"If the world was blind, it would be free of hate"

RaceDriver205,

Well, perhaps my failing is that I still believe there are more good people in this world than there are bad? I don't feel it is now, ever was, or ever will be fair to judge everyone for what one or some have done. It's as simple as that for me.

Just pondering this discussion a bit.

Is it conceivable that since such radical actions can feasibly be condoned by a religion, no matter which one, that said religion contains a rather monumental flaw in it's theology?

I mean, you don't really hear much about 'radical buddhists' do you?

Hi Questioner,

Hmmmm. I have to admit that is a very intriguing question. My perspective is this, it seems the problems come in when one tells another they are wrong and therefore; stupid, etc., for what they believe. I think it's pride and greed (for one's agenda) that causes the real problems.

Christ did not argue with the non-believers. He stated it the way it was and left it at that. He did not stand there and argue back and forth about who is wrong and who is right. I think this is something we all should do but unfortunately, find rather difficult to do.

I, personally, am working on it. So, I am definitely a work in progress.

Oh, one question back to you though. Are the Buddhists the ones that set themselves on fire at times? If they do, I'd need to know their reasoning behind it before I would attempt to equate those actions with the fanatical actions of some others (all I know about them is they set themselves on fire and not other type of thing.)

So, if anyone can help me with that question, I'd be appreciative.

Just as I have been very happy to assist you towards a more advanced and realistic political orientation, Momma Angel - I'm certainly very happy to help you understand the reason for this most curious and self-destructive behaviour...

The reason why Buddhists are occasionally seen to pour petrol over themselves and set themselves on fire is simply because they are stark raving M-A-A-A-A-D.

What was it about M-A-A-A-A-D[/size] that you didn't understand, Momma Angel... ?

There's quite a bit of M-A-A-A-A-D[/size] going on around the world nowadays - especially in the Middle East.

LOL! Sometimes people do what they do coz they have a good well thought out reason and rationale for their actions. Others do not!
The graphics ice the cake

The thing is herberts, I was trying to get a serious answer to a serious question...................

Herberts, your an idiot.




The Impact of the Self-Immolation

This famous picture was on President Kennedy's desk that day. As a result, Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation: Accelerated the spread of "engaged Buddhism" that had begun in Vietnam in the 1930's. Led to the overthrow of the Diem regime in South Vietnam in November of 1963. Helped change public opinion against the American backed South Vietnamese government and its war against the communist supported Viet Cong.

The social and political impact of Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation was far reaching. It was reported in the New York Times the next day and a copy of the fach Quang Duc in 1963 has been followed by the self-immolation of several monks and by the continued activism of the "rebellious monks of Hue" against the communist government in Vietnam over the past three decades.

Who Was Thich Quang Duc?

Thich Quang Duc was born in 1897 and was 67 at the time of his self-immolation in 1963. He had lived in a Buddhist monastic community since he was seven years old and was ordained as a full Buddhist monk or Bhikku when he was twenty. Thich Quang Duc practiced an extreme ascetic purification way for several years, became a teacher, and spent many years rebuilding Buddhist temples in Vietnam prior to 1943. At the time of his death, he was a member of the Quan the Am temple and Director of rituals for the United Vietnamese Buddhist Congregation. Thich Quang Duc is considered to be a bodhisattva, "an enlightened being - one on the path to awakening who vows to forego complete enlightenment until he or she helps all other beings attain enlightenment."

Amigo,

Thank you for posting that. It helped. I was completely unknowing as to the reasons for the monks setting themselves on fire.

Herberts,

I have to admit that your response to my question did shock me. I was being serious about something people were doing and dying doing it and you made a joke of it. I don't understand that.

Then the other two cartoons? What's up with that? Don't you feel anyone's religious beliefs should have at least of modicum of respect afforded them?

"The press spoke then of suicide, but in the essence, it is not. It is not even a protest. What the monks said in the letters they left before burning themselves aimed only at alarming, at moving the hearts of the oppressors, and at calling the attention of the world to the suffering endured then by the Vietnamese. To burn oneself by fire is to prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance…. The Vietnamese monk, by burning himself, says with all his strength and determination that he can endure the greatest of sufferings to protect his people…. To express will by burning oneself, therefore, is not to commit an act of destruction but to perform an act of construction, that is, to suffer and to die for the sake of one's people. This is not suicide."



