How Religious Beliefs Are Meant to Work 101

[Scooter]

[rubato]

A principle upheld in liberal democracies and void everywhere theocracy is practiced.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Some rules do apply to everyone on the planet. However, they are not rules about what TV shows to watch or not watch; nor are they rules about who can marry whom. But the fact of separation from God and the consequences of endorsing and embracing that separation are universals. Do as you will. It's a choice.

[Burning Petard]

"Some rules do apply to everyone on the planet."

Yes Gen'l, I agree that if you jump off the roof of a 10 story building without any mechanical support, you will be injured. Or if you travel more than a mile deep into the earth, you will get warm. But I would not put these rules into a religious category.

"Some rules do apply to everyone on the planet." Please provide an example of such religious rules, which is the context of this thread.

snailgate

[Bicycle Bill]

"Some rules do apply to everyone on the planet." Please provide an example of such religious rules, which is the context of this thread.

snailgate

How about "THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT MURDER" (In Hebrew — לֹא תִּרְצָח) for starters?

-"BB"-

[Scooter]

What constitutes murder? In some religions, it is justified to kill a raped woman in the name of preserving family honour. In other religions, it is justified to commit genocide in order to settle in the land your god promised to you.

[MajGenl.Meade]

There is only one true religion - or perhaps one religion that approaches closely to truth while all others are far from it. That is Biblical Christianity.

But the fact of separation from God and the consequences of endorsing and embracing that separation are universals. Do as you will. It's a choice.

The consequences of our choices, including moral ones, are described in the Bible. I do not force people to make those choices or not make them. They are free choices - at least, they are according to those who make those choices.

Obviously Scooter's cute meme doesn't include: "Don't tell me who I can and cannot murder". Apparently if my religion coincides with his opinion, it is perfectly OK to make a law. It does however rather indicate that his opinion is worth more than God's, since it is his opinion that is the only correct determinant.

[rubato]

There is only one true religion - or perhaps one religion that approaches closely to truth while all others are far from it. That is Biblical Christianity.

But the fact of separation from God and the consequences of endorsing and embracing that separation are universals. Do as you will. It's a choice.

The consequences of our choices, including moral ones, are described in the Bible. I do not force people to make those choices or not make them. They are free choices - at least, they are according to those who make those choices.

Obviously Scooter's cute meme doesn't include: "Don't tell me who I can and cannot murder". Apparently if my religion coincides with his opinion, it is perfectly OK to make a law. It does however rather indicate that his opinion is worth more than God's, since it is his opinion that is the only correct determinant.

Based on the behavior of the adherents it is clear that Buddhism is the "one true religion". They have never attempted genocide while Christians have, many times. They have not invented such barbaric and elaborate tortures as the Christian church employed to reveal apostates. In fact, Christians have behaved so much worse than humanity as a whole that they cannot possibly be guided by the "one true religion". Unless god made his followers behave so badly as a test to faith? Like creationists claim that god made the fossils of dinosaurs just to tempt their faith.

Inversions of logic are so useful when theology is in play.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Your point is taken. The behavior of people is quite appalling at times, no matter who they are. However, if one always takes the greatest human failures of any particular system (and you do) and confuse those with the system, then there is always error. The failure of people to live an ideal is also universal. Atheists have attempted genocide - oh, and achieved it rather well - but I don't think that is a particular fault of atheism.

"Christians have behaved much worse than humanity as a whole" is such an nonsensical generalization as to require no direct refutation. The issue is not how people have behaved but whether or not the faith itself is true. There are many nice Buddhists. As there are many nice atheists, Christians, Moslems, etc. It just so happens that all of those are varying degrees of distance from truth and Biblical Christianity is closest to it.

[Lord Jim]

Oh dear...

I see that yet again, rube's ass has grown lonesome for the company of my boot:

The Hidden Genocide of Muslims

I've been reading about the war in Burma/Myanmar. It's a conflict between the Buddhist Burmese majority and approximately 800,000 Royhingya Muslims in the Arakan (Rakhine) State. They are among the world's least wanted and most persecuted people.

I'll try to explain what's happening. The Media have been remiss in reporting the story.

"Human Rights Watch accused authorities in Burma, including Buddhist monks, of fomenting an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country's Rohingya Muslim minority that killed hundreds of people and forced 125,000 from their homes," This campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State has been going on since June 2012. October 2012, tens of thousands of Muslims were terrorized and forcibly relocated, denied access to humanitarian aid and have been unable to return home. It's a humanitarian crisis.

