Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
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Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#2tl;dr
"If you have a strong sense of the overriding moral superiority of your worldview, then the need to protect and advance it can seem the most important duty of all."
I'll take "What is the definition of succinct for 1000 Trebeck"
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#3This idea of Buddhists being pacifist vegetarians is very Western - it's nothing I've read or observed in my travels around Asia. Being vegetarian in Thailand is close to impossible (I stopped trying), even though it is a Buddhist country.
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#4This idea of Buddhists being pacifist vegetarians is very Western - it's nothing I've read or observed in my travels around Asia. Being vegetarian in Thailand is close to impossible (I stopped trying), even though it is a Buddhist country.
Thats conflating two things, Buddhists need not vegetarians, the use of the word pacfism in the article refers to it in the interhuman context.
In fact many believe that Buddha eventually succumbed to disease caused by consuming undercooked pork.
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#5tl;dr "If you have a strong sense of the overriding moral superiority of your worldview, then the need to protect and advance it can seem the most important duty of all." I'll take "What is the definition of succinct for 1000 Trebeck"
[deleted]
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#6The BBS in Sri Lanka are also agitating against the Christian community. They are essentially making a lot of noise along the lines of how the great Sinhala-Budhist ethnicity is being eroded by minority influences. This is in a country where Sinhalese make up about 70% of the population.
Hair brained conspiracy theories of hidden population control methods are always popping up on the FB pages of these hate groups. An example is the contraceptive laced toffees that are handed out at the counter of a popular clothing store chain owned by a Muslim family.
It's all just mindblowingly ridiculous. People just looking for reasons to be assholes to others.
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#7"But however any religion starts out, sooner or later it enters into a Faustian pact with state power."
This. The basic fallacies of any religious doctrine when mixed with the desire for power makes for a dangerous cocktail.
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#8This idea of Buddhists being pacifist vegetarians is very Western - it's nothing I've read or observed in my travels around Asia. Being vegetarian in Thailand is close to impossible (I stopped trying), even though it is a Buddhist country.
Not Western at all. I'm an Indian, and I tend to think of Buddhists as pacifists too. Yes, Buddhism spread with the power of Buddhist-sympathizer kings. But when I look at (what little there is of) Indian history, I see Brahmins being frightened by the spread of Buddhism, and challenging them to public debates. The loser would have to become the winner's disciple in some cases, or be exiled, or be put to death in other cases.
What I don't see, looking at Indian Buddhists, is the brutality that's typically associated with other mainstream religions.
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#9cool. is Dalai Lama an exception?
Re: Why are Buddhist monks attacking Muslims?
#10This idea of Buddhists being pacifist vegetarians is very Western - it's nothing I've read or observed in my travels around Asia. Being vegetarian in Thailand is close to impossible (I stopped trying), even though it is a Buddhist country.
Not Western at all. I'm an Indian, and I tend to think of Buddhists as pacifists too. Yes, Buddhism spread with the power of Buddhist-sympathizer kings. But when I look at (what little there is of) Indian history, I see Brahmins being frightened by the spread of Buddhism, and challenging them to public debates. The loser would have to become the winner's disciple in some cases, or be exiled, or be put to death in oth…
Hmmm given that you're talking about India, I wonder which "brutal" religion exactly you mean.
From the article: "The global climate is crucial. People believe radical Islam to be at the centre of the many of the most violent conflicts around the world. They feel they are at the receiving end of conversion drives by the much more evangelical monotheistic faiths. And they feel that if other religions are going to get tough, they had better follow suit."
Same phenonmenon there too "Evangelical monotheistic faiths". They don't mean Christians. Note also the generalized "many of the most violent conflicts around the world". The inability to name the obvious.
Why is it racist to point out that islam is involved in pretty much every conflict worldwide (with the west, east, north, south, white, black, yellow, brown, ...), and that this situation has been a constant through history (ever since it exists) ? Islam got started with a campaign of genocide, and everyone can name 5 places the very same thing is happening today. If you study history you will learn that this situation is the norm of the last 15 centuries, not the exception. If people start thinking that that may not be a coincidence, that is a VERY understandable viewpoint.