A couple of links. Kill the Buddha started as an Internet project and turned into a book. I have heard the authors interviewed on the radio. Their project sounds different from the conventional posturing of people who want to be “spiritual” without being “religious”, although that seems to be their starting point. One of the KtB writers has gone on to launch The Revealor, an Internet survey of religious writing.
Some of the articles on the Kill the Buddha page seem to engage in introspective and emotional wandering and to celebrate the personal. The modern spirituality industry, like the gurus and fakirs of the last few hundred years, is taking the Romantic myths of intuition and freedom and building them into the idea that a personally discovered spirituality is better than religion. The enterprize of finding your own spiritual truths seems to me to become a self-serving enterprize of rejecting other people’s rules, insights and wisdom. It seems to me to come with a sense of entitlement, as if we have the right to choose or create a belief system that is entertaining and fulfilling. It has the character of cheap grace – the idea that you can be saved by good thoughts, good intentions and self-esteem.
However other stories on these sites take a harder look at morality and beliefs and the struggle to be good.
Leave a Reply