Atheism

in context with above post I don't think I will ever read a headling reading "MAN OF GOD ARRESTED FOR MOLESTING ALTAR BOY"

Maybe the author's colleges gave him a new thesaurus for Christmas, and he was still excited to use it.

good point, Dys.

Sorry that might be you it sure was never me or my wife or any numbers of my friends.

"Headlings?"

"The man's colleges?"

You boys need to pay more attention.

It is precisely because Buddhist carry around all that superstitious claptrap about karma, reincarnation, the wheel of life that i consider Buddhism to be a superstition no better than any other organized religion. Their holier-than-thou hypocrisy sticks in my craw, too. The Tamils and Sinhalese slaughter each other gleefully, Tibet was a feudal state in which children starved while monks grew fat until the "evil" Chinese showed up, and the Buddhist are happy to prate about states of consciousness while women and children live in poverty, misery and on the brink of starvation. I consider the Buddhists to be among the worst religious creeps on the planet.

I think many of us are in the habit of becoming enamored of the charming or moralistic aspects of religions, without really considering the affects of a given religion on the people living with it. In the end, I have rejected them all.

What moral aspects are we talking about the Ten Commandments for example with the restriction on killing?

When good old Moss came down from the mountain top with those commandments under his arm the first thing he did was order his personal tribe and supporters to go on a killing spree among the rest of the Jews until their arms was too tired to keep moving their sword arms.

Had anyone other then I happen to had read this silly book known as the bible?

Exactly my point, EB. For many people of my generation, Buddhism seemed "cool," and i suspect that is the continuing motivating factor. The Dalai Lama is a fraud, and all the complaints about Chinese oppression notwithstanding, the Tibetans are far better off than they were before the Chinese took over. It's easy to be an enthusiast when you have plenty to eat and sit reading about Jetsun Milarepa in the comfort of your easy chair in a warm room on a winter's night.

That really depends on what's meant by "better off" doesn't it?

How dare they protest & be punished when things are so great! Silly misguided fools.

Please excuse the digression. k. I won't do it again.

Back to topic, all .....

Well, i personally would consider having enough to eat and access to medical care to count as being better off. One of the things which has endlessly sparked protests is the reduction in the numbers of monks and the closing of some monasteries. Prior to the Chinese invasion, the never well fed peasants of Tibet were supporting literally tens of thousands of completely unproductive monks, with the Dalai Lama and his cronies at the top of the heap. It was feudalism to compare with Europe a thousand years ago. You'll note that for many years, monks were the leaders of protests. These days, the protests are largely motivated by racism--they are either attacks on Han Chinese by Tibetans, or attacks on Tibetans by Han Chinese.

Anyway, i didn't say things were great--i just said they're better off than they were.

Such a lovely thread, K. I enjoyed reading all 7 pages.

I'm in a Contemporary Christian band with a married couple who found religion just 5 years ago. They're pretty good about not proselytizing and I don't mind Grace being said when we sit down to dinner. We circle each other warily.

I'm not going to divert this thread any further than to say I'm completely in favour of peoples' rights to self-determination. Even if their particular determination is considered a "mistake" by outsiders who "know better". It could also be argued that East Timor would have been far "better off" remaining under Indonesian rule. They are certainly having a tough time of it as an independent country. But, after a long, bloody struggle, they achieved their goal of independence & good luck to them. Living with cultural, religious & political oppression is something that most of us have never experienced first hand & probably never will. Who are we to tell the East Timorese, or the Tibetans, that they are wrong or misguided to want what they want?

Apologies again, k. Sorry.

Until you learn to comprehend my posts I see no cause to respond.

.

Edgarblythe are you trying to win a contest of some kind with such people as Bill Occom and Setante as who can be the most unpleasant?

If so are you have a high mountain to climb to win as they are at the moment way ahead of you.

In any case good luck to you in winning this contest.

Sorry you find it unpleasant.

As i said before, i didn't say things in Tibet were great, only that they are better off than they were. I consider your comparison of East Timor to Tibet to be specious. Tibet is land-locked, and things like have decent highways and an airport are extremely important, and things which they never had before the Chinese arrived. Those are things in which the monks and the Buddhist leadership were not interested in, because they had all they wanted and needed under the old feudal system. East Timor was not struggling out of a thousand year old system of internal repression, they were struggling against a repression imposed from outside. Things were made better by the impositions of Indonesian military and police leaders, they were made worse. The Chinese invasion of Tibet on the other hand gave them things they'd never had before, such as a hospital (there had never been one, in the entire country, previously), childhood education, an airport, roads--what they have now are poor, but passable by motorized vehicles--they didn't even have that before.

I think you are terribly ill-informed about Tibet. I was not well-informed myself about Tibet until the recent rioting, but i did go to the trouble of finding out what i could. Prior to the Chinese invasion, Tibet was living a thousand years in the past. They were just barely living in the iron age. Everything was owned by the monasteries. Everyone was owned by the monasteries. No hospitals anywhere in the country, no public education of any kind, no commerce which was not centered on enriching the monasteries, no contact with the outside world other than a trickle of visitors to the monasteries--no nothing unless it helped to stuff the bellies of the monks.

Comparing the situation to East Timor is completely inappropriate, and can only be the result of knowing nothing about Tibet as it was 60 years ago, when the Chinese invaded. I suspect more and more that the western view of Tibet is conditioned by the propaganda of the self-serving individuals who surround the Dalai Lama, and the monks in Tibet. However, it cannot be denied that the Chinese have brought to Tibet things which they never had before, such as a public health care system and childhood education. To my way of thinking, it's not a question of whether or not the Chinese have done well, or whether or not things might have been done better by someone else--it's that they would not have been done at all so long as the Dalai Lama and the monasteries were left in the possession of the land, and of the people.

Setanta

I think we're going to make nuisances of our selves if we continue to discuss this on this particular thread. I have a thread about Tibet from way back & you can continue the discussion there if you like.

I really don't want to further disrupt this thread.

We are interested, folks. I don't think it will kill the thread.

Tibet thread:

http://able2know.org/topic/113690-1

(I'm glad you're interested, edgar. )

Please continue with the discussion about Atheism now, everyone.

I see no reason to go to a different thread, because my remarks are in the context of the holier-than-thou attitude of Buddhists to the effect that they are somehow different, somehow morally superior to other organized religions. The essential poverty of the Tibetan people, and their thralldom to a feudal system for nearly a thousand years are germane to that topic.