Pick your potion, Dalai Lama and Pope Francis edition

If you only like religious leaders who agree with what you already think, what do you need them for?

Sometimes people cheer for statements by religious leaders like sports teams: Yay when they agree with you, boo when they don’t. So what’s the leader for? When was the last time a religious leader made you change your mind about a core moral issue?

That feeling when you realize the Dalai Lama really thinks a female Dalai Lama would be “not much use” if she weren’t attractive.

The BBC has an interview up with the Dalai Lama, which focuses on the refugee crisis and other issues. Such as the gender of the next Dalai Lama. Starting at 4:52 of the video:

Reporter, Clive Myrie: Is there going to a 15th incarnation of the Dalai Lama?

Dalai Lama: The very institution of the Dalai Lama should continue, or not, up to the Tibetan people.

CM: So the people will decide. Could it be a woman?

DL: Yes! One occasion in Paris, one woman’s magazine, one reporter, come to see me, I think more than 15 years ago. She asked me, any possibility female Dalai Lama. I mentioned, why not? The female, has biologically more potential to show affection…

CM: And compassion…

DL: Yes, compassion. Therefore, you see now, today’s world, lot of trouble, troubled world, I think female should take more important role. And then, I told that reporter, if female Dalai Lama come, her face must be — should be — very attractive. [Laughs]

CM: [Laughs] Oh well. So you can only have a female Dalai Lama if they’re attractive. Is that what you’re saying? You can’t have…

DL: I mean, if female Dalai Lama come, that female…

DM: …will be…

DL: …must be…

DM: …must be very attractive. It’s just gonna…

DL: Otherwise, not much use.

DM: Really?!

DL: I think some people — my face…

DM: You’re joking, I’m assuming. Oh, you’re not joking.

DL: Oh? I mean, true!

Cut.

All over right now there are conservative Catholics who are unhappy because the Pope is not saying the things that they already believe. Like the Federalist Staff, who are upset that:

During his remarks [to Congress], which were regularly interrupted by rounds of applause from the assembled lawmakers, Pope Francis condemned the death penalty, called for better environmental stewardship, and even talked about the ills of political polarization. He did not, however, mention Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection form the very foundation of the Christian faith.

Apparently, Francis’s faith in Jesus is not to be taken for granted. (Personally, I find it polite it when religious leaders from religions to which I don’t belong, when speaking in state-sponsored settings before audiences that include non-followers, don’t invoke their own gods.)

Some religious people (but not only them, of course) use their religion to prop up unsupported empirical assertions. Michael Strain, from the American Enterprise Institute, for example, recently wrote, “we must begin with the understanding that each of us is called to love God and to love others.” Beginning with an understanding — rather than coming to an understanding on the basis of evidence — is one hallmark of faith over reason. But what Strain really has faith in is free markets — which to him are the one-variable empirical solution:

free enterprise dramatically reduces extreme poverty. In 1970, over one-quarter of the world lived on less than one dollar per day. By 2006, about one in 20 people lived in extreme poverty — an 80 percent reduction. We have the adoption of free markets across the developing world to thank for this massive reduction.*

For Strain, His Holiness’s appreciation for this single-variable view of history is disappointing: “The effect of liberalizing markets on extreme poverty and the good this does for families is a fact I wish the Holy Father discussed more often.” Strain seems to prefer Pope John Paul II, who wrote that “Man is the image of God partly through the mandate received from his Creator to subdue, to dominate, the earth.” That mandate, for example, apparently includes the mandate to reform disability insurance to make more disabled people work.

This is not allegiance to religious leadership, but rather the political business of cheering for the expression of views one already holds. (For example, I like it when powerful people say good things about sociology — not because it makes me believe them, but because it’s a point for our side.)

Having a pope speak against their views must be especially disheartening to the people who specifically chose to be Catholic because they thought the Catholic church would tell them (and their neighbors) to believe what they already believe.

As an atheist, I find some of this mystifying. However, I do appreciate the way people use religion to provide institutional support to values they support (especially when I support those values, too). That’s just building a social infrastructure to satisfy collective needs. (And yes, I know that the values I hold are partly the result of religious influence on me and those who taught me right from wrong. But citing religion isn’t the same as having faith in it.)

What I find even more mystifying is religious authority. And especially people going out of their way — like changing religions — to follow a religious authority. This seems sad to me; it’s an affirmation of one’s impotence. But odder still is people complaining about the views expressed by the religious authorities they choose to follow. I guess it’s like being misled by a movie preview and finding yourself stuck in the kind of movie you hate. You’ve already bought the ticket, and now you’re sitting there. Grr.

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* That link Strain uses is to an NBER paper that seems to be an outlier in poverty analysis. The World Bank had 13.5% of people living at under $1 per day in 2008 (you can see various estimates here), but they prefer a measure of $1.25 per day, by which 22% of people were that poor in 2008.