Who would bomb a Buddhist temple?

footiam

Not too long ago, the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya, Indiahttp://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Bihar/Nine-blasts-in-30-minutes-rock-Bodh-Gaya-Buddha-s-abode-bombed-in-Mahabodhi-temple/Article1-1088883.aspx was bombed and so too was a little Buddhist temple in Indonesia. http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/bomb-rocks-buddhist-temple-indonesia-injures-one-20130805

If Buddhism is such a peaceful religion, why do you think Buddhist temples are attacked and bombed? It is not that this is a new incident. In ancient time, the Buddhist Nalanda university in India had been attacked and burnt too.

ThailandTom

Buddhism isn't always a peaceful religion, there are many Buddhists and Buddhist monks who enter conflicts all around the world. Christianity promotes peace at it's core, why do Christian governments and people bomb places and people? Islam if treated with respect is peaceful, it is people who taint religions and Buddhism is not some all mighty amazing religion set among the rest in terms of how the people are great, holy and peaceful.

TheEccentric

Jealous Member's of a barbaric, less profound and beneicial to be in religion, that's who.

And funnily enough it always seems to be the members of the same religion that attack Buddhist temples abd universities.

karasti

The religious teachings might extol peace but they are still made up of individual people who have different ideas and feelings who skew the words to meet their own needs. The people who proclaim a religion, are not that religion. Islam doesn't equal terrorism. Christianity doesn't equal Westboro Baptist Church or the US military despite all their mention of God. Those are all problems of the people, not the religion. Buddhism isn't exempt from people with misled ideas.

vinlyn

TheEccentric said:

Jealous Member's of a barbaric, less profound and beneicial to be in religion, that's who.

And funnily enough it always seems to be the members of the same religion that attack Buddhist temples abd universities.

And sometimes they do it because of comments very similar to that.

Dakini

footiam said:

If Buddhism is such a peaceful religion, why do you think Buddhist temples are attacked and bombed? It is not that this is a new incident. In ancient time, the Buddhist Nalanda university in India had been attacked and burnt too.

Nalanda university was destroyed because sexual tantra was taught there (among other things), which the invading Muslims considered to be a vile practice. Buddhism in India had changed considerably from the Buddha's foundation, and outside influences had crept in during the medieval period.

(see: Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement, by Ronald Davidson)

Nirvana

If there are people who just want to enjoy their lives and lead them in peace and quiet and helping others, why would anyone set fire to their property?

I think I know why. There will always be troublemakers who derive a lot of pleasure from the havoc they create. Some of them may even consider themselves to be highly principled people (which they might possibly be). However, their priorities (Lit., their principles, in that those are the things which they place in first rank) have nothing to do with a true morality which could only be egalitarian and state, "Above all, Do No Harm!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere

David

karasti said:

The religious teachings might extol peace but they are still made up of individual people who have different ideas and feelings who skew the words to meet their own needs. The people who proclaim a religion, are not that religion. Islam doesn't equal terrorism. Christianity doesn't equal Westboro Baptist Church or the US military despite all their mention of God. Those are all problems of the people, not the religion. Buddhism isn't exempt from people with misled ideas.

I could possibly agree with all of this if not for all the violence and ignorance in the so called holy books. From my view it seems the Westboro Baptists have even watered down the violence but try to live up to what some of us call the Old Testament. Even taken as metaphor the whole thing turns my stomach. I don't love anybody any less because of it but I find the basic doctrine unhealthy and quite harmful.

I've seen people at age 40 and above renounce a life long religion after finally reading the Bible and I personally turned my back for the same reasons once my Dad died and I read his Bible. I was honestly sickened and appalled that the character known as God could do and say such horrible things and I was only 10.

I always thought Jesus was a great man though. I have my suspicions with a lot of what's written and don't think his intention was to die for our sins as I believe he wanted people to take responsibility for their own actions. Nor do I think he believed in original sin as he preached about forgiveness. He woke up to his true nature and wanted the rest of us to follow his example. I don't even think he believed in Abrahams god.

I do know a few examples from each so can testify there are good and decent people in all three versions of the Abraham religion and many sects of each but this god calls for blood and division.

I bow to the nature of awakening that exists in us all.

David

Who would bomb anything?

Heck, some of us are still bombing things today!

