Originally posted by harvib

Its a ruse to indoctrinate the weak members of society. Don't fall for it. Deny Ignorance. There's no peace in Buddhism.

Indoctrinate how and with what ideals. I have never been solicitied by anyone but a Christian. When are we going to learn to stop looking at eachother with fear and suspicion. That my friend is the real danger.

There seems to be a new wave of fear being introduced into our society regarding other religions. Where is this coming from. Where did you come up with this theory OP?

Ditto that. Only Christinas have ever tried to "convert" me or rather "frighten" me into believing in them. There are many religious groups these days who are behaving in a very defensive manner. Such behaviour is not unusual for any "group" as it loses support.

The world is a mess and relgion is not helping and we (human race we) are slowly starting to wake up to that fact.

Please, stop this thread. This is a ludicrous topic. ALL OF YOUR EVIDENCE is non-existent. It's taken out of context and used to slander a group of very good people, a majority of whom have never raised a hand against any living creature on this earth.

As soon as someone harms another living creature in any way they are, in principal, not Buddhist. The Demon Kings of this world are very strong and they fear people of such purity and selflessness, which is why this thread exists.

Do you think the rulers of these Buddhist countries such as Cambodia are real Buddhists? The Khmer Rouge soldiers oppressing the Buddhist monks still wanted blessings from their alms but the true monks refused. Any religion incorporated into the state has the potential for corruption which is definitely the case.

The selfless authors of the numerous Buddhist texts have themselves said there will be periods of time where the monks will claim to monks but break precepts without even looking twice.

I know this is probably falling on many deaf ears but I thought I would try. The things you are describing are not "Buddhist" rather they are evil and unfortunately in this time of the world such things occur.

Please sift through the lies and deception and realize that most people who follow Buddhism in the West are very strong people with good hearts and want only to see the fruition of good in this world.

I have read through all the posts in this thread. Like the majority, I am outraged by these unsubstantiated allegations by the Rileytardell. Utter rubbish. I am also saddened that there are people gullible enough to jump blindly onto his bandwagon.

One good thing that comes out of this, glad to know there are so many good people out there with different beliefs, background and race willing to defend against these hatemongers. Keep up the good work.

Well I doubt they want world domination. But they are corrupt from what I've seen. Its funny how the people who defend the Buddhists are the same ones that jump on the band wagon to bash Christians.

Sure not all Buddhists are bad, but their is obviously something wrong with a "peaceful" religion banning people form conversion. It's a logical fallacy to just completely excuse Buddhists. "if they were really buddhist they wouldn't do that" Fallacy of special pleading!

Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.

---

---

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Well I doubt they want world domination. But they are corrupt from what I've seen. Its funny how the people who defend the Buddhists are the same ones that jump on the band wagon to bash Christians.

Sure not all Buddhists are bad, but their is obviously something wrong with a "peaceful" religion banning people form conversion. It's a logical fallacy to just completely excuse Buddhists. "if they were really buddhist they wouldn't do that" Fallacy of special pleading!

Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.

What's wrong with you? You can't tell Rileytardell is a hatemonger and his thread are full of misinformation, misrepresentation and lies? Deny ignorance man. You are still making feeble attempts to justify him.

And goodness, you are always "not sure" in most of your post, why make so much effort to post then? Obviously you are not capable of understanding that the world is made up of all kinds of people. Religion doesn't guarantee all its followers to be good. Being good is down to the individual. There will always be bad apples around, just as there will be good Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and others. The sooner you realised that, the sooner you will understand how the world really works. I am an agnostic, my kind got bashed all the time and by everybody. And by the way, there are also good agnostic around too.

Always look out for characters with sinister motives like Rileytardell. Deny them any opportunity to make this world a worse place to live, it's already bad enough. Never side them. Be faithful to yourself and your own belief. Let others be, leave them to their own beliefs. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Originally posted by Gigantopithecus
One good thing that comes out of this, glad to know there are so many good people out there with different beliefs, background and race willing to defend against these hatemongers. Keep up the good work.

It is heartening. Another good thing is actually speaking about the child slave trade.. while it's "over there" it doesn't really enter our minds. Humanity as a whole seems to have turned a blind eye to it.

Originally posted by Gigantopithecus

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Well I doubt they want world domination. But they are corrupt from what I've seen. Its funny how the people who defend the Buddhists are the same ones that jump on the band wagon to bash Christians.

Sure not all Buddhists are bad, but their is obviously something wrong with a "peaceful" religion banning people form conversion. It's a logical fallacy to just completely excuse Buddhists. "if they were really buddhist they wouldn't do that" Fallacy of special pleading!

Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. Essentially, this involves someone attempting to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exemption.

What's wrong with you? You can't tell Rileytardell is a hatemonger and his thread are full of misinformation, misrepresentation and lies? Deny ignorance man. You are still making feeble attempts to justify him.

And goodness, you are always "not sure" in most of your post, why make so much effort to post then? Obviously you are not capable of understanding that the world is made up of all kinds of people. Religion doesn't guarantee all its followers to be good. Being good is down to the individual. There will always be bad apples around, just as there will be good Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and others. The sooner you realised that, the sooner you will understand how the world really works. I am an agnostic, my kind got bashed all the time and by everybody. And by the way, there are also good agnostic around too.

Always look out for characters with sinister motives like Rileytardell. Deny them any opportunity to make this world a worse place to live, it's already bad enough. Never side them. Be faithful to yourself and your own belief. Let others be, leave them to their own beliefs. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Ah-ha! Well said.

BigWhammy DOES have a reputation however, of calling other's beliefs 'wrong' if they don't share the same views as he does, so to see him jumping on the attacking Buddhism train is no surprise at all, even if it's not Buddhism he should be concerned about, that's what he's going to choose to attack.

Well said, friend, good post.

Originally posted by riley

Originally posted by Gigantopithecus
One good thing that comes out of this, glad to know there are so many good people out there with different beliefs, background and race willing to defend against these hatemongers. Keep up the good work.

It is heartening. Another good thing is actually speaking about the child slave trade.. while it's "over there" it doesn't really enter our minds. Humanity as a whole seems to have turned a blind eye to it.

Riley, you are one of them who stood up and fought courageously against Rileytardell. I am 41, I don’t know how old you are. If you are younger than me, the future looks brighter with you at our corner. If you are older, you are still one hack of a war horse. You have done good. You are a good human being.

Sadly, there are too few people like us to change the world. Child slave trade is vile and sickening I wished I was more capable to help. The problem is still there but not as bad as Rileytardell made them out to be. Asia has too much problems but they are slowly being attended to. For your info, I live in Asia, in particular the relatively more developed Singapore.

Anyway, I am contented just being able to support you good guys once in a while. I am also one hack of an old war horse, I mean old war Gigantopithecus.

Originally posted by bigbert81

Ah-ha! Well said.

BigWhammy DOES have a reputation however, of calling other's beliefs 'wrong' if they don't share the same views as he does, so to see him jumping on the attacking Buddhism train is no surprise at all, even if it's not Buddhism he should be concerned about, that's what he's going to choose to attack.

Well said, friend, good post.

Ah bigbert81,

thanks for the compliment man. But let's call Spade a Spade, you are one of the good guys. You had made some good comments in this thread too. You are also a good human being.

This is the most funny post ever. Don't believe everything you see...

Buddha is just love and compassion and wisdom.. dont be fooled. idiot

Fine Bigwhammy,

we are "the fallacy of special pleading" happy now? You sir are however blind, incapable of reasoning and/or wilfully refuses to accept reality. You pick what you want to see and hear, you based your argument on your selective evidence. You have a tendency of selecting mostly bad things.

Let me teach you how to do research. Google "Religious freedom in Sri Lanka". Go through the first 10 hits. What the hack! Go through the first 100 hits for better accuracy. Accept inevitable truth, good and bad.

Now Bigwhammy because you are who you are, you will be biased. You will ignore majority independent evidences. You will go with the most upsetting evidence you can find that has caused grievance to your religion. You will not be able to see the fact that other religion has grievances too.

From the research, I have extracted part of an article which has the most balance and fair comments. How do I know? The truth hurts, every religion in the article looks like clowns. They are destroying their country because of prejudice and ignorance. Don't be like them Whammy, deny ignorance. The article reads like this:

"Sri Lanka has a history of religious tolerance and multiculturalism. The practice of Hinduism was allowed under Sinhala kings since the Anuradhapura era. Buddhist Sinhala kings even gave protection to Catholics, fleeing from persecution by the Dutch after being defeated by the Portuguese.

This coexistence has been recently marred by isolated incidents and attacks on religious places by Buddhist mobs and by terrorists.

Several Hindu Kovils were attacked in the riots of 1983 in Colombo and South of Sri Lanka.

Two of the holiest sites for Buddhists in Sri Lanka, the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree and the Temple of Tooth, have been attacked and bombed by LTTE terrorists. In recent times, LTTE terrorists have also attacked several Muslim Mosques in the North-Eastern parts of the country.

Recently there has been a backlash against various evangelical Christian organizations that the Buddhists and Hindus claims use 'unethical' ways and means to spread religion. Such groups have mainly targeted poor, rural and displaced populations, offering monetary or economic incentives to convert to their sect of Christianity. Such claims are justified as there have also been similar activities by these churches in other third world countries.

Unfortunately some of these attacks have wrongly targeted the Roman Catholic Christian majority, who for the most part do not engage in 'unethical' conversions, and have happily coexisted with the other religions of the island.

It is also noted recently that Majority Sinhalese Buddhist have organized vigilante groups who threaten religious activities of Hindus, Christians and Muslims by forceful intimidation and threats to stop construction of places of worship.

In May 2004, a bill against 'unethical conversion' was set before parliament, encouraged by the Buddhist political party, Jathika Hela Urumaya. It is based on a similar bill in the Indian state of Tamilnadu. Due to pressure from the United States the bill was abandoned."

On the issue "PC squad never defends Christians when we get bashed every day", I beg to defer. I feel Riley and Bigbert81 would help, but I am not going to speak on their behalves, I respect them too much to be their mouthpiece. I for one will defend anyone deserving, regardless of race, language or religion. Even if your statement is truth, you should be happy about it. You are the designated defender for your religion at ATS. With your skill and reasoning power, you don't need us PC squad. Again, we will defend anyone deserving, regardless of race, langage or religion.

rileytardell

This lame idea is so far out in left field it's not worth putting on ATS.
World wide Buddhist population is about 376 Million, Christian is 2.1 Billion and
Islam is 1.5 Billion, Hinduism is 900 Million.

These numbers are FACT, easy to confirm on the net. I've wasted enough time with this fool.

Stupid ......STUPID thread

so this thread can get buried and not bumped up:

..rileytardell is a troll who signs up every few months under different aliases in order to spam people's profiles with porn and cause trouble. This thread was designed to offend buddhists and atheists (and obviously myself) so don't take it personal. he/she has since been banned.


[edit on 2-7-2008 by riley]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
I never bashed anything I never said all of Buddhism was doing anything. But some Buddhist are for sure! A lot of them are! If you try to deny it. It makes you look dishonest. I never said all of Buddhism that was the OP. Stop putting words in my mouth.

...some people in any group are doing something wrong.
some nuns are molesting young girls and boys
some street jugglers lie on their taxes
some firemen are secretly arsonists
(insert more odd examples here)

but that doesn't matter. it's not really a "they're doing it because of buddhism" thing, so the OP is kind of wrong.

sure, the system in tibet is very wrong and exploits the people, but that's not really something that's inherent in buddhism, just in the tibetan buddhist system that many see as corrupt

I just saw the evidence of what Buddhists are doing tin Sri Lanka i it is very bad and what you guys are doing is the fallacy of special pleading.

...special pleading?
there's nothing particular in buddhism that would make any of that stuff evident, it's clearly a corruption of the beliefs

Funny the PC squad never defends Christians when we get bashed every day.

difference is that the attacks on christianity (note i'm not saying "christians", as the group of people isn't what's typically attacked, though some particular cases [ie ted haggard] do get held up as examples) tend to be based in fact. if someone just attacked christianity saying that christians are required to eat babies, i'd kind of have to disagree and point out that
whoever said that is being stupid.

and the person that made this thread was doing one thing: attacking riley
that was the whole point of this thread, it's more than a bit obvious that it was a personal attack on riley.