Buddhist Extremism

Lamps For Buddha

Recently a hotel in Beruwala was raided by Bodu Bala Sena for hosting a Buddha Bar themed party. This organization is actually more of a Sinhala nationalist group, using the colors but none of the teachings of the Buddha (who was, incidentally, not Sinhalese). I don’t support the defamation of any religion, but as a Buddhist the greater lesson is that there is no self and that attachments to this sort of identity just lead to suffering. And yes, that includes attachment to Sinhalese and even Buddhist identity. The lessons of Buddhism are much deeper than that and to invoke it’s power for such petty causes is just wrong.

The thing is that Sinhala culture has quietly preserved Theravada Buddhism for years. Even today there are wonderful Sri Lankan monks here and abroad who teach and practice mindfulness, a practice of great neurological and spiritual efficacy. These are the kindest and gentlest people you’ll ever meet. The people of Bodu Bala Sena, however, are essentially just racists. Some of their biggest complaints seem to be that Muslims and foreigners are conspiring to make Sinhalese infertile and reduce us to a minority. This is A) crazy B) not true and C) very little to do with Buddhism. If you accept that there is no self then it’s curious as how you’d see preserving evolving races as a Buddhist issue.

As a Buddhist I find the whole thing very disturbing and sad, both that Bodu Bala Sena stirs hatred here and makes Sri Lankan Buddhism look petty and cruel to people abroad. In fact it is not, Sri Lankan Buddhism is a practice that I have found refuge in and which offers hope and acceptance to anyone that chooses to learn about it. These small thugs don’t represent Sri Lanka or Buddhism at all.

50 Comments

  1. My stand on facebook …

    ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???????? ????, ????, ???? ?????? ??? ?????.
    – ??????? ???????

    the black whities (try the american term “oreo” with extra contempt) will teach your children that racial, religious, language bigotry should not happen.
    – Anagarika Dharmapala

    ???? ?????? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ??????

    the people who were against the practices of the government against the tamil race were called sinhala tigers

    ????????????? ???????? ?? ?? ?? ????????? ??????? ??? ????? ?????? ??????

    and those who speak against the new anti-muslim racism are called sinhalese hambayo (think “nigger” applied to muslims)

    ??? .. ?? ?????????? … ?? ??? ????????? … ?? ????? ?????????? .. ?? ????? ??????????

    right .. i admit .. i am a black-whitey .. i am a sinhala tiger .. i am a sinhala hambaya ..

    ???? ?????? ????????? ..

    all of you can fuck yourselves ..

    “LIKE” ????? .. “SHARE” ????? .. ??????? .. ?? ????? ???? .. ? ?????? ????? ..

    “LIKE” this .. “SHARE” this .. or don’t .. i don’t care .. that is your freedom .

  2. My stand on facebook …

    ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???????? ????, ????, ???? ?????? ??? ?????.
    – ??????? ???????

    the black whities (try the american term “oreo” with extra contempt) will teach your children that racial, religious, language bigotry should not happen.
    – Anagarika Dharmapala

    ???? ?????? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ???? ?????? ????? ???? ??????

    the people who were against the practices of the government against the tamil race were called sinhala tigers

    ????????????? ???????? ?? ?? ?? ????????? ??????? ??? ????? ?????? ??????

    and those who speak against the new anti-muslim racism are called sinhalese hambayo (think “nigger” applied to muslims)

    ??? .. ?? ?????????? … ?? ??? ????????? … ?? ????? ?????????? .. ?? ????? ??????????

    right .. i admit .. i am a black-whitey .. i am a sinhala tiger .. i am a sinhala hambaya ..

    ???? ?????? ????????? ..

    all of you can fuck yourselves ..

    “LIKE” ????? .. “SHARE” ????? .. ??????? .. ?? ????? ???? .. ? ?????? ????? ..

    “LIKE” this .. “SHARE” this .. or don’t .. i don’t care .. that is your freedom .

  3. i am not sure why the letters in sinhala have been replaced with ???? … i apologise for that .. AND it has repeated itself ..

    i apologise mightily ..

