The crusades, from the third person

Justin

So you ahve a group of people claiming to be doing Gods work, killing untold numbers of people that could also be called God's work. Where does it make sense that one man can kill another in the name of a diety? This is true today but now there is so much more at stake (Nuclear, biological weapons and whatnot). Now if you live in a certian country, regardless of your religeous affiliation, you could be extinguished for just looking a certian way. The muslim faith discourages this type of exterminating behavior yet, groups bent on this line of thinking seem to be doing it in the name af Allah. Does anyone have any level of understanding, even from an extremists viewpoint?

tycho

The concept of killing someone who doesn't believe the exact same thing as you is just absurd to me. I don't think I could ever understand thier line of thinking.

QCH2002

Zealots are crazy. This is true, be it thousand years ago, or today. These zealots get whipped up by leaders and they become blind to everything else. The view is commonly so construed and distorted that everything these zealots see is warped. What might be a rolling field of flowers, they see weeds that must be burned.

Many of the zealots of today are bred into hating a culture, a race, a religion, or even a country. Doesn't really matter how wrong their teachings are, they find enough evidence that they are right, justified.

Since we, the Evil Americans, are able to speak our minds, are relatively comfortable in our lives, they hate us. They see us as sloths and we must have made a deal with the devil.

Many almost believe that being happy and carefree is bad. You need to be oppressed and distraught in order to show you devotion to your God.

The only thing to combat this mi9ndset... wait it out and make damn sure that you are as kind and generous to everyone in the world. If we, the Americans, gave more to help less fortunate countries and cleaned up or political problems, maybe the next generation of "haters" won't hate us.

federica

It's also extremely important to understand that we can never hope to affect the way people think until we can first learn and understand how they think in the first place. Different cultures have different sets of rules, and success depends on how easily we can "walk a mile in their shoes".....remember, their mind-set is centuries old - do we honestly and reasonably expect to effect changes by way of a comparatively brief encounter now?

bodhi

Blame the blind followers don't blame the religion.

First and foremost I think most religion encourage us to be good that is do what is good or virtues and abandone what is evil.

If only people start educating themselves instead of following blindly without listening to religious talk and finding the truth in the teaching.

I think the majority of us are deluded. To them whether one is a muslim, christian or buddhist is just in name only or a form of their culture that is without actually practicing the true teaching. You won't fing them reading the bible,quaran or buddhist sutra or going to the mosque,church or temple.

Justin

True, the people are to blame for distorting belief systems in the world. But why must minkind desire to destroy whole groups of people due to a belief that they may or may not have? By adoptiong the teachings, we can learn to tollerate the misgivings of others and try to understand where they may be coming from, right or wrong. Ever felt sympathy for Osama? Try it sometime.

bodhi

It is precisely because of all the killing either through disaster or the amount of violence and death not forgerting the the amount of untold sufffering arising out of this world call samsara that the Buddha came to this world to teach about the four noble truth.

That's why Buddhism is very relevant in this dharma ending age.

We won't be searching for enlightenment if our world is without suffering.

federica

Good point, well presented!

Justin

So, violence feeds our need for enlightnement? I don't think that I can agree with that. Even in the most tranquil of worlds, there is still suffering, there is still want, violence is merely a part of that cycle. Perhaps you can explain further, Bodhi?

Jason

I think what Bodhi was refering to was in the suttas where the Buddha compares all the states of existence and their merits. He says that being in this world as a human is the best out of all of them because we have the optimum chance for practice. In the lower "hell-realms" there is nothing but suffering and there is too much to practice. In the higher "heavenly-realms" there is little to no suffering so the beings there have no reason to practice. They are too content and lulled into laziness because they are happy most of the time. Here in the middle we have normal humans which have an almost equal amount of suffering and happiness. The suffering we experience gives rise to right effort, the need to practice and attain freedom, while we have enough happiness not to get too discuraged. The Buddha said to treasure our lives because we are gifted with being in the best place for practicing Dhamma. Of course in all the samsaric cycles there is suffering in some form, but here we have not too much and not too little.

