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| How many Syrian refugees should Australia take? |
| None |
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52% |
[ 21 ] |
| A few hundred |
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2% |
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| A few thousand |
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5% |
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| Over ten thousand |
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5% |
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| As many as possible |
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35% |
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| Total Votes : 40 |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Christians and athiests.
There's other religions out there as well 
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Sorry, Pastafarians too.
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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An article on some of the prevailing false assumptions about Buddhism:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/13/rohingya-and-the-myth-of-buddhist-tolerance/
| Quote: | | For every instance of forbearance, history also provides examples of violent intolerance legitimated by Buddhist doctrines and conducted by practitioners. As many ancient Jain and Brahmanical texts speak of persecution at the hands of Indian Buddhists, as Buddhists accuse their South Asian competitors of the same. And consider Jerryson’s examples of the sixth century Chinese Buddhist monk Faqing, who promised his 50,000 followers that every opponent they killed would take them to a higher stage in the bodhisattva’s path. Or recall that with the advent of nationalism, Buddhist monks rallied to the cause as with Japanese Rinzai support for the military campaign against the Russians in 1904-5, or Zen and Pureland Buddhist justifications of the Japanese invasions of China, Korea and Singapore during World War II. Buddhism has been corrupted in these places, they argued, and violence is necessary to insure that ‘true’ Buddhism is restored and preserved. The same rhetoric – of some fundamental Buddhism under threat – also underwrites the more recently nationalized bigotry and violence that Buddhist monks and laypersons have unleashed on non-Buddhists in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and, last but not least, Myanmar. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Can you give me a more specific reference? |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | An article on some of the prevailing false assumptions about Buddhism:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/13/rohingya-and-the-myth-of-buddhist-tolerance/
| Quote: | | For every instance of forbearance, history also provides examples of violent intolerance legitimated by Buddhist doctrines and conducted by practitioners. As many ancient Jain and Brahmanical texts speak of persecution at the hands of Indian Buddhists, as Buddhists accuse their South Asian competitors of the same. And consider Jerryson’s examples of the sixth century Chinese Buddhist monk Faqing, who promised his 50,000 followers that every opponent they killed would take them to a higher stage in the bodhisattva’s path. Or recall that with the advent of nationalism, Buddhist monks rallied to the cause as with Japanese Rinzai support for the military campaign against the Russians in 1904-5, or Zen and Pureland Buddhist justifications of the Japanese invasions of China, Korea and Singapore during World War II. Buddhism has been corrupted in these places, they argued, and violence is necessary to insure that ‘true’ Buddhism is restored and preserved. The same rhetoric – of some fundamental Buddhism under threat – also underwrites the more recently nationalized bigotry and violence that Buddhist monks and laypersons have unleashed on non-Buddhists in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and, last but not least, Myanmar. |
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Sounds reasonable, but it is always wise to distinguish several things :
1. What is the sincere intent of a movement as expressed in its core texts ?
2. How practical is that intent , given human nature (does it require much violence to sustain itself) ?
3. How do the ordinary flawed human beings attached to a movement actually behave as a result of being under its influence ?
Buddhism seems to me relatively benign, as such things go.
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Surely if we were to examine the various historical and contemporary states of Christianity alone, we would understand that religion's intent is often multifaceted and can be (and has been on countless occasions) used to justify everything from kindness and social progress to oppression and sadism. Knowing that, any desire to rank the religions is surely a facile exercise (which is not to say that they are the same, of course; but that their 'essential' qualities are more often than not irrelevant).
For any religion to achieve cultural dominance, it must hold widespread appeal, be able to be used in sync with a functional social system, but also have a ruthless evangelising/colonising streak that makes conversion non-negotiable and forces minority religions out. So I dare say that if we look at the world's big religions, we will find that they start to conform in certain key aspects regardless of original authorial intent or specific doctrinal differences.
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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Of course their essential tenets and core texts are not irrelevant. How could they be, since they provide the basis for debate within the religion itself ?
