On Jesus and Buddhism and eschatology
There are some excellent things in parts of God is not Great*. I thought I would give you a sample.
Pp. 175-6:
…it is only in the reported observations of Jesus that we find any mention of hell and eternal punishment. The god of Moses would brusquely call for other tribes, including his favourite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead…[T]he son of god is revealed as one who, if his milder words are not accepted straightaway, will condemn the inattentive to everlasting fire. This has provided texts for clerical sadists ever since, and features very lip-smackingly in the tirades of Islam.
Pp. 203-4:
It ought to be possible for me to pursue my studies and researches in one house, and for the Buddhist to spin his wheel in another. But contempt for the intellect has a strange way of not being passive…[T]hose whose credulity has led their own society into stagnation may seek a solution, not in true self-examination, but in blaming others for their backwardness…A faith that despises the mind and the free individual, that preaches submission and resignation, is ill-equipped for self-criticism.
Page 282:
Religion even boasts a special branch of itself, devoted to the study of the end. It calls itself ‘eschatology,’ and broods incessantly on the passing away of all earthly things. This death cult refuses to abate, even though we have every reason to think that ‘eartlhly things’ are all that we have, or are ever going to have.
Worth at least a selective read.
*There are parts where I disagree with Hitchens, and other parts I haven’t read yet because they look to be familiar territory.
That first quote is almost exactly the same as something I remember from one of Robert Ingersoll’s speeches.
“Religion even boasts a special branch of itself, devoted to the study of the end. It calls itself ‘eschatology,’ and broods incessantly on the passing away of all earthly things”
It sure does! All three major monotheistic religions have teachings regarding the end-times.
Eschatology Comparison A Muslim, Jewish, and Christian comparison of beliefs and prophecy.
contenderministries.org/prophecy/eschatology.php
Reveals some of the similarities and differences in the eschatological prophecies of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Eschatology also gives one a broad overview of this vast subject.
From an RC perspective. Joseph Ratzinger’s, [the present Pope] Eschatology book [which was written in 1988] still remains internationally recognised as a leading text on the “last things”–heaven and hell, purgatory and judgment, death and the immortality of the soul.
Valhalla/Niflheim and Ragnarok were always my favourites.
:-)
Irrelevantly but charmingly, I noticed the other day that Spanish is incapable of distinguishing between eschatological and scatological remarks.
Funny, but true. Context is everything here.
Not really correct for Hitchens to lump Buddhism in with the monotheisms here, but even today Buddhism is generally misunderstood in this part of the world. Yes, it harps a lot on the “passing away” of things (also the arising of things, by the way), but not at all the way Christianity does.
Jon, but Hitchens doesn’t lump Buddhism in with the monotheisms. The quoted passage about Buddhism is about Buddhism, not the monotheisms. The passage about eschatology is 80 pages farther on.
…actually, i think buddhism is often misunderstood in that part of the world too. :)
He seems to connect Buddhism with “contempt for the intellect.” This is a common view of Buddhism, especially of the Zen variety, with its emphasis on apparently irrational paradoxes. But it’s not correct, for reasons to involved to go into here. But there are a lot of books now available in English that do explain it. Obviously, Hitch hasn’t read any of them.
And outeast, it is true that it is misunderstood in “that part” too; it’s very hard to understand.