My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

I guess every religion needs to proselytize, but Buddhism isn’t the first religion to spring to mind when one pictures evangelicalism. I’ve been surprised to see it in Taiwan. There are billboards promoting the teachings of particular Buddhist monks. In Yilan’s train station, there is a television mounted on the wall, showing propaganda against meat. The program that runs constantly seems to be promoting vegetarianism. It shows the cruelty of keeping food animals in confinement, and links eating meat to the destruction of the environment.  The argument is that raising food animals requires resources like water and grain, and thus meat has a much higher environmental impact than raising vegetables. There’s probably some truth to that, but the program is over the top. Linking a hamburger to typhoon Morakot stretches credulity.

There is also a Buddhist television station here. Most of the programming is harmless, but the news programs are slanted towards the impact on local policy that Buddhism has, and promoting the Buddhist agenda. Generally, the Buddhist agenda is harmless on the surface. I have a great deal of respect for Buddhism, especially for the charity work that they do. These news reports aren’t objective, though, and the agenda is easily visible to the observer.

What really bothers me about the evangelicalism is the propaganda trucks. This morning I was assaulted by a pickup truck with a megaphone mounted on the top, shouting out the evils of meat and the glories of vegetarianism. In fact, I like to eat vegetarian food when it’s available, and I agree that eating less meat is healthier and probably easier on the environment. Again, I have little objection to the agenda. It’s the proselytizing that rubs me the wrong way. I think that if eating vegetarian food is really as good as that, that people will do it on their own.

Religion should not be promoted as if it were a soft drink or a cell phone.