Buddhism Horrors?
Posted on: July 30, 2007 - 11:44am
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Buddhism Horrors?
I believe that Christianity and Islam rule (when it comes to horrors), but Buddhism?
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Is there any truth on that article? It talks about the Dalai Lamas in Tibet before the communists took over, and it explains how the Dalai Lamas resorted to torture, including eye-gouging to stop people from opposing them. This is something I saw in Penn and Teller's Bullshit, and maybe it is true, as it is also true that Gandhi was a racist, but that's another post altogether.
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They used to behead any foreigners who came into the country until the 1920s.
I'm not up on Tibetan history, so can't speak to the torture issue. Whoever made the charge should produce their evidence--advancing a Chinese political agenda? The current Dalai Lama was forced out of Tibet in the 1950's and has been in public view since. Can't see anyone other than Chinese propagandists accusing him of human rights violations.
As with other religions, there are multiple Buddhisms, some playing to the superstitious. The founder of Buddhism was apparently not interested in belief of any kind, and urged a focus on practice (meditation, ways of living & relating).
I've found Buddhist thought--especially Zen--to be on-target and stimulating, wholly different from affirmation based belief systems (usually of mideastern origin).
The last words of Buddha were something to the effect of work out your own salvation and move on. Hardly the stuff of militant religion.
Christians believe that there can't be morality without God--their God.
The bible says no man can be righteous without Jesus (Romans somewhere) -- strangely, however, God called Noah a righteous man (Genesis somewhere)
Christians believe that there isn't a greater sin than not believing in the Holy Spirit, and most of them believe the unbelievers will burn in hell for all eternity.
Buddhism doesn't seem to have these radical ideas. It is more of a religious philosophy than a religious.
In fact, Theravada Buddhism has ideas that resemble those of atheists and agnostics.
Perhaps the Dalai Lamas, attempting to keep their power, abused the people under their rule. If so, accusing Buddhism of being an agressive religion because of this is no different than accusing atheism of being aggressive because of the actions of many communist regimes.
I never understood the love affair many had with the Dalai Lama. He wants to have a theocratic country where the priestly class is pampered on the backs of the poor. Why free Tibet from China when the people will just become enslaved by another tyrant? I doubt I will ever hear the day Dalai cries in favor of separation of church and state and a secular Constitution and separation of powers. Rather I suspect he'll probably just want to move back to the old feudal system, but I don't think the Tibetians who have lived under the new system will be in favor of becoming serfs again.
Hollywood seems to despise the conservative ideologies Republicans are trying to ram down our throats. However, many Hollywood celebrities are sponsoring people like the Dalai Lama, and many of them are scientologists. The Dalai Lama is an asshole who might've remained in obscurity if it hadn't been because:
(1) His country is now under communist rule.
(2) Richard Gere kisses his ass.
(3) Steven Seagal kisses his ass in public while pretending to kick everyone else's ass.
The best thing that can happen here is that communist China starts to get better, assuming it isn't getting better already, I doubt it, and the people of Tibet start to live in a democracy that does not involve chuch and state holding hands.