Religion Looks More Like a Pyramid Scheme, and Pyramid Schemes Look More Like Religion

Religions always go further and further off course as they develop.

Today, China's various religious organizations increasingly resemble pyramid schemes. And pyramid scheme organizations increasingly resemble religions. In an age when many people have empty souls, religion and pyramid schemes slip in to seize souls and empty wallets. Religious lecturers and pyramid scheme lecturers both persuasively draw recruits into their organizations; many, after brainwashing, abandon their families to follow masters in great causes.

Many religious believers, like pyramid scheme members, have fallen into a pit and been fooled themselves, yet want others to be fooled too. Some, after becoming superstitious, desperately try to persuade those around them to join. Above all, almost every religion in China is touted as able to cure disease; in cancer circles, many believe that chanting sutras can cure their cancer. Some extremely superstitious people reject hospitals entirely and rely on chanting alone.

I do not oppose learning wisdom from religion; I have always done so, and critically inheriting its essence is one of my lifelong hobbies. But I truly do not believe that the essence of religious doctrine is any unsurpassed, supreme truth; at most it is a few philosophical commonplaces, and some of its insights are not even particularly lofty.

To be honest, those arrogant types who believe their own religion's doctrine is supreme simply have too little exposure to literature, history, and philosophy. Out of shallow ignorance, they are conceited.

Chinese religion is a giant trash can, filth-ridden and full of garbage. So religious believers carry a lot of intellectual garbage in their heads, yet they self-righteously and overambitiously want to teach others with it. Relying on their numbers, they allow no one to criticize them—slave mentality, authoritarian heart, utterly ridiculous.

On the Chinese internet, religious believers spouting all kinds of absurdities are countless. If you criticize what they spread as false and disgusting, they claim that as worldly people you cannot understand the transcendental dharma of otherworldly beings.

If you are otherworldly, why are you so eager in the world? It is nothing but: building temples costs money, eating costs money, clothing costs money, medical care costs money, and you are unwilling to work, so you develop worldly followers to support you and solve your food, clothing, housing, and transport. What else could it be?

Many brainwashed religious believers are no different from pyramid scheme members; their brains are simply broken, no longer capable of independent thought. They have become pious dharma-protectors who routinely mob and curse anyone who criticizes religion. You certainly have the freedom to believe, but the public has the freedom to criticize the absurd doctrines you spread in society; this freedom of speech is guaranteed by law. Do not try to frighten people with talk of hell or retribution; to non-believers, your whole routine is both laughable and shameless.

As for demanding respect for your beliefs—you spread all kinds of gods and ghosts that we atheists reject. Is that not disrespecting our beliefs? You routinely curse and look down on heathens, calling them external-path demons—is that not offending their beliefs? You theists sneer at atheists' moral character, positioning yourselves on a moral high ground—is that not arrogance and offense?

I have not seen atheists with particularly poor morals. Through the dynasties, the heroes and martyrs who saved the people from deep suffering were mostly atheists. On the other hand, in times of national crisis, most theist religious believers hid in temples chanting sutras to avoid war, while not forgetting to reach out to followers for food and drink—lazy, cowardly, and yet styling themselves moral masters.

In Western religious countries, there has never been a shortage of critics of religion and promoters of religious liberation; Western society advanced through such criticism. In the West, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which mocks Christianity and other religions, has been popular among netizens and grown rapidly, now with global influence. This dark-humored church exposes religious lies; it is much to my taste, and I recommend those critical of religion look it up on Baidu.

Buddhists love sophistry. In an age of Buddhist scandals everywhere, they routinely ask people to focus on Buddhism's bright side rather than its dark side, which is nothing but inability to face their own ugliness, wanting only praise and fearing criticism—afraid of losing income.

They say that whoever sees darkness in others has darkness in their own heart. But if you judge others' hearts as dark, are you not seeing darkness in them? By your own fallacious logic, is your own heart not dark? Sophistry is something everyone can do; I simply cannot be bothered to waste time with you idle fellows.