Justin

OK, I can go with that.

bodhi

Sometime we only see people searchign for the truth when calamity strikes. You also see a lot them with great generosity and doing various meritorious deed. In a way a lot of good came out from a bad as well. I think its like Mara and Buddha. One can't exist without the other.

The Buddha renounce this world and search for enlightenment upon encountering an old man, a sick man and a dead man.

comicallyinsane

Balance is always needed.

thebatman

I must sadly and disappointedly disagree with one of the earlier posts which suggested we must be more and more generous to win over the zealots who hate us. They are not jealous of our physical possessions. They are not jealous of us at all. They hate the example we set of individual rights (especially for women). They hate our low moral standards which they fear will infect their countries. They hate that we do not worship the same god as they do. They hate that we support Israel who has sided with this country loyally and deserves our allegiance (within reason).
The bottom line is this: you don't pray to Allah so you are an infidel which in turn means you must convert or die.
Extend a friendly hand to these zealots and you will pull back a bloody nub.

Simonthepilgrim

Hear the words of the World-Honoured Tathagata, the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel:

"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me," the hatred of those who harbour such thoughts is not appeased.
"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me," the hatred of those who do not harbour such thoughts is appeased.
Hatreds never cease by hatred in this world; by love alone they cease. This is an ancient Law.

Dhammapada - The Twin Verses 3, 4 & 5

DharmaKitten

The way I understand it, for a lot of extremists the view is pretty much "kill them all and let God sort them out", with the added part that they must do something so terrific in the name of their God that he doesn't forget them when he's doing the sorting. One thing that really scares me is that so many extremists do have so little regard for life - whether it is of others or it is even their own. I can understand it for some who have grown up in the midst of war - that life sucks and the afterlife will be so much better that now doesn't matter. What I can't understand are those who grow up living what seems to the outside to be a pretty decent life. Then again, I was a really depressed teen and remember thinking that all I had to do was stick it out till I died then everything would be better. Never thought about taking others with me, though.

KnightofBuddha

The Muslims I have talked to are some of the nicest people. They demonstrate understanding and compassion and don't try to convert me. They are very tolerant. They realize there are bad apples in their faith as you may find in many faiths through history. And they discourage such cruel acts against their brothers and sisters whom they believe to all be the children of Adam. We must take the time to learn about such a misunderstood religion and come to our own conclusions instead of relying on the media to explain the world religions.

comicallyinsane

Are you saying the news would mislead me?

federica

....Perish the thought.... all media representatives, news reporters and newspaper directors strive for truth, honesty, sincerity and telling you it like it is.... they would never in their right minds, print or broadcast anything which might be biased, untruthful, self-promoting or misleading....


Shall I wake up now.....?

comicallyinsane

No stay asleep. You said "right minds". Maybe that is the problem?

DharmaKitten

Knight of Buddha wrote:

The Muslims I have talked to are some of the nicest people. They demonstrate understanding and compassion and don't try to convert me. They are very tolerant. They realize there are bad apples in their faith as you may find in many faiths through history. And they discourage such cruel acts against their brothers and sisters whom they believe to all be the children of Adam. We must take the time to learn about such a misunderstood religion and come to our own conclusions instead of relying on the media to explain the world religions.

I second that. Same in my experience, too.

Simonthepilgrim

In all discussions about Islam, I notice that Sufism tends to be left out. It is within Sufism that we can meet mystical Islam which is quite extraordinary in its rich tolerance. Without Sufism (which may even pre-date the Prophet {PBOH}) we wouldn't have Rumi or Omar Khayyam!

buddhafoot

Hi all - I'm a newbie here - but I thought I would throw in my $0.02 worth...

I believe this is a problem with any religeon - and while I hope this isn't sacraligeous to the buddhists here - the same thing goes with Buddhism.

If we were to say that there was some omnipotent being in the universe - as someone once put it "God has no religeon".

An omnipotent being is one thing - religeon, I believe is a man made thing. That in itself is it's downfall. If we're not gods then how can we take it upon ourselves to think we know what a god is or what a god wants?

And this is where, I believe, all the problems start.

Some person, usually a self-proclaimed (or someone voted by a bunch of other men) holy person decides that "these people are wrong" and just by living seem to be defiling a certain religeons belief. Then those people who would rather be told what to do instead of thinking for themselves - or believe that by following the decree of someone else - the evil actions they do are justified.