  5. it’s my fault, I accidentally encoded this site in some Swedish character set years before Unicode. It can’t process Sinhala or any foreign character set I think. I need to change it but have been lazy

  6. Indi, it’s good to write about this. I respect you and others wanting to say they these extremists don’t represent Buddhism or your values. But we’ve seen that these racists are being quietly supported (and possibly cultivated) by the instruments and agents of the state. In addition, the leadership of Buddhist clergy, who are comfortable to apply political pressure to issues they care about, are not condemning this hate or the haters outright. i beleive, that saying that these ‘extremists’ are not representative of you or your politics, isn’t enough. You need to challenge these people where they live, where they meet and where they seem to be taking over your identity. As a majority Sinhalese, enjoying the privileges of the majority; it’s not enough for me to say that I am not represented by the haters, by the racists, by the people who committed the attacks of 1983; I must challenge and publicly oppose the people who do this in the name of my ethnic identity. Similarly, moderate Buddhists should not be silent, thinking that distancing themselves in their head from what seems to be a concerted campaign of hate rather than a few hysterical voices is enough to get them off the hook of their responsibility to defend the identity they call their own along with the privileges a majority identity bring.

  7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LoRjIGUKBA
    check the above video and check the other videos uploaded by the same profile, there is a well organized campaign going on to create rift between sinhalse and muslims in sri lanka..”bodubala sena” is just a stupid reaction to this…same time there are several anti islma face book pages being operated by this man…..

  8. that is hillarious argument….when given the fact the same govt turned a blind eye when all the buddhist site vandalism going on in the east ..there are extremists on all sides, and govt is in fault in blindly allowing them to operate in the country..this includes buddhists, islamists, christian and same time tamils who still clinging in the same tribal demands of checlas and ponnambalms..

  9. I wonder how things would have turned out if there was a Muhammad Bar created in a Muslim country.

    Banning of the Tamil film “Vishvaroopam” in Sri Lanka because it would offend Muslim sensitivities is ok?

    Banning of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in Sri Lanka because it would offend Muslim sensitivities is ok?

    Why did Sri Lanka ban the Da Vinci Code because the Catholic Church was against it? No complaints from anyone.

    Yet it’s called extremist when people protest against a Buddha Bar in Sri Lanka?

    Interesting.

    Lets be fair and start a Jesus Bar and Muhammad Bar as well in Colombo.

  10. Would recommend that all islamaphobes learn a little about islam :
    http://blog.ted.com/2012/12/03/6-fascinating-talks-on-better-understanding-islam/

    In case you don’t have time for all 6, then start with this talk by a jewish lady’s view on islam.
    http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran.html

    And while all you racists out there go about hysterically spreading ‘islamaphobia’, please don’t do it in my name. Buddhism has nothing to do with hatred for the haves of this world. your hatred for muslims (ceylon moors, malays, borahs, memons, and -yes – sinahala muslims) stems from your sheer jealousy and lack of inner peace – lack of nirvana. I pity you.

  11. I was chatting to a few of my more moderate Buddhist friends the other day about this. They seem to think this whole insecurity of Buddhists comes from the fact that Sri Lanka is the last of the countries which Therevada is in practice and they feel a sense of protecting it for future generations. They feel some other religions with their evangelistic attitudes have been praying on the Buddhists in some parts of the country and systematically converted them to other religions over the years.

    Whatever is said and done, I don’t think any religious symbols or themes should be used for such events in Asia and Middle East. We must respect their beliefs as they tend to be stronger than in Europe and North America. Even in USA if you go publicly insulting Christianity, I don’t think they will turn a blind-eye.

  12. They should allow the Buddha Bar in Sri Lanka, but at the same time they should set up a Muhammad Bar and a Jesus Bar as well. Then it would be fair.

  13. Interestingly Kamalhaasan’s new movie Vishwaroopam is banned in Sri Lanka (It was banned in Tamil Nadu too) as per request of muslim groups says GoSL. It’s disturbing that the muslim groups don’t seem to be out on the street protesting the organised attack on their community/shops/mosques by Buddhist extremists but protesting a movie from India where the terrorists (in the film) happen to be muslims from Afghanistan.

    Kamal has called it ‘cultural terrorism’.

  14. Jesus wouldn’t mind, I’m sure. He’s the guy who turned water in to wine, remember?

    Have you heard the one about the habitual drunkard, pissed that he couldn’t get his liquor on a poya day, pointing to the temple and declaring, ” It’s this one they should have crucicified, not the other one!”?

    This mistrust is really silly. I’m a nominal Catholic, very much a minority I guess, and I’ve never, ever felt any insecurity whatsoever on account of my religion. I know next to nothing about Buddhism, but value very highly our national heritage that comes intrinsically bound with our own brand of Buddhism, and am mystified why some Buddhists need to feel so insecure.

