Buddhist monks murder Muslims

http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-buddhist-monks-incite-muslim-killings-myanmar-110502811.html

For those of you who think Buddhism is all peaceful... any religion, no matter how passive can be warped by humans and used as a reason to discriminate

there are crazies in all religions although Buddhism is a practice and application of the mind and not a religion. i do know that some consider it a religion. you can call it whatever you like. (not directed at the OP) these people are not true practitioners of the Buddhist principles. those who stoop to such inhumane levels are infinitesimally destitute of any true awareness of existence.

Yeah, JohnE, No True Scotsman would do that

Modern Buddhists in SE Asia adhere very little to the original teachings of Buddha. It has become more animistic than anything else with some smatterings of Hinduism and Buddhism. I've tried talking to some of the monks about the original teachings of Buddha and how they aren't cohesive to the modern day monk's lifestyle, but they don't really understand the true teachings of Buddha. In the same way that there are very few Christians who follow the example of Christ, Buddhists mostly don't follow the teachings of Buddha. Over time religion has been mutated from the original versions to make them more convenient.

Yeah, I see people saying "I'm a devout Christian" with the expression that says "I'm better than you."

I think the look I get when I say, "I'm basically an atheist, though I usually just say 'I don't believe' because 'atheist' is such a loaded term these days," is actually saying "Please don't hit me."

Organised Religion is Evil not because of the Religion but because of the organisation.

Creating any power structure that humans can use to control others is creating a system open to abuse.

I spent some time in a Buddhist monastery after reading the works of the early Buddhas and really all the modern 'ritual' around the ideals is counter to the teaching of the original Buddhas. This is the case in just about every organized religion.

@Ben
Join the Agnostic Movement, it promotes the Idea that all religions are worth investigating as they all shine a light on the human condition but the main point of Agnostics is that Humans are too Dumb to have ever discovered the Divine truth and even if an individual did the failings of human language (which struggles to purvey everyday emotions let alone Divine ideals) means that it could never be fully communicated to another person. Thus Organising a Religion is pointless, Faith is personal and can take any form.

Surely an American can Claim Secularism, I mean anyone hating on you for that is saying directly that they hate America.

Myanmar muslims last year burrned over 40 temples and pretty much all schools and hospitals in 5 cities last year. Hundreds of non-muslim civilians killed, maimed and gone missing. Myanmar muslims are Bangaladeshi citizens who were kicked out of Bangaladesh into Myanmar and refused entry back into Bangaladesh (for whatever reason).

The instigator of last year attack was 3 Myanmar muslims killing and raping a local girl and when the locals arrested the 3 muslim men, their own people exploded and went on a killing/burning spree.

What we see today is a counter-reaction to the massacres from last year of the Bangaladeshi squatters, against the local Myanmar population.

Cheerio

@kmazz -- so they're all shit, that's basically what I thought in the first place :D

@veya -- I think rationally you have to be at least somewhat agnostic, right? I mean, it's impossible to prove that God doesn't exist, especially given the many different ways people define God. I think it's very, very doubtful that God exists, and that in the grand scheme of things it's not worth worrying about. I think that's pretty close to what Dawkins actually believes, too -- that one day evidence might surface that supports the existence of God, but none has thus far.

Forgot to add -- @veya: yeah, it's getting better to be a secularist/non-believer/atheist/whatever in the U.S., but it's still enough to make many, many Americans think you must be an evil person who believes that murder is OK and that nothing matters.

@ben
see thats the best thing about living in australia (currently sitting next to a Hindu, opposite a Muslim etc)
is simply I can't fathom only considering 1 god possible. I mean there are so many examples of different gods. I'm firmly of the belief that there is either many gods or no gods but not one god. My logic being that nothing else in the universe (possibly including the universe) exists in singularity there is more than 1 of everything. there may be uniquie examples but there is still something else that can be classified as the same class of thing.
Greater agnoticsim I think would blow the average americans mind as most of the stuff they take for granted is deemed irelevant of too simple of just plain wrong. People say it is not possible to disprove god, that true if you are talking about the agnostic defintion of god but the Christian god is easy to disprove because the bible presents a lot of 'Facts' that can be incorrect so the perfect god as defined by Christians does not exist.
Personally I like to consider my sprirtual ideals and ideas from scientific perspective relating what is possible with what we know is real(science) trying to find the probable. (so far my money is on some sort of reincarnation )

veya_victaous wrote:People say it is not possible to disprove god, that true if you are talking about the agnostic defintion of god but the Christian god is easy to disprove because the bible presents a lot of 'Facts' that can be incorrect so the perfect god as defined by Christians does not exist.

That is true; I was talking more along the lines of a God that many people sort of half-heartedly believe in -- he's sort of described in the Bible, he's basically goodness and love, and he works through science and is thus undetectable. But of course, the exception to the whole goodness and love thing is that he'll torture you for eternity simply for finding it impossible to believe in him.

Yeah, if you're talking about the "god of the gaps" -- science can't currently explain this one bit of minutia, therefore goddidit -- there's no way to disprove its existence. If you're talking about something that was dumb enough to say that bats are a type of bird, yeah, kind of hard to imagine that sort of God "knows everything."

@Ben -> They are not all shit really. At least not back then. The Buddhists took a lot of beatings before they got up and started to defend themselves. Almost like the European pussies who lost 2/3 of their empire, and lost 4 out of 5 of their major cultural cities passed down from the Romans, until they got off their ass and started their First defensive war, referred to as the First crusade, and is considered a point of pride in European history, when they finally found their balls and ... and ... nevermind.

@kmazz --> See? :D

It's the game theory. Tit for Tat is still considered a "nice strategy". It is only a "nasty strategy" if you initiate a hostility in the hope you will get away with more than you will lose. And it is demonstrated to be a losing strategy if you never retaliate. The bhuddists implementing a tit for tat strategy does not mean they are 'all shit', no?