My grandmother was a devout and superstitious Buddhist. When I was small, she often hosted monks and made offerings at home, so from my earliest memory I was in constant contact with her fellow monks and Dharma friends. There were a few Buddhist believers in the village, led by my grandmother and an old lady next door; all the monk-feeding activities were organized by them.

The old lady next door devoted her whole life to pious Buddhism and vegetarianism, and her end was truly miserable: her family was ruined and she herself drowned. According to Buddhist theory, this was because her past-life karma had not been exhausted. With a crowd of sophists, everything will always be their way.

My father deeply disliked Buddhists. Every time my grandmother brought home new fellow monks and Dharma friends, he would fly into a rage—sometimes roaring orders to leave, sometimes directly calling Buddhists ignorant. His mildest attitude was contemptuous.

As a child I did not fully understand my father and thought him overly irritable. Now I understand some of it. Though I do not endorse his rude behavior, I think his values were correct. Because after my own contact with religious believers, what I saw most was inconsistency between words and deeds—outwardly compassionate, inwardly vengeful; lacking responsibility, greedy and cowardly; foul-mouthed while claiming to cultivate goodness. Chinese religion's capacity for filth is extraordinary.

Master Taixu greatly hoped to reform Chinese Buddhism, to set its internal chaos in order and purify its corruption. Unfortunately, this goal was not easily realized. Master Hongyi spent his life promoting the Vinaya school, also pained by the inconsistency between Chinese Buddhists' words and deeds, the failure of practice to match awareness. After becoming a monk for a time, Hongyi even felt that religious life was less pure than secular life and wanted to return to lay life. Master Yinguang felt this deeply too; in his collected writings he explicitly noted that today's monastics would do better to practice at home.

These were truly conscientious Buddhist masters who saw the real harm of Buddhism in the world. They could see, with pain, Buddhism's harm to humanity, and faced it truthfully rather than arguing through sophistry. Chinese Buddhists today mostly can only sophistically argue, frivolous and unprincipled, relying on verbal cleverness and heartless toward real suffering—nothing but numb, self-righteous fake believers.

Economist Zhou Qiren named his blog Real-World Economics. I love that name. I have sincere respect for people who focus on the real world; they will not use spiritual victory methods to ignore what actually happens. All conscience is built first on honesty; without honesty, a person is not worth talking to.

Over a hundred years later, religious circles in today's China are not purified but more turbid. When Master Taixu was alive, he greatly hoped to change Buddhism from a religion of ghosts and gods back into a religion of humans, and to make the achievement of human character the ultimate pursuit of Buddhism.

But this beautiful wish has obviously not been realized. Though most temples today fly the banner of Master Taixu's Humanistic Buddhism, this banner is merely a recruiting pitch; after luring believers in by various means, the Buddhism propagated in the temples remains the Buddhism of ghosts and supernatural powers.

Almost every Buddhist laments the arrival of the Dharma-ending Age while self-importantly considering themselves disciples of the true Dharma. Let me be clear: I am not a disciple of the true Dharma, nor a Buddhist believer. In the Dharma-ending Age, when there is not even one true-Dharma teacher, where do true-Dharma disciples come from?

Those who routinely curse people who critique Buddhism, on one hand touting Buddhism's compassion and universal tolerance, on the other gnashing their teeth and cursing critics to hell—they are slapping their own faces. The essence of Buddhism as I understand it is entirely different from this fake version.

Take a piss and look at yourselves: can you avoid the ten evils (three of body: killing, stealing, lust; four of speech: divisive talk, harsh speech, false speech, sensual speech; three of mind: envy, malice, delusion)? Can you keep precepts and forbear insult? If not, don't talk about true-Dharma disciples and faith.

Having observed Chinese religion (I mention only Buddhism, but Buddhism is not alone) for over thirty years, my personal feeling is that religious circles today are the largest pyramid scheme. I have always spoken my mind; if you see what I dislike and are outraged, vent, curse, threaten, hate me, or sneer—I do not care.

Only, before you leave your abusive comments, take a piss and look at your own faces. I despise from the bottom of my heart people who are inconsistent, hypocritical, affected, and self-deceiving. What a person says is worth squat. If you actually sat down to debate book learning, who would be worse at it than whom? The key is whether you can do it.