  15. I dont condone insulting things that others hold sacred; It’s the nature of some of the protests that I disagree with.

  16. I’m sure many Sinhala Catholics, including the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka would care if there was a Jesus Bar or a Mother Mary Bar. Maybe it could also be opened in a place like Negombo? It would be interesting to see the reaction from the Catholics there. Similarly maybe the Muhammad Bar can be opened up in Kattankudy or Borella?

    You should also be mystified why Sinhala Catholics are so insecure that they wanted a movie and a book called The Da Vinci Code banned in Sri Lanka and succeeded in doing so. Do you consider that an attack on free speech and media freedom.

  17. I said Jesus wouldn’t mind. The Catholic Church is another matter, and half the time they dont know whether they’re coming or going these days is what I think. I was personally very annoyed when they banned Da Vinci Code here, but the book was circulated around quite freely afterwards and no one made a fuss.

    I agree it’s wrong to use the Buddha’s name disrespectfully, but the nature of the protests are not nice. It needs to be handled differently. Seriously, what do you fear Muslims to be conspiring here?

  18. I once asked the writer of Sinhala blog, who condones pretty much everything the Bodu Bala Sena is doing, how does he think this shit is going to help him attain nirvana, and whether he thinks Buddha would condone such action if he was alive. He said it’s not going to help him attain nirvana, but said he thinks buddha would condone it. He told me that once Buddha strongly opposed a slaughterhouse, which shows that he was an activist. It’s interesting. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but if it’s true, he was an activist, which is contradictory to his nature of being detached. The point isn’t whether opposing killing cows and supporting burning down Muslim shops and houses is the same thing. The point is whether activism is okay for Buddhist monks.

    Anyway, Bodu Bala Sena is doing two utterly moronic things. One is that they vastly overestimate the imminence of this country becoming an Islamic theocracy. Second one is that they are going in a pigheaded way about it. Yes, the country becoming Islamic is bad. Have no doubts about it. But it’ll take few centuries. So if you’re going to prevent that you could and should be much more subtle than just going ahead and protesting in front of Nolimit. It’s destructive, and more to the point, ridiculously ineffective.

  19. You yourself were vastly overestimating the effect of the growth in our Muslim population not two days ago when you looked at it in isolation. Anyone who wasn’t a moron would understand that religion will gradually lose it’s importance, oil or another source of energy may well replace religion 50 years from now, and in another 100 years water may be more important than religion or energy.

    Actually these Buddhists seem to be protesting the changes that could take place in their environment/way of life in the immediate future, and they have a better point than you, who fear what may happen in 400 years. I think what they dont like to see are minarets overshadowing the koth karalle of the temple, too many scary hijab clad women in public places, The mournful call to prayer blaring from mosques (I actually found this quite pleasant and soothing, one evening in the Galle Fort). Only, they dont realise that a little dialogue and a little give and take would go much further than ugly protests.

    Whether activism is good or bad for monks should not be based on how the Buddha acted. It should be decided based on the place, the times and the situation on hand. The Buddha didn’t want others to ape him, did he?

  20. The most ironic thing about Sri Lanka being the last of the Therevada practice is that what is in fact being practiced is the creole faith of Colonel Olcott. Its undoubtedly unique, but it owes much to revisions in the 19th century.

    “In the years before the riots, an awakening had taken place among the Sinhalese Buddhists which was not only a reaction to British political domination, but also an act of self-assetion against the economic power of minority groups in Ceylon. The rioteers of 1915 have often been portrayed as criminals and hooligans out for plunder; but there is evidence that in Colombo it was not the criminal and rootless elements who led the riots, but the skilled, better-paid, more militant segments of the working class. The government was aware of this potentially explosive facet of the Colombo rioting, which turned into an expression of revolt against economic exploitation” (Kumari Jayewardene on the 1915 riots)

    The parallels with 1915 are striking, any bets on a recurrence in 2015?

    http://www.sangam.org/articles/view2/?uid=1060

  21. You yourself were vastly overestimating the effect of the growth in our Muslim population not two days ago when you looked at it in isolation. Anyone who wasn’t a moron would understand that religion will gradually lose it’s importance, oil or another source of energy may well replace religion 50 years from now, and in another 100 years water may be more important than religion or energy.

    Actually these Buddhists seem to be protesting the changes that could take place in their environment/way of life in the immediate future, and they have a better point than you, who fear what may happen in 400 years. I think what they dont like to see are minarets overshadowing the koth karalle of the temple, too many scary hijab clad women in public places, The mournful call to prayer blaring from mosques (I actually found this quite pleasant and soothing, one evening in the Galle Fort). Only, they dont realise that a little dialogue and a little give and take would go much further than ugly protests.