And out of interest, where do you see contemporary Christianity in general (there are always exceptions among millions) "making conversion non-negotiable and forcing other religions out" ?
In any event, I was thinking more about the humanistic "religion" of Communism when I pondered my distinctions. I think they hold good. It's a fact in the world that some things, some systems of belief, really are less malignant in intent and effect than others.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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There's a key contradiction in the framing of your question. On the one hand, you seek to assert fundamental differences in character between religions, differences that can be sourced to founding texts. Yet on the other, you are careful to limit your question to 'contemporary' Christianity. Why?
The answer, at least in one sense, is simple: we don't see evidence of Christianity engaging in forced conversion and suppressing minority groups because, in the West, this process has already happened. It is the story of Christianity's spread through Europe, then through the world as it was colonised by Europeans, whether they be the Spanish conquistadors in South America or the missions here in Australia. Pluralism has only emerged in Christian-dominated societies in the wake of the enlightenment, and even then mostly only over the past 100 years.
We could, of course, devote pages to the question of why Christianity in most of its current international manifestations is much more peaceful than it has been at other times in its history, when in parts of Europe it was once at least as horrifically cruel and violent as ISIS is now. But that would require acknowledgement of a disconnect between religion's 'intention' and interpretation, which is all I've been asserting. To me it seems like common sense and a generally acknowledged point.
The strangeness in your argument is that it rests on the premises that a) Christianity is fundamentally peaceful (in a way that Islam isn't); and b) that religions' manifestations tend to reflect their fundamental essences. This formulation only makes sense (and even then only tenuously) if history begins at around 1980 AD. The past existence of oppressive, violent Christianities alone should be a fatal flaw in your argument and needs some serious explaining away.
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sixpoints
Joined: 27 Sep 2010
Location: Lulie Street
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Struth, Christianity which is based upon a human blood sacrifice and redemption / salvation coming from suffering and a horrible painful death has been used in itself as a reason to inflict pain etc for centuries.
"Suffering and Dying Sets You Free" has been used as a rationale to do terrible things for hundred of years. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | There's a key contradiction in the framing of your question. On the one hand, you seek to assert fundamental differences in character between religions, differences that can be sourced to founding texts. Yet on the other, you are careful to limit your question to 'contemporary' Christianity. Why?
The answer, at least in one sense, is simple: we don't see evidence of Christianity engaging in forced conversion and suppressing minority groups because, in the West, this process has already happened. It is the story of Christianity's spread through Europe, then through the world as it was colonised by Europeans, whether they be the Spanish conquistadors in South America or the missions here in Australia. Pluralism has only emerged in Christian-dominated societies in the wake of the enlightenment, and even then mostly only over the past 100 years.
We could, of course, devote pages to the question of why Christianity in most of its current international manifestations is much more peaceful than it has been at other times in its history, when in parts of Europe it was once at least as horrifically cruel and violent as ISIS is now. But that would require acknowledgement of a disconnect between religion's 'intention' and interpretation, which is all I've been asserting. To me it seems like common sense and a generally acknowledged point.
The strangeness in your argument is that it rests on the premises that a) Christianity is fundamentally peaceful (in a way that Islam isn't); and b) that religions' manifestations tend to reflect their fundamental essences. This formulation only makes sense (and even then only tenuously) if history begins at around 1980 AD. The past existence of oppressive, violent Christianities alone should be a fatal flaw in your argument and needs some serious explaining away. |
The Spanish inquisition gambit never gets old for those who want to paint Christianity as violent. Well, Christianity was indeed horrible in the 16th century. The world was horribly violent then too, and Christianity can be captured by power. These two things were deeply connected, of course. There is practically nothing in Christ's words to justify coercion or violence (spare me the bit about coming as a sword - the metaphor in that speech is obvious in context).
Isis and a great deal of the ME is horribly violent today in a world where peaceable norms and human development have come very far. The violent actors can claim good textual justification as there is so much warlordry in the core text and so little charity. Read it and compare.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| sixpoints wrote: | Struth, Christianity which is based upon a human blood sacrifice and redemption / salvation coming from suffering and a horrible painful death has been used in itself as a reason to inflict pain etc for centuries.
