Every so often, I'm reminded of the absolute contempt that Westerners have for my religion, and today's example comes courtesy of American "science communicator" Hank Green.
Hank Green is an atheist, but he has vlogged before about how he values respectful discussion and respectful disagreement while discussing religion, at least for the Christian context of that vlog video.
His belief in the respectful discussion of religion apparently does not extend outside of Christian topics. In the following Bluesky post, he warns that he will be "100% intolerable" if you try to talk to him about past lives. "You can stop worrying about your past lives because they don't exist", he says.
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| Source: hankgreen.bsky.social on Bluesky |
Every so often, I'm reminded of the absolute contempt that Westerners have for my religion, and today's example comes courtesy of two British pseudo-intellectuals, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, who apparently cannot fathom the idea of people believing in a foreign religion.
In the following clip (that the YouTube algorithm thought I would like to see), Dominic wonders if the ancient Greeks really believed in their religion.
"It's the question that always puzzles you, even when you're a child. Do people who hear these stories genuinely believe that there are people on Mount Olympus who are throwing thunderbolts around, having affairs with each other, disguising themselves as showers of rain. They're not idiots. Do they really believe this?"
Tom basically replies no, though his precise words are "I don't think they thought in those terms". They both obviously think such stories are so ridiculous that an intelligent person could not believe them.
And if they think that about ancient Greek religion, you can be sure that they also think that about Hinduism and Buddhism. (Though I doubt they would say so in consideration of their ratings.) In Hinduism and Buddhism, we talk of the god Indra who lives on the peak of Mount Meru wielding a thunderbolt-weapon called the Vajra.
Tom wrote a book on how Christianity has shaped modern secular thought, and Dominic has a PhD from Jesus College, Cambridge, so I think it's safe to say they're familiar with what Christian religious belief is. Their puzzlement at the existence of religious belief seems to only apply to non-Christian religions.
I don't think their feelings are unusual in Britain. You can't build a British empire on respect for the beliefs of non-Christian people.
Freshii, a Canadian chain of health-oriented restaurants with over 100 location, doesn't respect my religion.
In April, they introduced a product called the "Buddha Satay bowl" which contains chicken, thus making it unsuitable for the majority of Buddhist diets.
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| Source: freshii on Instagram |
What is supposedly Buddhist about this product? Why does it have "Buddha", the title of our revered teacher(s), in its name? (And I'll take a moment to acknowledge that not all Buddhist traditions teach vegetarianism, but the largest ones do.)
For 20 years prior, Freshii had a different Buddha bowl that was vegetarian, and I always assumed that it was called "Buddha bowl" because it was suitable for Buddhist diets. But I don't see anything Buddhist about this new Buddha Satay bowl. (And for the record, satay comes from Indonesia, which is a Muslim country.)
What's next? Maybe a Vishnu Teriyaki Bowl that contains beef? Maybe a Mohammed Risotto Bowl that contains pork?
I wrote a very polite email to Freshii pointing out how disrespectful this was, and asking them to please change their menu. Within minutes I received a polite but dismissive reply, that I'm pretty sure was written with AI.
Now, I'm quite accustomed to people not respecting my religion, but never before have I seen such disrespect from a nation-wide corporate entity.
So, I don't know what else to do, but to let Buddhists know that they should avoid the Buddha bowls at Freshii, and to let people who believe in mutual respect for religion that Freshii is not an organization that they should support.
