plaamook wrote:Riverman wrote:plaamook wrote:
Yeah, you're right w the burma thing but I still want to see the fine print. And by that I mean go there and talk to people. And I'm not sure how many asian wars have been waged over religious reasons or just cultural differences and greed. Thailand, viet nam, and cambodia are all buddhist. Japan and china are or have also been buddhist but that didn't stop em from trying to beat the shit out of each other. But they were'nt out evengelising. 'Buddha' didn't tell the Thais that they were better perople and so had some divine right to go invade this that orther other country and impose their way of thinking on them.
Hindhu, india...That's another matter. They had internal strife but they didn't exactly start much of an expansionist empire based on the fundamental rightness of their god, which ever one htey might pick to be on top. And they don't go in for much in fighting over which hindhu god is better. They just get on with it. Well, they get on with duking it out with other religions in india, but that's mainly to do, or was to do, with islam. I don't think the hindhus and the sikhs have much of a problem with eachother. Or the buddhists. But the muslims did invade india and wreck a load of shit in the process. And they're still wrecking shit elsewhere. Don't get a lot of sikhs blowing up ancient jain temples. Do get a lot of chistians going abroad and delaring the local population as being heathens and godless, then trying to convert them. By force if need be. You can argue the one off cases all you like but there is no hindhu version of the inquisition, where forigners are forced to accept the fact that everything is god and divine fundamentally or they get tortured to death.
Anyway, who cares. Believe what you like. We can all believe what we like. And we can fuck who we like, and eat what we like, and so on. And we can do this in countries where religion minds its own bloody business. When religion stops minding it's own business problems ensue. Why? Because trying to explain to an atheist that 'God' doesn't want them to fuck other people in the ass doesn't make much sense to a person who thinks the idea of a creator god is a load of jibber jabber in the first place. May as well tell em Father Christmas isn't going to bring them toys if they don't stop interfering with themselves under the bed sheets.
Little edit here...The whole light skin/dark skin thing in india? Post mugal invasion. Pre mugal invasion they were all dark skinned.
1. Ashoka, leader of Mauryan Empire sponsored aggressive Buddhist expansion. Sending Monks out, sending his own kids into Sri Lanka for example. China wasn't Buddhist, yet China ended up Buddhist... how else do you think word was spread other than "evengelism"?
2. The Mugals were Mongols. Look at the name. The light skinned Aryans came well before.1500 BC some would say, conquering the darker skinned Dravidians. I repeat, the Hindu caste system they imposed is essentially apartheid.
3. Buddhists have done their fair share of persecuting unorthoxy and what they consider false doctrines. Read up on the history of the Dorje Shugden, and how even the current Dalai Lama is repressing them:
http://www.dorjeshugden.com/all-article ... secutions/
He's not all smiles. He's the "god-king" of Tibet. Imagine if the Pope was considered to actually BE Jesus, and ruled all Italy...
4. Yeah you speak about freedom to do whatever we like, yet people use that freedom to murder, steal, rape, lie etc. So we need laws.
People often people rail on about how religion is only about critiquing people's sex lives, forgetting that all laws of any sort are based on morality: in the west on top of a base of Christian morality. Emperor Constantine banned infanticide after become a Christian. Christianity reigned in the autocratic, despotic power of the father in pre-Christian Rome. Christianity founded schools - Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard etc - charities - Red Cross, Salvation Army etc - countless hospitals. Christian Monks in England brought literacy, trade and agriculture to the piratical Saxon culture, who'd decimated British/Roman culture. You could even argue that capitalism, communism and secular humanism are the bastard children of European Protestant Christianity.
The difference that religions have made to their cultures is astronomical. It's not just anti-gay or whatever people like to label churches now. (There are gay churches, gay Episcopal bishops btw) Speaking against adultery protects families and kids especially. Speaking against sex before marriage protects people from making quick decisions they'll potentially regret. It's wisdom, not authoritarianism. And plenty of people sit in the church and then go home and do exactly what the preacher encouraged them not to do.
But the religious esteem of human life, speaking against murder, mistreatment is very evident.
Right now for example, we have a worldwide refugee crisis. The bible is very clear on welcoming refugees in, and treating them with kindness, fairness etc. Is this a bad thing to you? Is this something that the world should just ignore? Just be afraid and let people die?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolso ... our-midst/
Exodus 22:21 (NRSV)
21 You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:9 (NRSV)
9 You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:33 (NRSV)
33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.
Leviticus 23:22 (NRSV)
22 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 24:22 (NRSV)
22 You shall have one law for the alien and for the citizen: for I am the Lord your God.
Numbers 15:16 (NRSV)
16 You and the alien who resides with you shall have the same law and the same ordinance.
Deuteronomy 1:16 (NRSV)
16 I charged your judges at that time: “Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien.
Deuteronomy 24:20-21 (NRSV)
20 When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.
21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.
Deuteronomy 27:19 (NRSV)
19 “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.” All the people shall say, “Amen!”
Jeremiah 7:4-12 (NRSV)
4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”
5 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another,
6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt,
7 then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.
Zechariah 7:10 (NRSV)
10 do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.
Malachi 3:5 (NRSV)
5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
Psalm 39:12 (NRSV)
12 “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears.
Ephesians 2:12 (NRSV)
12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Ephesians 2:19 (NRSV)
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,
1 Peter 1:1-2 (NRSV)
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance.
1 Peter 2:11-12
11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. 12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.
Romans 12:13 (NRSV)
13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Hebrews 13:2 (NRSV)
2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
1 Peter 3:9 (NRSV)
Be hospitable to one another without complaining.