Buddhism's A Belief Right Out Of Sesame Street

How a supposedly atheist country can continue to play this game is beyond us:

It’s probably best not to even try making sense of Beijing’s pronouncements on the 14th Dalai Lama and other Tibetan spiritual leaders: you’ll only make your head hurt. Last week the officially atheist Chinese government’s State Administration for Religious Affairs disclosed plans to enact a new law forbidding the 75-year-old Buddhist deity to be reborn anywhere but on Chinese-controlled soil, and giving final say to Chinese authorities when the time comes to identify his 15th incarnation.

That might seem to pose a dilemma, given the exiled leader’s earlier promise that he will never again be reincarnated in Tibet as long as his homeland remains under China’s heel. Still, no one seems too concerned just now about the Dalai Lama’s next life.

Considering no one in the history of mankind has ever been proven to have reincarnated, that last line is the only thing in the entire article resembling a connection to reality. Here's a fun fact about why the Dalai Lama's staying in India, though:

The Chinese say he’s merely on a quest to retrieve a black hat said to have magical powers,...

A magic hat? Suurrre. We think he's also traveling with an imaginary friend. Whatever.

There's some other nonsense in there about him somehow magically acquiring $1.6 million dollars, but who cares about that? The man's reincarnated and looking for a magic hat!

Look, call us whenever those guys in the orange robes decide to grow up, o.k.?