Most of us are familiar with Buddhist monks self-immolating in the name of freedom but I don't see any of that going on in Burma in the name of freedom for the Muslims.

I've often been chastised for my belief in the Judeo-Christian God of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles. "He's barbaric; the teachings are the cause of all wars." I'm told more people have been killed in the name of religion than any other reason. Not true, but believed anyway.

I'm told Buddhism is the better way. It's not a religion with a God; it's a philosophy. Real Buddhism is very tolerant and not concerned with labels like "Christian," "Muslim," "Hindu" or "Buddhist"; that's why there have never been any wars fought in the name of Buddhism.

Buddhists go out of their way to protect life -- even bending down to remove a creature form a path for fear of killing it. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Maybe, but killing others doesn't seem to be a problem for the Buddhists in Burma/Myanmar. Buddhists are human. Underneath that thin layer of civility lies the barbarian within.

"Buddhists are supposed to be peace-loving people, so why are they attacking the Rohingya?" In Rakhine State up to 1000 Muslims have been killed, 8000 homes razed, 140,000 people displaced 94 per cent of whom are Muslim. Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing from Buddhist mobs are living in primitive camps described as "open air prisons," that are off limits to foreigners.

Rohingya villages not evacuated or destroyed are under guard: "essentially creating ethnic ghettos that lack access to food, water and medical supplies." There are checkpoints and barricaded crossroads. This forced segregation is particularly pronounced in the state capital Sittwe where Muslims once made up nearly half of the city's population of 180,000. Its once-bustling streets are now entirely Muslim-free.

U Kyaw Hla Aung, 73, an activist lawyer living within one of the camps (described as a guarded prison) for displaced Muslims, reported the Buddhists (Arakanese) are destroying mosques and Muslim houses. There's extortion, torture, rape, killings and mass graves. He described it as a "hidden genocide." He has video of people being marched out of Sittwe at gunpoint, carrying their few possessions on their heads.

These people suffer from tuberculosis, diarrhea and malaria. Yet, U Sa King Da, the 38-year-old leader of Sittwe's 200-strong Young Monks' Association, who describes the Rohingya as "polygamous . . . and incestuous," accused the Muslims of setting fire to their own houses, deliberately contracting tuberculosis, and starving their children to garner international aid and sympathy.

The UN and Doctors Without Borders are afraid to work here because their workers have been targeted by Arakanese activists. It's next to impossible to report on atrocities in the ghettos and IDP (internally displaced peoples) camps when the host country prevents access. Perhaps that's the reason the "media" has been remiss in reporting from this area.

July 2013, Ban Ki-Moon , Secretary general of the UN urged the Myanmar government to resolve the problem of nearly 1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims, living on the border with Bangladesh, who since 1982 have been denied official ethnic status and rights of citizenship. President Thein Sein of Burma had tried to convince the UN to help "resettle" them.

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the group "would expect a strong international response" to any attempt to deport the Rohingya. HRW staff who recently returned from Arakan reported torture against the Royhingyas. "I saw these youths burning the testicles and penis of old men with a cheroot [Burmese cigar] and also hitting young Muslim detainees with an iron rod and pushing a wooden stick in their anus."

Meanwhile, there's growing support from a radical Buddhist organization 969 who are campaigning for a boycott of Muslim products and businesses and a ban on interfaith marriage. The Rohingya can't marry without obtaining permission. They can't own land. They're denied citizenship and are restricted from leaving the area. There's also in place a decade old law restricting these Muslims to only two children per family. Some of these laws are straight from Nuremburg.

When Rohingya Muslims were forced into refugee camps, Buddhist families from Bangladesh were resettled in their abandoned neighbourhoods. Essential services in these refugee camps, such as health care, water, sanitation and education are woefully inadequate and in most cases non-existent. They have a much poorer living standard: open-air prisons, checkpoints, barricades and face ethnic cleansing: a hidden genocide.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/diane-bede ... 05842.html

It's a man-bites-dog story. Buddhists have no tradition or history of brutality and violence (compared to the other 'world religions')

Wrong again, Your Royal Wrongness:

Michael Zimmermann and company have done humanity a big favor in assembling one of the first anthologies of Buddhist history, ethics, traditions, and beliefs in terms of violence. In the "West" Buddhism is often times seen as a system of beliefs that have peace and compassion in the forefront, however, just like any other world view or fundamental set of beliefs, what the common man calls "religion" (i.e. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Atheism, Taoism), violence and blood spilling can emerge and has in the case of Buddhism throughout its 2,000+ years of spreading in Asia.