Us and "them" is such a horrible disease. :bawl:

karasti

There is violence and crazy crap mixed in the bible just as there is in the Quran. That doesn't mean it was meant to truly be part of the religion, but that as always the books were written by men with bad perceptions, conditions, experiences, opinions and a lot of fear that they wanted to use to control the people. Most people I know realize this and don't take the bible at face value. It contradicts itself all the time, but it is clear that love for one another and forgiveness are valued quite highly. I don't think God was ever intended to be seen as an actual being who did all the things that the bible says. Some people see it that way, but not all of them. The Quran is much the same.

In any case, who determines what Christianity or Buddhism or Islam even is? Is the bible Christianity? I don't think so. Christianity (and everything else) ends up defined by the people who study it. Roman Catholics have a different brand of Christianity than Westboro Baptists, who have a different brand than Evangelical Christians who are different than Lutherans. Buddhism is the same, as we often experience here in different conversations. Buddhists here have proclaimed that they dislike when the general public sees the HHDL as their leader when they aren't even Tibetan Buddhists. Christians are the same, and those who truly "get it" don't like being lumped in with the people who take the Old Testament to heart.

For me, the bottom line is I try not to judge people by their Christianity, their Buddhism, their Judaism, their Islam. I assess them based on the people they are because lumping them into one group just because of their religion is no better than lumping them together because they are the same race, same gender, and so on. People are all just different, and it's best to recognize them as such. One of my good friends is Muslim. He's a fabulous person. He fasts on Ramadan, he prays when he is supposed to, he reads the Quran. And he is a good person. A good husband, a wonderful father, a true friend. And I can tell you honestly that over and over and over again when I see posts from people on FB proclaiming Muslims to be people of terror, that it hurts. It hurts *me* as a friend of a Muslim. I cannot imagine how it feels to them to be judged as such by someone who doesn't bother to know them as people.

MaryAnne

Who would bomb a Buddhist temple?

The same type of people who would bomb a women's clinic because they thought abortions were performed there....

The same type of people who would burst into a doctor's exam room and shoot the doctor dead, because they don't approve of the medical procedures done by that doctor...

The same type of people who would set fire to a church (knowing people might be inside) because that church 'accepts' gay people or women as clergy...


Religious zealots.
The world is full of them, and the USA is no exception. (see examples above)

Nirvana

ourself said:

...If not for all the violence and ignorance in the so called holy books. From my view it seems the Westboro Baptists have even watered down the violence but try to live up to what some of us call the Old Testament. Even taken as metaphor the whole thing turns my stomach. I don't love anybody any less because of it but I find the basic doctrine unhealthy and quite harmful...

I always thought Jesus was a great man though. I have my suspicions with a lot of what's written and don't think his intention was to die for our sins as I believe he wanted people to take responsibility for their own actions. Nor do I think he believed in original sin as he preached about forgiveness. He woke up to his true nature and wanted the rest of us to follow his example. I don't even think he believed in Abraham's god...

I bow to the nature of awakening that exists in us all.

WOW!

Especially that part about human sacrifice carried over into St. Paul's theology about how Jesus' sacrifice does away for the need of animal sacrifices in the Temple. Isaac was spared, but not Jesus? It's all so crazy, really. No doubt Paul really believed that, but that ought not to make it a mandatory universal belief. It's a particular (the original meaning of "peculiar") belief; those who believe that it's either that way or perdition are just too narrow.

Religion is just a mythology into which people are born. If they cannot take it with a grain of salt, then their lives are dictated by absurd mythological beliefs.

Says Kabir:
Which is False, Koran or Veda?
"False" is the darkened view...

pegembara

People with greed, hatred and delusion which unfortunately includes a large proportion of humanity of different religions including Buddhism.

David

I'm betting it was the humans.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a big bell we could ring to wake us all up?

oceancaldera207

I was honestly sickened and appalled that the character known as God could do and say such horrible things and I was only 10.

It was the Abraham sacrifice Isaac thing that did it for me as a kid. I thought it was stupid then and still do. Even as a parable it's pretty pointless. (Plus I have a real serious hate of human sacrifice in history....my advice, don't look into it. Just know that it happened..a lot. )

Anyway, later I found out that there was a religion that respects all life, and strives to end violence and anger...

footiam

ThailandTom said:

Buddhism isn't always a peaceful religion, there are many Buddhists and Buddhist monks who enter conflicts all around the world. Christianity promotes peace at it's core, why do Christian governments and people bomb places and people? Islam if treated with respect is peaceful, it is people who taint religions and Buddhism is not some all mighty amazing religion set among the rest in terms of how the people are great, holy and peaceful.

