On Thursday, February 13, 2003, at 01:23  AM, Daniel Pearlman wrote:

"we actually try to put these fine principles into
practice.  In principle, for example, we care about the Other and we
even
profess love for our fellows.  In no other region of the world except
the
West have such ideals ever been professed, and in fact they appear
laughable to every other culture on earth.  It is true that we betray
our
gods whenever it is necessary or expedient to do so, but our gods are
nevertheless nicer guys than others' gods."

In response, I'd like to quote a little slice of the Bodhicharyavatara,
by eighth century philosopher Shanitdeva:

"For all those ailing in the world,
Until their every sickness has been healed,
May I become for them
The doctor, nurse, medicine itself.

Raining down a flood of food and drink,
May I dispel the ills of thirst and famine.
And in the ages marked by scarcity and want,
May I myself appear as drink and sustenance.

For sentient beings, poor and destitute,
May I become a treasure ever plentiful, And lie before them closely in
their reach,
A varied source of all that they might need.

My body, thus, and all my goods besides,
And all my merits gained and to be gained,
I give them all away withholding nothing
To bring about the benefit of beings."    (- Ch. 3, 8-11)

I'm sure that little comment is required to convince anyone that the
drift of this passage contains just about as much concern for the Other
as any religion (or region) has heretofore mustered in the history of
mankind.

And, in this light, I submit that it is laughable to assume on purely
parochial grounds that "we" (whoever we includes, whoever's gods and
traditions it implies) "care about the Other and . . . even profess
love for our fellows" in some special secret ways that those Others
couldn't imagine on their own, much less understand or accept.  I would
suggest further that this "care for the Other" all too often doled out
abroad (I will assume that by "we" you meant something having to do
with the U.S., or even more amorphously, "the West") is mix of poorly
paid, labor intensive employment opportunities and dance radio
broadcasts installed as replacements for the news.  I have no idea what
history of the relationship between the West and its Others you could
possibly have in mind when you say what you do, and it sounds to me
like you take the benevolent empire a little too much at its word.

Whose gods are nevertheless nicer than whose gods?!?  What possible
sort of comparison are you hoping to make?  (And how would a god show
his omnipotent niceness anyway? -- the prophets of Ahab, praying all
day long, fail to convince Baal to send them a theme park -- and before
Ezekiel prays to his superiorily nice deity, he urges the wicked
prophets to make the land all about inhospitable, covering it in swamps
and stunted orange groves -- and lo, Ezekiel's god was so ultra nice
and so zippa-dee-do-dah-dang happily-ever-after so-glad-to-help that he
dropped the entire Orlando metro area down about Ezekiel, smiting the
wicked prophets with long lines for the rides and overpriced
cheeseburgers shaped like Mickey -- and Ezekiel sat back, having
conquered Florida, and felt pretty darn good about it.  Every day,
tourists of every kind, Brazilians and Japanese, Germans and Canadians,
and good decent American folks from all over this great land had a nice
place to take their kiddies, where they could steer clear of the
nastiness of gods with axes to grind.

"If we can dream it, we can do it." - W.D.

Anyway -
Jon