It's beyond reason

re: "Civic groups press for relocation of bizarre statue" (BP, August 17, 2023) 

Dear editor,

The Artists Council for the Promotion of Buddhism of Thailand demonstrates a flawed understanding of the Buddha's teachings if they think that merely because something "went against Buddhist teachings" could be grounds to abolish or suppress it. Bangkok and the rest of Thailand is full of churches, cathedrals, mosques, meat selling markets and restaurants, and no end of other things that are at least as "against Buddhist teaching" as is the rather ugly, bizarre in fact, statue of the deity Khru Kai Kaeo. The Artists Council for the Promotion of Buddhism of Thailand might find more constructive ways to promote Buddhism than an intolerance that seems itself to contradict the Buddha's ideals of reason and example rather than brute force, including brutish legal force. 

The statue and its prescribed worship are no more superstitious than any other bit of religious teaching or practice touching on supernatural matters. When it comes to the supernatural, every religious claim is, without exception, exactly as well-evidenced as every other such claim. The teachings attendant on Khru Kai Kaeo are as sacred as any and on that score as deserving of the same respect accorded any other equally well substantiated sacredness. Why wouldn't they be? The sacred is, after all, the sacred, however scary of visage and divine command. 

Those who find such things distasteful are free to ignore the crimson manicured Khru Kai Kaeo or point out that it's all a bit beyond reason, but that is as far as their horror may justly go. Those finding it a source of comfort for whatever reason should be allowed to exercise their faith provided they not cause or threaten actual harm to others, including innocent puppies, or pigs, neither of whom appreciate being sacrificed to human desires for blood-soaked self-indulgence. 

Meanwhile, those who are "gripped by fear" should get a grip and take a more rationally informed, more Buddhist, approach  to such nonsensical beliefs as ghosts, spirits, demons, gods and other such perfectly unsubstantiated fantasy. 

But before this latest god on the block is cast into the darkness whence all such derive, what sacrifice does  Khru Kai Kaeo require to deliver Thailand from the curse being cast by Pheu Thai, the senate, UTN and the rest of that most unholy alliance against the will of the Thai people as manifest on May 14 and since? Those gargoyles being gathered into the warm embrace of the Pheu Thai family are the truly scary ones stalking the land. 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on August 19, 2023, under the title "It's beyond reason" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2632127/its-beyond-reason