I once read a long time ago that if you were to take the readings or teachings or major teachers in our lives - Buddha, Jesus, etc. - they all pretty much say the same thing. There are some differences - but most of all it's do kindness to yourself and respect and love others.

I've had so many people in my office and so many interruptions - I don't even remember if I made a point regarding the question asked

Michael

masteravatardavidsta

Justin wrote:

So you ahve a group of people claiming to be doing Gods work, killing untold numbers of people that could also be called God's work. Where does it make sense that one man can kill another in the name of a diety? This is true today but now there is so much more at stake (Nuclear, biological weapons and whatnot). Now if you live in a certian country, regardless of your religeous affiliation, you could be extinguished for just looking a certian way. The muslim faith discourages this type of exterminating behavior yet, groups bent on this line of thinking seem to be doing it in the name af Allah. Does anyone have any level of understanding, even from an extremists viewpoint?

From my point of view all "gods" tend to take-on the same human characteristics as THEIR creators "good & "bad". These minions of "unconditional love" seem to share the same narrow-minded, short-sighted bigotries as their human followers. I've shared with people on this web-site what it was like growing-up Southern Baptist and gay in Texas. I also saw more of the same thing after my spiritual search lead me down the Christian paths of Lutheranism, Protestant Pentecostalism, Roman Catholism, and finally the Catholic Charismatic movement.... I like Buddhism because it transcends the concept of a personal god. It puts YOU in the driver seat and makes YOU responsible for YOUR OWN ACTIONS as well as finding and manifesting your OWN enlightenment.

masteravatardavidsta

:bowdown:

QCH2002 wrote:

Zealots are crazy. This is true, be it thousand years ago, or today. These zealots get whipped up by leaders and they become blind to everything else. The view is commonly so construed and distorted that everything these zealots see is warped. What might be a rolling field of flowers, they see weeds that must be burned.

Many of the zealots of today are bred into hating a culture, a race, a religion, or even a country. Doesn't really matter how wrong their teachings are, they find enough evidence that they are right, justified.

Since we, the Evil Americans, are able to speak our minds, are relatively comfortable in our lives, they hate us. They see us as sloths and we must have made a deal with the devil.

Many almost believe that being happy and carefree is bad. You need to be oppressed and distraught in order to show you devotion to your God.

The only thing to combat this mi9ndset... wait it out and make damn sure that you are as kind and generous to everyone in the world. If we, the Americans, gave more to help less fortunate countries and cleaned up or political problems, maybe the next generation of "haters" won't hate us.

:bowdown: I agree! I believe that America's own ruthless corporate greed and lust for control has created this situation to begin with! IT'S TIME TO EVOLVE INTO A MORE LOVING SPECIES. WE'VE BEEN STUPID LONG ENOUGH.

masteravatardavidsta

bodhi wrote:

Sometime we only see people searchign for the truth when calamity strikes. You also see a lot them with great generosity and doing various meritorious deed. In a way a lot of good came out from a bad as well. I think its like Mara and Buddha. One can't exist without the other.

The Buddha renounce this world and search for enlightenment upon encountering an old man, a sick man and a dead man.

Good point. But I could do with a little more "Buddha" and a little less "Mara. :cheer:

masteravatardavidsta

Simonthepilgrim wrote:

Hear the words of the World-Honoured Tathagata, the Wish-Fulfilling Jewel:

Dhammapada - The Twin Verses 3, 4 & 5

I'm working on it my friend ! Believe me ! I'm working on it ! :werr:

masteravatardavidsta

Knight of Buddha wrote:

The Muslims I have talked to are some of the nicest people. They demonstrate understanding and compassion and don't try to convert me. They are very tolerant. They realize there are bad apples in their faith as you may find in many faiths through history. And they discourage such cruel acts against their brothers and sisters whom they believe to all be the children of Adam. We must take the time to learn about such a misunderstood religion and come to our own conclusions instead of relying on the media to explain the world religions.

As George W.Bush once put it , "...Islam is a peace-loving religion". Hows THAT for media "wisdom" ? :banghead: :crazy: