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The Dalai Lama has told his Facebook followers that “religion is no longer adequate” to satisfy all the ills of the world.
The Tibetan Buddhist leader, who has 4.3 million Facebook fans, posted this status update on Monday last:
“All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”
The post got over 4, 770 comments, and over 53,920 shares.
Because the Dalai Lama, 77, is one of the world’s most recognizable religious figures, his words got others talking — and questioning his intent.
The religious leader was commenting on a quote he published last year, in which he wrote: “Any religion-based answer to the problem of our neglect of inner values can never be universal, and so will be inadequate. What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.”
Rather than denouncing faith, the religious leader is highlighting the need for a universally shared ethos that is rooted in compassion and is relevant to the modern age, the LA Times said in reviewing the book.
Recently, CathNews reported that in comparison to the Dalai Lama, Pope Benedict was in a “Digital Difficulty” as results from a published study showed the Dalai Lama had a “balanced” image whereas the descriptions of Pope Benedict were “emotional and negative”.
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