In reality Buddhism has a mixed history of violence just like any other nation or body of people would have. Buddhists have inflicted, created, and supported violence for more than two millennia and still do today. Buddhist traditions are diverse and their rules and regulations are often times contradictory, especially since the scriptures of Buddhism are not universally accepted as canonical or even authentic by differing schools like Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, and so on, and the massive amounts of Buddhist writings emerging every few decades make it hard to even set limits on what the true Buddhist scriptures would be, excluding the Pali texts and a few others. Throughout this book, there is much discourse on the all types of Buddhist violence from suicide to deaths of criminals to warfare to death and duties of rulers and kings as punishers and executioners.

Buddhist monks have used violence for at least two millennia and continue to do so, but with little media coverage of Asia, it is understandable that the people of the "West" can find little or no violent episodes of Buddhist monk activities, due to ignorance of Asian History [rube being an excellent example]and beliefs of the denominations on Buddhism.

For a few modern examples of violence one can read Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd Edition (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society, Vol. 13), Buddhist Warfare, In Defense of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism), Shotoku: Ethnicity, Ritual, and Violence in the Japanese Buddhist Tradition, and others.

This is not to say that Buddhists are horrible people, they are not, but they too have stains of blood on their hands and should not be seen as different than other cultures in terms of sanctioning violence. Atheists, Muslims, Christians, and well every society really, have had bad episodes with periods of violence, why see Buddhism as if it were any different? It's not.

Here is a list of the Essay titles with short summaries:

"The Path of Bodhisattva and the Creation of Oppressive Cultures"-By Francis Brassard

Here there is discourse on the origins of good ideas having negative consequences and how practices and ideas "spill over" to the general society with good and bad consequences. Examples are the Indian caste system (where people are born predetermined by their lineage to eat impure substances and do dirty jobs), vegetarianism; also the Japanese Buddhist monks who get irritated with western tourists who lack "mindfulness" for another's habits (putting shoes in order before entering the temples). And so on.

"Views of Suicide in Buddhism: Some Remarks"-By Martin Delhy

Conditions for suicide are discussed such as the unclear rules of allowing suicide found in the Vinayapitaka, historical accounts of Buddhists committing suicide (whether it be for political gain such as self-immolators in protest to the Vietnamese governments under the influence of Mahayana Tradition), Karmic consequences of suicide, the problem with lack of historical Buddhist prohibition of suicide, modern prohibitions of suicide by modern monks like K. Sri Dhammananda, lack of historical scriptures equating of suicide to being treated as killing a living being, Tantric views of suicide.

"Evil Monks With Good Intentions? Remarks on Buddhist Monastic Violence and It's Doctrinal Background"- By Christoph Klein

Dialogue on Japanese Warrior Monks and discourse on historical data of at least 400 disturbances caused by Buddhist monks between the 10th to 16th century. Accounts of the abbotship of Ryogen and the monks army that "like to hurt as Butcher's sons". Soldier monks were employed for 1. Forceful protests against government that affected Buddhist practices, 2. Internal struggles between Buddhist schools emerged, 3. Struggles with competing Buddhist orders, 4. Attacks on heretics of Buddhism (examples are given). Discussion on Buddhist texts on killing criminals and an account of the Buddha actually killing a wicked man to save 500 traders altering karmic consequences from the "Sutra of Skillful Means" is mentioned. The Mahayanistic moral code allowing a bodhisattva to kill a robber out of compassion is touched a bit too and the ethical relativism of a bodhisattva believing the non-existence of sin and voidness of the killer and his victim(rendering the bodhisattva ultimately free of guilt or culpability for killing another). There is even a documentation of verses from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra outright encouraging murder and killing of those who oppose the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha which lead to enlightenment) and are called the "enemies of the Buddha".

"Between the Profane and the Sacred? On the Context of the Rite of "Liberation" (Sgrol ba)" - By Carmen Meinert

Deep discussion on Langdarma's (presumed enemy of Buddhist Teachings) assassination by lHa ling dPal gyi rdo rje (Spiritual teacher of monks and Buddhist monk) in Tibet in 842 AD after being spoken to by a deity who told him to go for the kill. "Liberation" killing is discussed as compassionate killing and as a sacrifice to restore order and as a ritual. Reinterpretations of the five poisons of aggression, arrogance, passion, envy, and ignorance lead to possibilities of "Liberation".