    Whether activism is good or bad for monks should not be based on how the Buddha acted. It should be decided based on the place, the times and the situation on hand. The Buddha didn’t want others to ape him, did he?

  22. Religion has become a part of the body politic and to mix religion with politics is disastrous. Politicians actively patronise religions and religious leaders, which gives them power and influence. Couple that with the breakdown in the legal system (what matters now is not the letter of the law but who one is and who one knows-power is everything) and the writing is on the wall.

  23. Bullshit. It is pretty much impossible to overestimate the effect of the growth in a Muslim population. If the country becomes Islamic, it is nearly impossible to overestimate the effects. They’ll find a way to surprise you. Some years ago, just when I thought I had some idea about how far a person would go for his religion, I read this story about a Muslim girl whose clitoris was cut with her father’s razor. That’s how far they’ll go. It’s difficult for a secular mind to model such insanity and predict what it’ll do.

    In a hundred years from now, nothing that’s important to Islam is going to change. If you think oil, nuclear power is going to replace the place a Muslim man has for his religion in his mind, that’s retarded. All the morons like you who thinks that modernity is going to screw up Islam are just being true to your moronic selves. Modernity dawned centuries ago, when Bacon, Descartes, Locke and Voltaire did some amazing work. It screwed up Christianity to a certain degree, because Enlightenment put reason above faith. Reason, they held, is a better way to understand the world than faith. Even though Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and the post-modernist morons tried to screw with reason, they lost. Reason survived. But all that happened in the West. Not in Sri Lanka, and not in those screwed-up deserts in Middle East.

    The kind of intellectual revolution that happened in Europe will never happen here, and certainly not in Middle East. These countries are not structured that way. When Enlightenment happened in Europe, it was organic. It was naturally the next step. It was obvious to them. That kind of thing will never happen here, or in Middle East. Why this is important is that that is exactly the kind of intellectual revolution that it takes to rid us from the evil of faith. Now I have some hope for Buddhists because Buddhists aren’t that faithful to their religion. In other words, they are not as religious as Muslims. Muslims on the other hand are die hard fanatics. Faith is everything, and reason is not a concern. What such strong faith can do is that it can lead you to do things that are anti-social, like cutting a girl’s clitoris with your razor blade. But if the faith is even stronger, it could even lead you to die for some mistaken greater cause, like by becoming a suicide bomber.

    Muslims have been there for more than fourteen centuries and they haven’t changed a bit. They are as faithful to their religion as they ever were. Not single word of the Quran and Hadith has been changed. It is not as if these people haven’t faced economic hardships before. They’ve suffered a lot. The Middle East always sucked, perhaps even more than it suck today. It is not as if arguments of Voltaire, Paine, Jefferson and all weren’t available to them. It’s not as if the American-Muslim kid who stuffs a bomb in his underpants do it because his life sucks. He’s living in America. No, the root cause of all this evil is faith, and it is simply not going to go away because of economic hardships, because of lack of water or something like that.

    And by the way, four hundred years is not a long time. The world won’t change in the next four hundred years as much as it changed in the last four hundred years. The world has become modern, it won’t go post-modern. And we still have the same crazy nuts that existed four hundred years ago. We’ll have the same crazy nuts who exist today four hundred years from now. Four thousand years from now, I don’t know. Four hundred thousand years from now, human species probably won’t exist.

    ***

    About how Buddhists act, they act in the most irrational way people can act. What do they want? Another war? I don’t think so. The cost of a war is too much. So before they moronically go ahead and try to screw up Muslims, they should do a cost-benefit analysis. It seems to me, given their own moronic values, they act in a sub-optimal way to achieve what they want. Being pigheaded might even give them a short term victory, but they’ll lose the country to Muslims 400 years.

    ***
    In the Kalama Suttra, the last thing it says is that do what the wise people do. Before believing something, there are other things that you should do, according Kalama Suttra, which the reason why some morons think Buddhism is scientific (they are morons because they don’t realize science is about hypothesis testing. Morons). But the last instruction it gives is to follow the wise.

    So if Buddha thought activism was right, yes, one can argue that since he’s the wisest of all, even wiser than Gandalf, why not do it?

    Oh I take it back. Gandalf was a moron. Boromir. Jeez.

