Centuries old statue of Buddha blown up in Afghanistan; Fundamentalist Buddhists go on violent rampage!

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, September 15, 2025 17:14
VIEWED: 8984
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ZISKER

Monday, February 6, 2006 9:18 PM

Actually, it's just that the Buddhists got over their violent-political phase around the same time that Islam was really starting to take off. But man oh man, was there one. Was there ever. Especially in Japan.

(Buddhist and history major)

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

CITIZEN

Monday, February 6, 2006 9:25 PM

I thought the violence in those countrys at that period was largely to do with non buddhist groups?

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

CHRISISALL

Monday, February 6, 2006 11:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zisker:
Actually, it's just that the Buddhists got over their violent-political phase around the same time that Islam was really starting to take off. But man oh man, was there one. Was there ever. Especially in Japan.

That's facinating Zisker, care to expand on that a little? I'm really interested.
My Buddhist influence is mostly Shaolin, and doesn't exclude violence, as it is also part of the natural order of things, but it is to be avoided at almost all costs, for all life is sacred, nor can any be replaced.

Kwi-Chang Chrisisall

CHRISISALL

Monday, February 6, 2006 11:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JayTee:
With so many wives and the inability to have a beer I'd probably go crazy and wanna set crap on fire or blow something up.

LOL!
Hey! This is serious....
(although there may be more than a grain of truth in your levity...)

Personally, I find cultures that oppress women to be barbaric in nature, but that's just me.

"Man is by far stronger than woman, yet only woman can create a child, that seem right to you?"

Early Chrisisall

CHRISISALL

Monday, February 6, 2006 11:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
It wasn't long ago that Christians were burning people at the stake and by comparison Muslims were the enlightened ones.

I'm guessin' every religion takes their turn at being used by knuckleheads to control people...

Most religions' essences are pure, I suspect.

Chrisisall, loving all men, but not their actions (If I could only be so pure myself...)

SEVENPERCENT

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 1:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
I don't see how that's a factor in the debate. Yeah, so Christians did some really stupid things, so that's why we should accept the Muslims doing stupid things? No.

Khyron, I'm not accusing you of this, so don't take offense, it was merely your post that made me think of it.

Now, I'm seeing a bunch of the religious right say this in regards to the current Muslim hostility, and I find it amusing. "Why should the actions of Xtians from years ago have any bearing on whether or not the actions being taken today by Muslims are right or wrong?"

Let me tell you what I smell here - hypocrisy. It is this same group of right-wing nuts that constantly use the "But Clinton" defense every time someone points out a GWB screwup. Clinton is no longer president, just like Christians are no longer the ones burning people alive. You cannot have this both ways; either we can discuss how the Xtian actions in the past are relevant, or you can stop using the "But Clinton" every time Bush farks up.

Your choice.

7%'s 2c

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

DC4BS

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 2:02 AM

Ermm...

BULL!

Clinton was president only a few years ago and IF he is, as you claim, no longer relavent then he should SHUT UP and go home. When he does, THEN I'll stop saying "but Clinton..."

The Xtians in question are long gone and are not part of the current mess.

Apples (with grenades) vs. Orages. Totaly useless comparison.

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dc4bs

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 2:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
You cannot have this both ways; either we can discuss how the Xtian actions in the past are relevant, or you can stop using the "But Clinton" every time Bush farks up.

Your choice.

How about this,7...
If the next president is a Democrat, and does something wrong, and you or Signy or whoever posts a rant about it, will AURaptor or Hero chime in with "But Bush"?

Just Chrisisall's 2%

CHRISISALL

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 2:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dc4bs:

Apples (with grenades) vs. Oranges. Totaly useless comparison.

Sounds like 12 of one and half a dozen of another.

(?)

I'm not sure what my point was here...

Chrisisall

ZISKER

Tuesday, February 7, 2006 2:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:
Originally posted by Zisker:
Actually, it's just that the Buddhists got over their violent-political phase around the same time that Islam was really starting to take off. But man oh man, was there one. Was there ever. Especially in Japan.

That's facinating Zisker, care to expand on that a little? I'm really interested.
My Buddhist influence is mostly Shaolin, and doesn't exclude violence, as it is also part of the natural order of things, but it is to be avoided at almost all costs, for all life is sacred, nor can any be replaced.

Kwi-Chang Chrisisall

CHRISISALL: Aw man, I wish my computer hadn’t died a few months ago and taken all my college papers with it – I would’ve just emailed you the thing.

I’m not too familiar with Shaolin (beyond the most superficial of knowledge), but this wasn’t violence utilized in any way in the Buddhist philosophy/belief/esoteric sense at all. It was all about power play and political/economic gain. I did the paper on Japan, so that’s what I’ll get into here (in a brief, brief summary) but if you dig for it the same pattern emerged elsewhere.

Basically, back in the Nara and Heinan Periods 710 – 1185 the Buddhists were big players politically. Why? Well, when Nara was founded as a capital they began building big monasteries there and were connected with the royal family (similar to the expansion of Christian monasteries in Medieval Europe) since there were always a few extra princes sitting around. The monasteries there got to be so powerful that the Imperial court finally pulled up stakes and bailed in 784. There’s a lot of speculation that the priests and monks were involved in a number of assassinations.

Following the Heiji Rising in 1159 Kiyomori had to deal with warring Buddhist factions who took their monastic disputes into the streets. The disputes would turn into riots and parts of the city being torched. These continued to get worse and worse and then the adherents of Zen (I study the Rinzai school) broke into the scene around 1191 – now, they were a very apolitical bunch, but the doctrine itself was adopted by the samurai caste who managed to fuse their refined art of death and Buddhist precepts about control pretty darn well. There’s a whole senior thesis in there for religious study majors, but basically they were able to reconcile ‘don’t kill anyone’ with their capacity to wage very effective and bloody warfare. You could argue that Christians in the modern Army do the same thing to this day.

Anyway, the Zen temples stayed out of the fighting for the most part – but you could argue that’s just because the other temples didn’t want to mess with the warrior caste. In 1253 the party really started when Nichiren introduced the Lotus Sutra sect and ended up getting into an all-out turf war with the Ikko (Pure Land) sect. The Lotus Sutra sect wanted to wipe out all the other sects and their priests would actually go out, track down priests from other schools, and jump them. These incidents would spill out into large bands of monks arming themselves with clubs and torches and attacking each other’s monasteries. And hey, if bystanders got in the way – oh well. After part of a city was burned down (it might have been Kyoto, but I can’t remember it off the top of my head, apologies! I wrote the paper over a year ago

) the Ikko finally went one night and just torched all the Lotus Sutra temples. There were some pretty grim descriptions about these gang-bangs with kids getting killed and just brutal violence on all sides.

It wasn’t until Nobunga came along and managed to finally put the Ikko sect down in the 1580s that the Buddhist wars completely came to a halt. And he did that by killing most of them and dismantling their monasteries. After that everyone chilled and focused on religious studies.

Obviously, this is the very, very simplified version of what happened and written in the classic message board language of “I’ve had a full day of classes and am

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