"Compassionate Killing or Conflict Resolution? The Murder of King Langdarma according to Tibetan Buddhist Sources" - By Jens Schlieter

More on "Liberation" as taking tyrants out of their misery and preventing further bad karma to develop by ending the tyrant's life to liberate the tyrant from "rebirth". The modern Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatzo calls this "killing out of mercy". There is discussion on Buddhist texts that unambiguously claim enemies of Mahayana Buddhist teachings, people who commit patricide, and matricide should be killed.

"D.T. Suzuki and Japanese Militarism: Supporter or Opponent?" -By Brian Victoria

Zen Buddhist Suzuki is analyzed how he influenced Japan's Zen community by his remarks and silence against fellow Buddhist militarists during the Manchurian Incident between China and Japan in 1931 and the war between China and Japan that was still occurring in 1938. Zen scriptures supported battle and war as well and Suzuki saw heathens (anti-nationalists ) who needed to be dealt with unto death. He even identifies Zen to Bushido and he sponsored the view of voidness to the self of warrior class Japanese, leaving them innocent of the blood they are allowed to shed for Buddhism.

In other words they were left with no moral responsibility of their action ultimately. He and other Buddhists contributed to kamikaze philosophy and indirectly contributed to the deaths 3 million Japanese and 20 million other Asians and Allied troops in WW II.

"Buddhism and Killing of Animals in Premodern Japan" - By Klaus Vollmer

Here there it simply talks of restrictive creeds on what animals can and can't be killed in Japan. Confucius influenced Japan and merged with Buddhism on this issue. Sacrificial killing to gods, killing animals is seen as compassionate killing by helping sentient beings reach enlightenment via killing a lower life form and ending it's worthless existence and speeding the rebirth process of the killed animal to be reborn as a higher form. Freeing captured animals for shrines was seen as a stupid act .

"Only a Fool Becomes a King; Buddhist Stances on Punishment" - By Michael Zimmermann

In ancient India (before the Common Era), jurisprudence texts (the dharmasutras and dharmasastras) authorized brutal killings and punishment tortures (beating, whipping, mutilation of body parts, etc.). The ideal Buddhist ruler is reviewed here with duties to protect the people and the execute criminals at will, according to Buddhist sources (Mahayana sources mainly). Some see the ruler as a nasty bad karma producing job that leads to hell, because of the punishing a Buddhist ruler must do to maintain order. Pali sources, however, give royal virtues and highlight good habits for kingship including punishing without killing such as beatings and imprisonment while showing compassion for the criminal and trying to develop a friendship with the criminal in hopes of changing the ways of the criminal. Finally capital punishment is addressed.

Overall, this is another book that deserves a wide audience and people who are interested in Buddhism must read these studies in order to get a better picture of Buddhism and violence and its diverse history. This anthology is sure to provoke thought place Buddhism in historical context that is much needed. Having said this, it would be a shame for this book to go unnoticed.

[Scooter]

[kmccune]

Last post good one Scooter," I love your Christ ,but not your Christians " or something similar ,as was attributed to Gandhi ,the so called Christians (as have many others ) have committed many atrocities,but as Maj relate4s,there are just some things ,that even though I have little problem with ,I keep getting this nagging feeling and sometimes corrections ,that the Heavenly Father doesnt like.
Thats just the way it is ,but, as far as taking the actions on people that God didnt necessarily agree with ,I wont go there ,God is Big enough to judge and fight His own battles . Allahu Akbar ! (in the true sense ) The creators magnificence is unsurpassed .,

[rubato]

"...
"Christians have behaved much worse than humanity as a whole" is such an nonsensical generalization as to require no direct refutation. The issue is not how people have behaved but whether or not the faith itself is true. There are many nice Buddhists. As there are many nice atheists, Christians, Moslems, etc. It just so happens that all of those are varying degrees of distance from truth and Biblical Christianity is closest to it.

It is such an obviously true statement that you can't deny it. Christianity provided not only the motive and organizing principle but the justification for slaughtering and enslaving other peoples or exterminating 'nonconformist' Christians for a thousand years. They would still be at it if secular society and the moral of Liberalism hadn't put a stop to it.

The only honest measure of the morality of a religious sect is by looking at the behavior of its adherents. If a doctrine is true then it will produce better people and this fact can be seen in the behavior of different groups. I have never seen an act of religious barbarity by Buddhists until their recent attacks on the Rohingya (sp?). Christians, by contrast, have murdered and tortured millions, for centuries.

yrs,
rubato

[RayThom]

And on this Sunday -- let us prey.