BROOKS: FUCK BUDDHISM

David Brooks compares the faith-inspired works of Mel Gibson (The Passion) and author Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven):

I worry about Albom more, because while religious dogmatism is always a danger, it is less of a problem for us today than the soft-core spirituality that is its opposite. As any tour around the TV dial will make abundantly clear, we do not live in Mel Gibson's fire-and-brimstone universe. Instead, we live in a psychobabble nation. We've got more to fear from the easygoing narcissism that is so much part of the atmosphere nobody even thinks to protest or get angry about it. (italics mine)

I just choked on my V-chip. Sure, there are the daytime talkshows and such to which Brooks is referring, but has he been keeping tabs on news and movies lately? Shock! Awe! Janet's boob!

Anyway, I need to get you far enough into Brooks' column to understand my headline...

All societies construct their own images of heaven. Most imagine a wondrous city or a verdant garden where human beings come face to face with God. But the heaven that is apparently popular with readers these days is nothing more than an excellent therapy session. In Albom's book, God, to the extent that he exists there, is sort of a genial Dr. Phil. When you go to his heaven, friends and helpers come and tell you how innately wonderful you are. They help you reach closure.

In this heaven, God and his glory are not the center of attention. It's all about you.

Here, sins are not washed away. Instead, hurt is washed away. The language of good and evil is replaced by the language of trauma and recovery. There is no vice and virtue, no moral framework to locate the individual within the cosmic infinity of the universe. Instead there are just the right emotions — Do you feel good about yourself? — buttressed by an endless string of vague bromides about how special each person is, and how much we are all mystically connected in the flowing river of life.

There's a bit of code-ery at work here. "Hurt"... suffering! "Right emotions"... the eight-fold path! A religion just isn't a religion without righteous dogma about sin and damnation and such, huh David.

Also, I don't know what movie Brooks saw:

Reading "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" is a sad experience because it conjures up a mass of people who, like its hero, feel lonely and unimportant. But instead of offering them the rich moral framework of organized religion or rigorous philosophy, instead of reminding them of the tough-minded exemplars of the Bible and history, books like Albom's throw the seekers remorselessly back upon themselves.

Uh, David? The only "frameworks" to be found in The Passion were the various pieces of wood to which James Caviezel was attached when he had his skin removed, his ribs exposed, and his hands nailed.