussion of man's relationship to the cosmos, some dealt with how to navigate the world of politics. Equally, the later construct of Lao-Zhuang is misleading. These were two different strands of thought, which overlap to some degree, but are not the same thing.

Second, you claim the author's original intent stops Daoism from being a religion. Sorry, but this really makes no sense. It is pretty clear that Christ did not envision the Catholic church as currently constituted, but no-one would argue that Catholicism is not a religion on that basis. The cult of Lord Lao may have evolved later, as far as we know, but it, and the other Daoist, Buddhist and folk-cults have a long tradition, which is clearly religious. They co-exist with a philosophical Daoism, just as Christianity co-exists with an ethical vision of Christ's legacy that is largely uninterested in metaphysics.

Third, if you consider religion to include: cult of deity/divine figure, sacred texts, prayer, pilgrimage, offerings, which most scholars would take as the key features of a religion, it is abundantly clear that Buddhism and Daoism today have those features, and are, therefore, effectively religions. The same, holds true for Hinduism, among other forms of faith in India. One might note here that both India and China have Christian and Muslim populations (and have done so for a considerable period of time), which, in the case of China, are rapidly growing. Zakaria's claims are simply imbecilic on this point.

Posted by nj | May 16, 2008 9:22 AM

The Chinese are not Buddhists although Buddhism is tolerated there.

Many Chinese look down on Buddhism as trying to promote a state within a state (through tithing or the equivalent).

That was my impression when I visited there, at any rate.

Posted by harold | May 16, 2008 10:09 AM

"The Chinese are not Buddhists although Buddhism is tolerated there".

Er... so who are these non-Chinese state-building Buddhists in China that the Chinese tolerate?

Posted by maxim | May 16, 2008 10:15 AM

So Yglesias, there are no Muslims in Asia? I guess we're to assume from the divisions you make that there are no Muslims in China or India (patently false, especially for India), and that countries like Indonesia (largest Muslim population in the world) and Malaysia won't be important in the coming global power shift?

These east vs. west dichotomies are incredibly problematic.

Posted by really? | May 16, 2008 11:57 AM

maxim, they could be referring to Tibetan Buddhists. Otherwise I got nothing.

Posted by Persia | May 16, 2008 12:56 PM

Every major religion has the capacity to have intolerant nutcases who start holy wars, and pretty much every religion except Judaism actively seeks to convert more followers, leading it irrevocably into conflict with the others. Philosophically, the world's great religions may have distinctions which might be relevant in, say, neuroscience. Politically, however, they are interchangeable. Religion, nation, and ethnicity are all just tribal flags people like to wave so they can feel a sense of identity and safety in numbers. That's not a dig on religion or nationalism, or people for that matter. It's just a fact.

Posted by joeskeystothegame | May 16, 2008 3:12 PM

Buddhism's whole thrust is ethical rather than theological. Ditto for Confucianism. And Hinduism (which is also very theological) comes with a whole catalogue of moral strictures.

I'm probably too late answering, but I think you're forgetting stuff like meditation and nirvana or attainment, which seem to me the most distinctive or most emphasized features in Indian and Far Eastern religions compared to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That's what I meant by "spiritual", probably not the right word.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 16, 2008 5:04 PM

"you claim the author's original intent stops Daoism from being a religion."

I said nothing of the kind. What I SAID was that the original intent of the author (or authors - it's irrelevant how many were involved) was not to make a religion in the theistic sense of requiring worship. There is nothing in the Tao Te Ching which indicates any such interest, no matter what reasonable translation one prefers.

Go back and read my lengthy posts and stop putting words in my mouth.

"if you consider religion to include: cult of deity/divine figure, sacred texts, prayer, pilgrimage, offerings, which most scholars would take as the key features of a religion, it is abundantly clear that Buddhism and Daoism today have those features,"

What again is "abundantly clear" is that you didn't bother to read my posts AT ALL. I REPEATEDLY stated that I was not concerned with or commenting on the later development of Taoism as a religion, and I repeatedly acknowledged, even in the first post, that its adherents treated it as a religion. I also explicitly stated that in Wikipedia's broader definition of religion, one could certainly place Taoism as well as any other of what I call "spiritual philosophies".

Christ, none of these people can read plain English before they start spouting their "superior" take on the issue.

Try learning to read first - and then STFU.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 16, 2008 8:40 PM

"So, yes, one can argue over the exact wording and thus meaning of the texts. But if one is willing to say the meanings are entirely personal and thus essentially have no meaning other than the personal, then there is no point to the scholarship and interpretations at all. Ignore them.

But even that is irrelevant here. ALL of the translations and all of the translators and interpretors that I am aware of that are taken seriously by said scholars have never interpreted the texts to indicate that worship is a central tenet of Taoism. And without that, you have no religion, except, as I said, in the broadest sense - which is not the sense I was referring to."

1. No, if you assume that there is no static meaning in a text there is a lot that you can do in the way of scholarship to see the history of that understanding, the internal structure of the text, etc.

2. What translators, translations and interpretations are you referring to?

3. You read a copy of the Daodejing and see that it is clearly meant to be interpreted as an abstract philosophical treatise.

Someone in 5th century China reads the Daodejing and sees that it is clearly meant to be chanted as a liturgy for a ritual.

From what you're saying it seems like you would say that the former is an unbiased understanding of the text, whereas the latter is formed by cultural biases. I would say that they are both very shaped by their respective cultures and that neither achieves an 'objective' reading of the text.

4. Miller wrote that we have know knowledge of the Daodejing coming out of an organized religious movement. That is different than saying that we know that it didn't. And either way that does not mean that it was produced outside of a specific historical and cultural context far removed from our own. I am skeptical of the idea that there was, in Pre-Han China, a community that believed in the same post-Enlightenment ideas of rationality as we do. Thus, I am skeptical of modernist interpretations of the text that claim to represent the 'true' meaning in a historical sense.

Posted by justaguy | May 17, 2008 1:29 PM