The hand grenade hidden in the heart of Thai Buddhism

I’m a little surprised (but highly gratified!) that anybody should remember anything I’ve written. But Dirk Sumter is right, I did mention critical thinking as one of the several buzzwords that Thais have invoked at various times as the magic bullet that was going to save their county from perdition.
The problem is that a true commitment to critical thinking requires us to question EVERYTHING. And Thai culture insists that certain traditions and institutions are not to be questioned. It therefore sets limits to the parameters of critical enquiry. 
Some readers may not be familiar with the Kalama Sutta, to which Dirk Sumter refers. There are different versions, but let me summarise the English translation by HE Sukich Nimmanheminda (obviously a Thai, and translating from a Thai version), which was published in an old book titled “Sutras and Scriptures, Volume One” (now out of print), by the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist centre on Taiwan in 1962.  Here the Buddha exhorts us NOT to believe:
a.  “in what you have heard”;
b. “traditions”;
c. “because it is rumoured and spoken of by many”;
d. “because the written statement of some old sage is produced; do not be sure that the writing has [n]ever been revised by the said sage, or can be relied on”;
e. “what you have fancied, thinking that because an idea is extraordinary it must have been implanted by a deva, or some wonderful being”; 
f. “guesses, that is, assuming something at haphazard as a starting point and then drawing your conclusion from it, reckoning your two and your three and your four before you have fixed your number one”;
g. “because you think that there is [an] analogy … such as believing that there must be walls of the world, because you see water in a basin … or that there must be a creating God, because houses and towns have builders”;
h. “that to which you have become attached by habit, as every nation believes in the superiority of its own dresses and ornaments and language”;
i. “because your informant appears to be a credible person … having a very impressive appearance … or … powers and abilities beyond which men generally possess … or think that a great nobleman is to be believed, as he would not have been raised by the King to such a high station unless he were a good man”;  
j. “merely on the authority of your teachers and masters, or believe and practise merely because they believe and practise.
“I tell you all, you must know of yourselves that this is evil, this is punishable, this is censured by wise men, belief in this kind of thing will bring no advantage … but will cause sorrow. And when you know this, then eschew it.” 
Normally we would expect that such a list of things we should not believe would be followed by a list of things we SHOULD believe. But the Buddha does not provide such a list. Instead, he warns us against lobha (greed), dosa (hatred, anger), and moha (delusion), and exhorts us:  “When of your own consciousness you know a thing to be evil, abstain from it.”
I’m sure that if the Kalama Sutta were drummed into the heads of students in Thai schools, critical thinking would be in much better shape in this country than it is now. But I have a feeling that Thai teachers might be nervous about teaching some of these items – especially the last one, item j.
S Tsow