"Suffering and Dying Sets You Free" has been used as a rationale to do terrible things for hundred of years. |
As opposed to the revolutionary class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. Never a head severed. Whether you believe the theology or the ethics or neither, I think most educated people would feel that the Christian folk tale has much more human and cultural meaning than your startlingly limited reading above.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Mugwump wrote: | The Spanish inquisition gambit never gets old for those who want to paint Christianity as violent. Well, Christianity was indeed horrible in the 16th century. The world was horribly violent then too, and Christianity can be captured by power. These two things were deeply connected, of course. There is practically nothing in Christ's words to justify coercion or violence (spare me the bit about coming as a sword - the metaphor in that speech is obvious in context).
Isis and a great deal of the ME is horribly violent today in a world where peaceable norms and human development have come very far. The violent actors can claim good textual justification as there is so much warlordry in the core text and so little charity. Read it and compare. |
You make the Spanish Inquisition sound like some kind of freak occurrence in the history of Christianity. It may have been the worst, but it was of a piece with the Crusades, the persecution of Protestants and later Catholics in England, the Salem witch trials, the many anti-Jewish pogroms and forced exiles, the barbarity of the conquistadors and other Christian colonisers, and even just the everyday law and order processes of Christian Europe in which torture and execution of blasphemers and sodomites was utterly mundane.
Was all of this 'Christianity' in its pure form, or 'Christianity captured by power'? That's a trick question, of course. What's clear is that the inquisitors believed they were interpreting the Bible literally, and that they were given the untrammelled power to do so. Power + fundamentalism generally means bad news; it's only a Christianity that has been defanged by secular democracy and by antithetical liberal progressive values that seems comparatively harmless.
The question of whether the Inquisitors' interpretation of God's word was accurate or not is a theological question. My sister, for instance, sincerely believes that the New Testament does not do away with Moasic law, and that some of the less palatable commands of the Old Testament thus remain in force. You're welcome to point out that the vast majority of contemporary Christians disagree with her; but to say that they've understood the Bible in a way that she has fundamentally failed to is a theological assertion that you're not qualified to make.
I'm not nearly as familiar with the Koran as I am with the Bible, so I'll grant that it may be as you say – that the Koran is a more inherently warlike text, that the Bible is more peaceful and the Buddha's writings are more peaceful still. If so, the peacefulness and charity of ordinary Muslims and the functionality of Muslim societies – along with Islam's worst atrocities, and Christianity's, and Buddhism's in Myanmar – only prove the point I was making some pages back: the intent or content of religious texts has little bearing on its various real-world manifestations, and can be used to justify humanity's best and worst impulses alike.
One more thing: the idea that we live in a 'world' in which peace has become the norm is, of course, absurd on many levels. The first is that the prosperity and comfort of the West has little bearing on everyday life in Pakistan or Sierra Leone; the second is that we in the Christian West have been agents of war and devastation in those places. To look at the conflict in the Middle East and see Islam as the primary culprit (as opposed to, say, European imperialism, past and present) is a deeply perverse reading.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace
Last edited by David on Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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Crusades, conquistador, Jewish pogroms, the inquisition and the reformation. Only yesterday, really.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ So what? You're talking about the intent of texts written over a thousand years ago. You can't have this both ways: there's actually no justification for dismissing history in the context of this conversation.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | ^ So what? You're talking about the intent of texts written over a thousand years ago. You can't have this both ways: there's actually no justification for dismissing history in the context of this conversation. |
We're not going to advance the conversation, so I'll close by reiterating the points I initially made. The text and the intent matters. How these work, and can work, in human minds matters. I meant today,, of course, but I should have expected the Spanish Inquisition. Next you'll be telling me that English literature is barbarous because of Beowulf (Nordic, of course, but usually accepted as seminal).
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Two more flags before I die! |
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