  24. What’s up with this site? My comments disappear, and when I try to post them gain, it says duplicate comment.

  26. To all those paranoid that one religion or the other is going to sweep away generations worth of goodwill, friendship and common sense read the following article:

    http://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-rajapaksa-search-for-a-suitable-enemy/

    King of old were only loved and adored (that too by the foolish masses) as long as they were fighting a war somewhere proclaiming ” I fight for you so that you may not suffer at the hands of mine enemies”…

    The ruling party want to create a boogeyman they can use to keep fooling people, so they can hold onto absolute power. You honestly think politicians (especially in this country) care about you? The sad thing is that we have SO many fools in the island…

    I don’t get it…when in school you made friends with everyone irrespective of creed, caste, whatever. But as adults you can’t view your fellow man with that same sense of innocence?

    Religion isn’t an issue here, I believe ignorance is…

  28. Sharanga, you learned this story a few years ago, and it’s obvious you have a lot more to learn. Female circumcision is not a Muslim practice, it’s some tribal practice, that some backward Muslims practice.

    People change. Attitudes change. I have high hopes for the next generation, and I hope a few rotten apples like you wont succeed in spoiling the whole lot.

    I think you ‘ve got religion and militancy mixed up.

    In the next 100 years, things will change much faster than the previous 100 years, and it will not take thousands of years for the human species to use technology to become a superhunman species. Wolverine!

    There wont be another war here anytime soon.

    I think you got your Kalama Sutra wrong. What I’ve heard is that, it was about finding out for yourself, not following others, whether they were wise or whether they were like you.

  29. Yeah, well said, Dinuka, and spot on about the king’s bogeyman.

  30. Who said I learnt it few years ago? Female circumcision may not be a Muslim practice in the sense that nothing about it is written in the holy books. But it is a religious practice. The justification for it is faith based, and the people who are doing it are Muslim.
    **
    People don’t change much physiologically over four hundred years. So the same drives they have now will be there. Their attitudes of course change. Ideas about morality change. But it’s ridiculous to think that a subset of humans, who have been fundamentalist for one thousand and four hundred years, would become liberal in a matter of three or four centuries.
    **
    I haven’t mixed up religion and militancy. It is the Prophet himself who did that. When it is written on the holy book that it is virtuous to war against infidels, I’d say he really mixed up religion and militancy.
    **
    Technology will develop in the next hundred years faster than it developed in the last hundred years. But ideas won’t. We have reached the end of history.
    **
    For Buddha’s sake, read the kalama sutta. The last advice is to follow the wise.

  31. If you’re unable to read pali, here’s the English translation of the relevant part. The following two parts repeat over and over in the sutta. Note how much weight he gives to whether something is praised or censured by the wise.

    …. Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them.

    ….These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.

    So if Buddha, the wisest of them all, the infallible master, the king of the three worlds thought activism is good for him, why not of Ellavala Medananda Thero too?

  32. You said “Some years ago, just when I thought….”, and coupled with your narrow views, it’s the natural assumption.

    People do change. Here’s an example I saw somewhere. http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/01/24/leaving-islam-in-the-age-of-islamism/

    The issue here is about Sri Lankan Muslims, so the practices of Muslims elsewhere is irrelevant. Your extrapolations based on incomplete data are also irrelevant.

    Impressed as I am of Ven. Medhananda’s seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of matters historical, I trust he also understands that when the king of the three worlds asked to show compassion to all living beings he didnt mean to leave out ‘hamba karanna danna kattiya”.

  33. There’s no point in arguing, since trying to convince someone with misguided liberal sentiments that pepole who never truly grew out of being fundmentalists in one thousand four hundred years will not become liberal in the next three or four centuries, is as hopeless a task as trying to convince a libertarian that global warming is anthropogenic, or trying to convice Osama Bin Laden that evolution is right. What I’m saying is pretty simple. Muslims are growing at a faster rate, and in four hundred years, they will become the largest religious group in this country if nothing is done about it. I believe that’s bad for this country, and to humanity in general. Religion is something that needs to be eradicated from earth, and Islam is definitely one that should go as soon as possible.
    **

    As I said earlier, what I said was not that the kind of activism the Buddhist monks are doing is right. In fact I think they are being pigheaded. No, the question is not what kind of activism is right for Buddhist monks. The question is, whether activism is right at all. There, if the Buddha himself had been an activist, contrary to his detached nature, that gives some credibility to the idea that it is okay for monks to be activists.

