A secular materialist bull in the China shop
Since the industrial revolution, to a certain extent, evil has been gradually denatured in which it becomes changed into something like acceptable, necessary evil in the examples of the Cold War, the destruction of the environment for the sake of the GDP and so on.
Along with evil's denaturing has been, in recent memory, also the denaturing of materialism so that it is allowed to enter the front door of Buddhism. As expected, mainstream Buddhists havent noticed that Buddhism, especially Western Buddhism, has embraced to a large degree features of secular materialism emphasizing that science and technology have given mankind the true picture of reality in addition to the instruments necessary to achieve the good life which religion has been unable to do.
Conspicuously absent, because of materialisms influence, Buddhisms strong mystical message of transcendence has been almost ignored. With this, a modern Buddhist no longer seeks the transcendent.
This is not a pretty picture. And anyone who says Buddhism is doing just fine, despite the somewhat obvious fact that Dharma centers no longer discuss Mind as absolute spirit or nirvana as immortality (amrita), needs to stop taking the blue pill (you remember the blue pill in the movie, The Matrix, right?). Yes, secular materialism has entered the temple like a bull a China shop.
On a happy note, I am glad to see Alan Wallace, who defends the transcendent in Buddhism, kick Stephen Batchelor's backsides, who is a secular materialist by any measure. Some bloggers, too, have joined Wallace by pointing out Batchelors Buddhism does not match at all the Buddhism found in the canon. What should be obvious from all of this is that Stephen Batchelor and his supporters wish to turn the Buddha into a secular materialist.