In the part of the world I am living, you get to see Buddhist chief monks apologizing for things that he didn't do http://www.fz.com/content/top-buddhist-priest-apologises-over-buddhist-groups-use-surau So, I rally couldn't see that many Buddhists and monks enter conflicts as you say. Maybe, it would be a good idea if you could list out the conflicts in the world that has Buddhists as culprits.

Jason

footiam said:

Not too long ago, the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya, Indiahttp://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Bihar/Nine-blasts-in-30-minutes-rock-Bodh-Gaya-Buddha-s-abode-bombed-in-Mahabodhi-temple/Article1-1088883.aspx was bombed and so too was a little Buddhist temple in Indonesia. http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/bomb-rocks-buddhist-temple-indonesia-injures-one-20130805

If Buddhism is such a peaceful religion, why do you think Buddhist temples are attacked and bombed? It is not that this is a new incident. In ancient time, the Buddhist Nalanda university in India had been attacked and burnt too.

Seriously? It's like saying, If Judaism wasn't cool, why the Holocaust? People did bad shit to the Jews in the past too, so maybe Judaism sucks? What kind of argument is that? Just because Buddhist temples have been attack doesn't necessarily mean that Buddhism must be a violent religion.

As far violence by Buddhist go, they're are just as likely to commit acts of violence as anyone else. Buddhists aren't inherently less prone to committing violent acts than non-Buddhists—being skillful in our actions of body, speech, and mind is something we have to work at. Just look at what's going in places like Burma right now.

That said, an objective look at the Buddha's discourses in the Pali Canon shows that there's absolutely no scriptural basis for violence or violent behavior whatsoever; and much of the justifications for the use of violence by people in predominately Buddhist countries is either secular in nature or influenced by ideas foreign to Buddhism proper.

ysmael

green-eyed monsters perhaps... :zombie:

Billyboy

There is only one religion that attacks Buddhists, and I really don't have to mention any names, as we are all aware what type of religion would attack and murder Buddhists, Christians and an non believers. However if I could use a saying's from the Christian Bible, "Judge a tree by its fruit" well if we held such a religion to this statement, in my mind their tree obviously proves that they have much rotten fruit hanging from its branches. If you have to kill innocent people to promote ones view of god, then surely such a religion is a vacuum of delusion and hatred, and completely empty of any compassion or divinity.
Such a religion to me isn't about peace, but is about intolerance and Murder. "Those that live by the sword, will die by the sword" and are dying by the thousands.
But understand this, everyday such people from such a religion who murder and maim innocent people, will be the undoing of their faith, as people are losing patience and respect for them and their communities. I predict that within a hundred years their religion will be dead in the water, proving that they were not so connected to God as they so arrogantly presumed.
Time will tell upon such a belief system.
All Buddhist around the world must remember to keep true to the dharma, as only through our values of compassion and mindfulness will the world ever forge a lasting peace.
It is a very troubled world we all live in, but such folk only attack Buddhists, because they do not like the truth about reality, or their own failures as human beings.
For the record no Buddhist, Christian, Hebrew, or Muslim should ever kill, but unfortunately many do.

footiam

TheEccentric said:

Jealous Member's of a barbaric, less profound and beneicial to be in religion, that's who.

And funnily enough it always seems to be the members of the same religion that attack Buddhist temples abd universities.

History always repeats itself, doesn't it?

footiam

karasti said:

The religious teachings might extol peace but they are still made up of individual people who have different ideas and feelings who skew the words to meet their own needs. The people who proclaim a religion, are not that religion. Islam doesn't equal terrorism. Christianity doesn't equal Westboro Baptist Church or the US military despite all their mention of God. Those are all problems of the people, not the religion. Buddhism isn't exempt from people with misled ideas.

There is a Chinese saying that says that all under Heaven is from one family. When there many religions, there are many different Heavens and yet many times, we say, Thanks Heaven!

footiam

karasti said:

The religious teachings might extol peace but they are still made up of individual people who have different ideas and feelings who skew the words to meet their own needs. The people who proclaim a religion, are not that religion. Islam doesn't equal terrorism. Christianity doesn't equal Westboro Baptist Church or the US military despite all their mention of God. Those are all problems of the people, not the religion. Buddhism isn't exempt from people with misled ideas.

There is a Chinese saying that says that all under Heaven is from one family. When there many religions, there are many different Heavens and yet many times, we say, Thanks Heaven!

footiam

A bomb has gone off somewhere in Danok, Southern Thailand. While it is not a temple that has been bombed, I wonder again why bomb a place where people pray?