Friendly invitation to a truth-oriented debate (#vāda), for which we will be allowed to use only rational arguments and not our personal dislikes or likes unless we can give reasons for them:
Suppose that some members of religion X (say, Zen Buddhism) misbehave,
1/
Suppose that some members of religion X (say, Zen Buddhism) misbehave,
1/
e.g., because of sexual assaults to people who trusted them in a religious way. We would surely condemn them. And we would be right. But we would be wrong if we did not condemn the same behaviour in our religion (say, Greek Christian orthodoxy), correct? #TheologicalDebates
2/
2/
Please note that we are talking of behaviours that are *not* part of what the religion in question teaches (I will discuss later the case of behaviours prescribed by the religion itself).
Assuming that we agree about the above, let us move on.
3/
Assuming that we agree about the above, let us move on.
3/
We also agree that condemning the whole of Zen Buddhism because of the behaviour of some people within this religion *while at the same time* insisting that this is not done for our religion would be wrong. Don't we? 4/
Can we agree about it in general or do we think that it is a question of numbers (e.g., if there are more than n people misbehaving in Zen Buddhism, then the whole religion should be condemned)? I am sceptical about numbers, because it is hard to have reliable numbers 5/
and because of the paradox of the heap (aka "Sorites paradox").
Can we now generalize it into "You should not condemn the whole of religion X for the behaviour of some of its members unless you would be able to do the same for your own religion"? 6/
Can we now generalize it into "You should not condemn the whole of religion X for the behaviour of some of its members unless you would be able to do the same for your own religion"? 6/
It seems that we all agree so far. Let's examine more complex scenarios. For instance, what about the case (pointed out below) of a misbehaviour which is not rāgaprāpta (based on the desires/instincts/nature…) of the misbehaving person but vidhiprāpta? 7/
https://twitter.com/Ravilochanan86/status/1388316402784686080?s=20
In other words, what about the case of a misbehaviour based on something the religion itself says? Should not the religion as a whole be blamed in this case? Obvious answer: Yes! If a religion tells us to kill children, we should condemn it! 8/
However, let's go into more details & imagine more realistic scenarios (after all, no religion "tells" to kill innocent children) through the method of vikalpa (postulating alternatives). 1. Is the religion as a whole telling one to do X (immoral act, such as killing children)?9/
Or 2. are just some exponents of it? If 2. is the case, have they been 3. endorsed by all other members of the religion in question? 4. condemned? 5. ignored? In the case of 4. I think that we should all agree that only these despicable preachers should be condemned, right? 10/
For the sake of the argument, let's not question abt the immorality of the behaviour discussed (that's why I spoke of "killing children", sth we would have all agreed to be immoral), in order to minimize the number of variables we need to consider 11/
https://twitter.com/pranesh/status/1388532140409716741?s=20
As for the second point raised here, namely that one could condemn a religion bc of the immoral behaviour of some, even if most ppl within the religion condemn it, I am sceptical, bc of the reasons mentioned above in the thread (tweets 5&6) 12/
https://twitter.com/pranesh/status/1388532140409716741?s=20
On the one hand bc it's hard to determine the number of ppl enough to discredit a whole religion and/or their degree of "influence", on the other hand bc it's dangerous: Would it not lead us to discredit EACH religion? Which religion does not have any "bad apple"? 13/
I, for one, am not ready/willing to neither condemn each religion for the behaviour of a few of its exponents nor to decide to give up objectivity and decide that, e.g., 1% ppl are enough to condemn another religion, but not for "mine". Are you? (thanks to @pranesh for the R) 14/
@pranesh So, let's assume that we agree that in the case of 3 (bad behaviour of some, encouraged by all others), the whole religion should be condemned and that in the case of 4 (bad behaviour of some, condemned by all others), the whole religion should be condemned. This brings us to 15/
the case 5., which is by far the most common one (some might condemn, some might endorse, most people ignore the bad behaviour or do not express any opinion about it). The first problem here: what are the precincts of accountability? Can we expect a Theravāda nun 16/
in Śrī Laṅkā to condemn the misbehaviour of a Zen Buddhist teacher in California? I would imagine that the former might not know or not care about the latter, and understandingly so. Do we agree? This leads us to restrict accountability to a) a subfield within a 17/
so-called "world religion" (e.g., Soka Gakkai, NOT "Buddhism") and b) a community. Do we agree so far? 18/
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