Buddhism has a long and periodically violent history, like any other religion.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_…

We Pastafarians are 100% peaceable.

@2 - pfff. meatballs don't grow on trees.

It is "pushback" against the Muslims deeds which are similar...

Quakers with pitchforks are coming next.

The Onion's been there. http://www.theonion.com/articles/buddhis…

Research the Sinhalese Buddhist goverent of Sri Lanka.

Strange. I've always exempted Buddhists from my rants on the evils of religion. Looks like I have some reading to do.

Hey, the only bombs we Unitarian Universalists throw are made of glitter.

It's been documented that the only group of people on earth who are no-violent and perfect are Dan Savage and his flock.

They are failing at religion, not exemplifying it.

Being a Nichiren Buddhist, I am only somewhat aware of the founding of that school of Buddhism during the Kamakura period in 13th century CE Japan--an extremely violent and destabilizing period for the feudal Japanese. Basically, there were many schools of Buddhism and each school had its religiously motivated political agenda and its own political connections tied in with the political power plays of the times. No separation of church and state, or rather Buddhist school and state. Even Nichiren attempted a state solution promoting his school over all others--and he suffered greatly for it. Google "nicheren and isle of sado". Basically, he was an asshole about everyone just following the Lotus Sutra above all other Buddhist sutras. Now, I say that with love and appreciation. Am I not one of the faithful? And I had the good fortune of running into a gay Baptist seminarian who talked with me a little bit about Nichiren and the Kamakura period. I described Nichiren to him as a reformer in his times. And he said, "So, he sort of sounds like Luther." "Yes," I replied, "He was very much like Luther." "Oh, said the gay Baptist seminarian, "he must have been a huge asshole." Indeed--now Google "luther reformation/counter-reformation." In any case, put politics and religion together and you get terrorists bombing the name of Buddha, Allah, Mithras, Jesus, Thor, Loki, etc., etc., etc.

lol, yep the buddhist beliefs of the japanese, khmer and tibetan kingdoms were just lotuses and poetry.

now queue the no-true-scottsman statements

Let's just face the fact we are animals and we've been murdering each other for as long as there's been people and no doubt as long as there will be people. Religion is just another excuse.

Now if anyone could find me one verse in any Buddhists scripture that even hints at supporting violence, you may have a point.

Religion is about culture and that's what they're fighting over in Malaysia, Sri Lanka etc, not simply religion. If it wasn't religion, people would find some other excuse to kill other people.

Hell, during the French Revolution a group called The Cult of Reason massacred tens of thousands in the name of promoting science and atheism.

@10 LOL!

@4 - That is typical of the stupid islamophobic bullshit that I expect from RWNJ fuckwits.

It's not a pushback against anything other than the Rohingya being a different ethnic group with a different religion. It's straight persecution, with the Rohingya having done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

And that angel Aung San Suu Kyi, the one who the West has always lauded for her love of "freedom" and democracy, has made it very clear over the last year that she absolutely does not give a shit about this.

Dan, the reason you didn't know about this until recently is that it does not fit in with the US government and US media narrative about how Islam is the only violent religion. Since 2001, we've forgotten about the fact that the US and others did, in the ancient past that is the 1990s, actually step in to prevent the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia (by Christians). Instead, the West decided to step in to create the lovely peaceful state of South Sudan, to protect those nice Christians from the nasty Muslims (and hasn't that turned out well?). And now, we're doing nothing about the anti-Muslim pogroms in the Central African Republic (which have barely been reported in the US media).

I'm not saying there's no violence in the name of Islam - there's plenty. I'm not saying that Islam is an especially good thing: it's at least as stupid as the other religions. But all of your media focuses solely on how horrible and violent Muslims are when any of them do anything bad, and ignores religious violence against Muslims.

Western Burma was my first though when they announced that plane kept flying

Max @12, Thanks for the perspective. "...put politics and religion together and you get terrorists bombing the name of Buddha, Allah, Mithras, Jesus..."

Yup. Separation of church and state is as much for the protection of church as it is of state.

Fundamentalism is a modern mistaking of mythos for logos. The fuckers are eating the menu, not the meal.

fundament noun \ˈfən-də-mənt\ 2. The bottom; the buttocks or anus.

21

The opening scene of Slumdog Millionaire is set in the Bombay Riots of December 1992 and January 1993. The riots started as a Muslim backlash after the Babri Mosque demolition on 6 December 1992. Then there was a Hindu backlash against Muslims. Around 900 people died (275 Hindus and 575 Muslims).

Just remembering the lama in "Kim" - recounting with shame going into battle with his iron pencase....

@21

Nice job.

Anyway, people are just assholes; didn't Hitchens, supposedly enlightened because of his atheism, pretty much sound like Ann Coulter where killing Muslims was concerned?

Jesus has the same problem with Christians.

@13 Pretty much.

Let's not pretend that atheism implies ethical behaviour either though, that's just as obviously false.

#24 - Hitchens advocated killing Muslim terrorists, not Muslims. In fact, he knew and loved Muslims, travelled to and wrote quite eloquently about Muslim countries all his life, and had a special place in his heart for the Kurds, who are overwhelmingly Muslim. I didn't agree at all with his support for the invasion of Iraq, among other things, but to accuse him of supporting "killing Muslims" is just simplistic and flat-out wrong.

The wishy-washy Western version of Buddhism is a load of bullshit.

As a buddhist and human being, I am twice appalled at knowing that people can treat others that way, and somehow reconcile it with their religion. Anyone using religion as an excuse for terrible behavior is vile.

Richard Nixon was a Quaker. But I don't suppose his escalation of the Vietnam war was based on his religious beliefs.

Even though I don't believe in spell-casting, I like the way that Wiccans put their moral code: "You can choose to abuse the craft if you wish - but chances are it won't end well!"

@11- Man makes gods in his own image. They're not failing at religion because you can't fail at religion.

There is no "radical Buddhist theology" that could explain or condone this behavior, just a bunch of radical extremists hiding behind the name of a well-known religion in order to try to appropriate an imprimatur of justification. It's been done before, and it's always a load of crap.