Grr.

[chipotle]

The good folks in Texas have decided that
Unitarian Universalism is not a religion because it "does not have one system of belief." The state comptroller's office denied them tax-exempt status, and says for any organization to qualify as a religion, members must have "a belief in God, gods, or a higher power."

Now, I'll grant that UU is an unconventional religion -- being less about the destination than about the path (which is, I submit, what attracts people to it) -- but it has a long deist history, not to mention a close association with several of America's founders. And what about Buddhism, which isn't a theistic religion at all? Do we deny it religious status as well?

While it's easy to wonder why this is coming up now in particular, the more concretely disturbing issue is summed up in a brief excerpt from the Star-Telegram article that reported on this: "What constitutes religion? When and how should government make that determination? Questions that for years have vexed the world's great philosophers have now become the province of the state comptroller's office."

So when did the idea of separation of church and state fall so far out of favor? The country was undeniably founded on Christian principles, but it was explicitly not founded as a Christian state. Anybody else remember that? That was the specific intent of many of those founders -- people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, Unitarians or Universalists all. (From the very beginning, they were the denominations of "freethinkers" -- deist and, in most ways, Christian, but always willing to question authority, even seemingly divine authority. The actual doctrines that both unitarianism and universalism name are, by canonical Christian doctrine, heretical.)

Quite frankly, I'm not sure how many of them would have approved of the idea of a tax-exempt status for any religion. (Ethan Allen, who UUs claim but who had little use for anything resembling organized religion, surely wouldn't have.) Yet I can't help suspect they'd be uncomfortable with how Texas is drawing the line.

Comments

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

You are talking about the disbursement of taxes, which has everything to do with the government and what the people of a given state wish to do with that money, not the establishment clause in the Constitution, which is there for a very different purpose indeed (to prevent the establishment of a specific, state religion, to counter the notion of English religious dictate which rather peeved off the Puritans). To confuse the two issues, one very pragmatic and concerned with state politics and money, and the other of the mind of the framers, will never yield a conclusion of any sense whatsoever.

And Buddhism is considered by its own followers to be a philosophy, not a religion.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

No, in fact, I'm not talking about the disbursement of taxes. I'm talking about the collection of taxes. This is not a question of who the state gives collected tax money to, it's a question of who is exempt from paying tax. And the reason this is raising eyebrows is chiefly because the case was specifically making a "litmus test" out of theism.

According to the Drepung Loseling Institute for Tibetan Buddhist Studies, "To the approximately 300 million practitioners worldwide, Buddhism is considered their religion. Like all major religions Buddhism contains an explantion of the origin of existence, a morality, and a specific set of rituals and behaviors." With all due respect, I am inclined to give the Buddhists more weight on this question.

[elusivetiger.livejournal.com]

Disbursement/collection, money. It's still a state matter and has nothing I can see to do with the establishment clause of the Constitution, the only basis anyone has ever claimed for a "separation of church and state".

And I've known several Buddhists, and my wife took a class taught by one last semester. Funny, they all call it a "philosophy".

[rancourt.livejournal.com]

Suffice it to say, my father spent the better part of my childhood attending service at the Zen monastery in Tremper, New York. In addition to attending session, he joined the order as a practicing Rinzai monk. I think he would find this question nothing short of hilarious. Buddhism is beyond a doubt a religion, and if this can be recognized in the cool and philosophical stylings of Rinzai Zen, surely it can't be missed in the loudly festive celebrations of the mainstream Mahayana sects, with prayer wheels, high holidays, and immense, ornate temples to the glorious and myriad incarnations of the Buddha?

I'm utterly with you here, and amazed anyone would argue otherwise.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

That truly is odd, because my Buddhist teacher (who is a Buddhist) did say that Buddhism is a philosophy, which explains why it is practiced so differently across sects: it absorbed the gods of the region and placed them within the framework of Buddhism.

There are several different schools of Buddhism which vary in their asceticism and their philosophical stance. The original form of Buddhism, Theravada, is extremely philosophical. It wasn't until it moved eastward, to China that Mahayana started making Buddhism more like a religion, which finally solidifed in Tibet.

Not all Buddhism is a religion. If you examine its Theravadan tenets, it sort of fails some of the important litmus tests of religion. :)