"Suicide is an act of self-destruction, having as causes the following: (1) lack of courage to live and to cope with difficulties; (2) defeat by life and loss of all hope; (3) desire for nonexistence….. The monk who burns himself has lost neither courage nor hope; nor does he desire nonexistence. On the contrary, he is very courageous and hopeful and aspires for something good in the future. He does not think that he is destroying himself; he believes in the good fruition of his act of self-sacrifice for the sake of others…. I believe with all my heart that the monks who burned themselves did not aim at the death of their oppressors but only at a change in their policy. Their enemies are not man. They are intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred, and discrimination which lie within the heart of man."

Not in the slightest. At the extremes of religious belief you have poor tortured souls turned into insane psychotics through their religious mania causing them to lose sight of reality.

Religious belief is a game, and a toy, and a crutch for desperate personalities who do not possess the emotional maturity to accept the mundane limitations of their existence.

Religion has cost the lives of countless individuals down through the centuries - all clubbing one another to death on behalf of their respective Gods and at the behest of their priestly overseers.

Just witness the madness of Islam today - and then tell me religion is a force for good in modern society.

Amigo - I could post up a score of photos which have captured Moments of Madness that have been the result of religious fanaticism and lunacy... but what would that prove except that religion is one of the most potent and dangerous of all the social diseases - and like a parasitic alien life-form it takes up lodgings in the frontal lobe of otherwise intelligent and rational human beings.

Someone who puts his fellow compatriots -- men, women, and children -- through the trauma and the psychological distress of having to watch him burn to a cinder in a public place deserves absolutely no respect from me.

These are acts of gross petulance towards a world which they deem is imperfect and not quite to their liking -- well hello, Mr Crispy -- join the club!

Here, one more time just for you RaceDriver...

herberts,

Don't you realize that you, yourself, are promoting a kind of discrimination? You are putting everyone that has religious beliefs into the category of fanatical and thereby judging all by the actions of some?

Can it now be said of you that you are anti-religious; bigoted towards those that are religious; etc.? I am sorry herberts, but I see you doing the same thing you are accusing the religious of doing. Deciding how it is for everyone and making judgments on that.

Correct me if I am mistaken, please.

MA... here we go again with this tiresome ploy of 'it's only a few people who are committing crimes in the name of Islam - and it's not fair to blame the majority...'[/i].

When I order a meal in a restaurant and I discover that one of the potatoes has a worm living in it - I don't send the potato back to the kitchen and carry on with my dinner.

And in much the same way if a certain brand of anti-Western religion is responsible for inspiring murderous lunacy in a fairly significant percentage of its followers - then I don't want that cultural product to be imported into my country for it to wreak havoc from within the walls of my Judeo-Christian society.

The London bombers who cost 52 innocent British lives were all but one brought up in the suburbs of England... so from where did they receive their murderous inspiration if not from Islam?

herberts,

You blame whomever you want to blame. Just remember that when someone lumps YOU into a particular category for something YOU YOURSELF have not done, consider it reaping what you sow.

... And following upon the heels of the London bombings a survey of Muslim opinion across the UK was just as devastating and horrifying for its broad sympathy with those murderous bastards.

We are living with alien communities which have every intention of gradually ascending to predominance within Western society. They are quite happy to wait for this to occur naturally and incrementally without one shot being fired.

Just ask any American how the hispanics have been allowed to predominate in several of their southern states - and how the hispanics have set up insular ethnic ghettoes right across the face of their American homeland. The one blessing is that they're not Muslims.

herberts,

I am not one given to labeling other people, but I sure am getting close when it comes to you. Actually, you are beginning to sound like some of the KKK here in the south. Perhaps you would like to resort to some of their methods of ethnic cleansing or something?

I don't know for sure if that is what you are thinking herberts, but it is what I am getting as a message from your posts.

MA - it might be time for you to put down your Bible for a few weeks so that you'll have time to at least make a cursory study of Islam and what it demands and asks of its adherents as a matter of religious duty and obligation.

It'll make your hair stand on end. It's not a pretty sight.

The Koran and the hadiths excuse every sort of primitive barbarism so long as it advances the cause of Islam. It's why we in the West have for years been treated to scenes of mob hysteria on our television sets as the Faithful have gone rampaging down their dusty donkey-filled streets screaming "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar" like so many automatons.

I lump them all together precisely because they are all worshipping at the same Islamic altar. They are ALL taking their cue and their direction from the same source.

Some are actively fighting the West - while the others are quietly assured that they need do nothing more than breed, and immigrate more of their compatriots, and use the West's own democratic systems to eventually attain powerful influence over the laws and politics of Western nations.

And guess what, Momma Angel -- when they have finally reached a situation of great influence in Western society - your Christian church will then be in more jeopardy for its survival than at any other time in its history.

This is driving me nuts . . .

If the world WERE blind . . .


The subjunctive . . .