Tonight, a member at newbuddhist.com posted a 2003 article from Slate by John Horgan called "Why I ditched Buddhism" (which was originally titled, "Why I Can't Embrace Buddhism"). The article itself is basically a critique of Buddhism as a whole, although most of the examples Horgan uses stem from the Tibetan and Zen traditions.
Reading it, a couple of points immediately come to mind. The first is that a belief in postmortem rebirth needn't be faith-based (which, incidentally, holds true for belief in God): it can arise out of personal experiences, such as from the occurrence of past-life memories; it can arise out of anecdotal evidence (e.g., the research of Ian Stevenson); it can arise out of reason (i.e., the concept of rebirth isn't illogical, it simply relies on premises that strict materialists reject); etc.
More importantly, I'd argue that Horgan mischaracterizes rebirth as the belief in a transmigrating soul rather than how it's actually presented in the Suttas and understood by Theravada, which is a process whereby one moment of dependently arisen consciousness conditions the arising of the next, a process that doesn't necessarily cease at death. But whether one takes a literal or non-literal approach, rebirth is simply the continuation of a process — nothing 'remains,' nothing 'transmigrates,' etc. — there are merely phenomena that condition other phenomena in the interdependent process we call life.
The next point is that Horgan's treatment of kamma as "the law of moral cause and effect" which, with rebirth, implies "the existence of some cosmic judge who, like Santa Claus, tallies up our naughtiness and niceness before rewarding us with rebirth as a cockroach or as a saintly lama" is overly simplistic.
The basic premise behind kamma is that there's a cause and effect relationship between our actions and how they're experienced. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it, "It's simply the fact of action—you do something unskillful, it's going to come back in an unpleasant way." In the same way, if you do something skillful, it's going to come back and be experienced in a pleasant way. This idea lies at the heart of Buddhist virtue ethics.
In the Suttas, the Buddha defines kamma as intentional actions of body, speech and mind (AN 6.63) that have the potential to produce certain results, which, in turn, have the potential to produce pleasant, painful or neutral feelings (AN 4.235). The word itself simply means 'action.'
Pragmatically speaking, actions are deemed 'unskillful' (akusala) if they lead to to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both. Actions that don't lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both are deemed 'skillful' (kusala) (MN 61). Therefore, the distinction between skillful and unskillful actions is based upon how their results are experienced—not only by ourselves, but by others as well. (This emphasis on the consequential aspect of actions is similar to Jeremy Bentham's teleological utilitarianism, with John Stuart Mill's idea of higher and lower happiness being similar to the Buddha's distinction between long-term and short-term welfare and happiness.)
Psychologically speaking, however, the quality of the intentions behind the actions is what ultimately determines whether they're unskillful or skillful. (This aspect is closer to Kant's deontological categorical imperative when combined with the Buddhist principle of ahimsa or harmlessness.) Intentional actions rooted in greed, hatred or delusion produce painful mental feelings "like those of the beings in hell," while intentional actions rooted in non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion produce the opposite ("like those of the Beautiful Black Devas"). Then there are acts rooted in both that bring mixed results "like those of human beings, some devas, and some beings in the lower realms" (AN 4.235).
By bringing kamma to an end, however, the mind is said to become free from agitation, leaving only moral perfection behind (AN 9.7). As St. Maximus writes in Opuscula theologica et polemica, from a complimentary Christian perspective, "A perfect nature has no need of choice, for it knows naturally what is good. Its freedom is based on this knowledge."
Essentially, Buddhist ethics focuses on the moral character of the individual, and revolves around seeing our desires for happiness and freedom from pain in all living creatures. If we don't respect that in them, how can we ever expect the same? This is especially true regarding human beings. Here I agree with the Buddha that, besides some rare and special cases, there's no one that's as dear to us as ourselves, that all beings essentially want to be happy in their own way (according to their specific capacities), and that it's a fairly decent and logical reason to desire their happiness as well as our own (SN 3.8).
The reason is simple. If our happiness comes at the expense of their happiness, they'll do everything in their power to upset that happiness. Conversely, if they were to infringe upon ours, wouldn't it follow that we'd do everything in our power to upset theirs? It seems like a vicious circle to me, and one of the ways to break this circle is an ethical framework that takes the happiness of others into consideration, which encourages the development of things like generosity and the four brahma-viharas: unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity.
But regardless of what one thinks about the idea of kamma itself, I think the way it's presented in the Suttas clearly contradicts Horgan's assertion that Buddhism as a whole teaches us to view others as unreal and, by consequence, nullifies his conjecture that, "To someone who sees himself and others as unreal, human suffering and death may appear laughably trivial." Buddhist morality takes great pains to recognize the happiness and suffering of others, and to promote the former while preventing the latter.
Another point is that the practice of meditation has been demonstrated to help to reduce anxiety and lower blood pressure, among other things. It can also help to make one more empathetic. So I think dismissing meditation so quickly, especially without further elaboration, is a bit hasty. In addition, I believe that more research needs to be done in this area to make any conclusive statements as to what meditation can and can't do. Neuroscience is a relatively young field, after all.
Besides that, I also think he mischaracterizes anatta as nonexistence, which is another big mistake, in my opinion. Selfless ≠ nonexistent. The teachings on not-self aren't merely assertions that we have no self; they're a method for deconstructing our false perceptions about reality, as well as an important tool in removing the vast net of clinging that gives rise to suffering. By equating anatta with nonexistence, he's grasping the snake by the tail, as the Buddha would say.
In the simplest of terms, the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant is stressful, and whatever is stressful is not-self—with the goal being to essentially take this [analytical] knowledge, along with a specific set of practices such as meditation, as a stepping stone to what I can only describe as a profound psychological event that radically changes the way the mind relates to experience.
That doesn't mean, however, that the teachings on not-self are understood to deny individuality (MN 22) or imply that the conventional person doesn't exist (SN 22.22). They merely break down the conceptual idea of a self — i.e., that which is satisfactory, permanent and completely subject to our control — in relation to the various aspects of our experience that we falsely cling to as 'me' or 'mine' (SN 22.59). Moreover, Horgan appears to contradict himself when he says that Buddhism "holds that after death our souls are re-instantiated in new bodies," but then later criticizes the idea of anatta as nonexistence. Either Buddhism is inconsistent on this matter, or Horgan is. My money is on the latter.
As for the rest, I don't really have the time nor the inclination to go into it in detail, but I do think Horgan tries to make some good points. Nevertheless, I think his points are mostly built upon rather spurious assumptions and more aimed at knocking down straw men than anything else. For example, the idea that Buddhism stems from "our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit" is simply an assumption, and Horgan offers nothing to back it up. The Buddha certainly never said that we're here for a reason.
All in all, I find Horgan's article more of an emotional ad hominem than a solid critique of Buddhism. That said, I think it's a good start, but it definitely needs a lot more work if it's to be taken as a serious critique of Buddhism.
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