  34. Didn’t Jesus say “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven”….. so how can you say that Jesus wouldn’t mind? Christianity in Sri Lanka is basically comprised of the Catholic Church and its faithfuls. We all know what happened to Fr. Tissa Balasuriya at the hands of fellow Sinhala Catholic priests who threw him out of the church for daring to write a book. Did you protest against that… did the Sinhala Catholic public protest against that?

    Muslims may not be conspiring here. What I am saying is let the Buddha Bar open, but also lets be fair and have a Jesus Bar, and open it in a Christian area and a Muhammad Bar and open it in a Muslim area. Somehow I think the same people who are crying extremism here will be the first decrying the opening of the bars. Double standards.

  35. Also this is in the Bible…….. are you sure Jesus wouldn’t mind…?

    “One day a man who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father got into a fight with one of the Israelite men. During the fight, this son of an Israelite woman blasphemed the LORD’s name. So the man was brought to Moses for judgment. His mother’s name was Shelomith. She was the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. They put the man in custody until the LORD’s will in the matter should become clear. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard him to lay their hands on his head. Then let the entire community stone him to death. Say to the people of Israel: Those who blaspheme God will suffer the consequences of their guilt and be punished. Anyone who blasphemes the LORD’s name must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel. Any Israelite or foreigner among you who blasphemes the LORD’s name will surely die. ”

    Blasphemers are to be stoned to death according to God.

  36. “Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple.” So they began by killing the seventy leaders. “Defile the Temple!” the LORD commanded. “Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!” So they went throughout the city and did as they were told.” —- Ezekiel 9

    “And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.” —- Exodus 12

    ” “You are my battle-ax and sword,” says the LORD. “With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms. With you I will shatter armies, destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer. With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and maidens. With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and rulers. ” — Jeramiah 51

    It’s interesting how Sinhala Chrsitians talk about extremism, and paranoia yet worship a God of extremism and paranoia?

  37. Also, love thy neighbour did not mean love all other humans. It meant love other Jews. It was quite alright to go ahead and kill Egyptian babies. But well, it’s god. He works in mysterious ways.

  38. I’m not at all well versed in scripture, Atsana, but I’m sure that quote must be from the old testament of the bible.
    I dont concern myself with the politics of the Catholic Church or the Sinhala Catholic public, nor do I speak for them. I consider religion to be a very personal matter, and based on my understanding of the character of Jesus, I don’t think he’d mind at all.

    Sharanga, the Egyptian babies died thousands of years before Jesus, in the time of Moses. Jesus went as far as saying “Love thy enemy”, and no, my idea of Gd if he/she exists is that of a loving and merciful one, not a vengeful one.

  39. Atsana, again, that’s from the old testament. Jesus was the one who said “Who among you that has not sinned, cast the first stone”, or something to that effect, on another occasion.

  41. The Da Vinci Code was a shit film, and should’ve been banned on grounds of taste, not religion. As for Jesus bars, I’m all for it — you can bring in money and it’ll be miraculously turned into wine. But congrats on proving Buddhists are just as idiotic as people of other faiths. Second venna epa, malli.

  42. No, Sharanga, “love thy neighbour” didn’t mean just love other Jews. Don’t misinterpret what you don’t understand. Jesus related the parable of the good Samaritan for just that reason — to demonstrate that everyone was one’s neighbour — including the hated Samaritans.

  43. What bollocks – they practice theravada in thailand. Funny thing is theravada is one of the least super natural believing versions of buddhism out there (in comparison to things like mahayana). But this bodu bala sena bastards are ruining the religion. I was thinking the other day – it’s suddenly ok to pass a bill on gambling – but a tattoo of the buddha is some how worse. these people are hypocrites.

  44. Well said Astana.

    This is the hippo racy. Since Buddhism doesn’t have any rules and regulations as such written strictly or otherwise, this is why Buddhism is taken for granted.

  45. I think everything posted was very reasonable. But, think on this, what if you wrote a catchier post title?
    I ain’t suggesting your information isn’t solid., however suppose
    you added something that makes people want more? I mean indi.
    ca ? Buddhist Extremism is a little vanilla. You ought
    to glance at Yahoo’s front page and note how they create news headlines to grab people to click. You might add a video or a picture or two to get readers interested about everything’ve got
    to say. In my opinion, it could bring your posts a little livelier.
    constant ear ringing and popping tinnitus hearing aids reviews http://Www.Jaman.Com/People/Taste1Grease

Comments are closed.