Quote from: Zenda on December 10, 2011, 10:56:51 PM
Kia Ora Annah,
I'm open to a change of mind, so could you please give examples of Buddhism[or if you like the Buddhist 'faith'] being at the forefront of any major conflict/war...Say something similar to the crusades for example ?
Around 400 CE, The Tibetan Temples coordinated attacks with the Mongolians warlords and as a result of the Buddhists leaders providing monks, arms, and strategic advice, the temples were rewarded with sizable amounts of loot, gold and other costly items.
In 612 CE, the Buddhist temples and monks sided with the Tang Dynasty to bring it into power. This was performed by the leaderships of the Shaolin Temples.
In 900 CE, the Yamabushi were Buddhist monks with practices of Shingon, Tendai, and Shinto disciplines. They helped Emperor Go-Daigo to overthrow the Kamakura Shogunate who had an employ of Samurai at his disposal.
In 1300 CE, Buddhist monks were employed to push the Mongols out of China.
In 1400-1500 CE, the Sohei warrior monks of the Buddhist faith was employed by different feudal leaders of Japan to fight for territory. The warriors of Japanese military during the second world war was the "marrying" of Zen Buddhism and the Samurai Code.
1950-1990 CE, Buddhist monks of Sinhalese and the Hindu monks of Tamil fought in Sir Lanka. Over 50,000 people died.
Overall, the Buddhist monks were embroiled in warfare just as their Christian "counterparts" who were Knights Templar, Etc. And they (Buddhist Temple Leaders) used their religion to ignite pride and loyalty in the monks' hearts to be involved in war just as the Pope used their religion to ignite pride and loyalty in the Priests and Knights' hearts. Both promised a good and justly afterlife (as according to their theology of the afterlife, of course).
As I said, many religions promote peaceful coexistence but it is the human nature of ourselves to exploit it. It is one of the driving forces behind me getting a Ph.D. in world religions. One must realize the mistakes of the past, regardless of religion or what the religion says about peace and violence, to prevent further religious related acts of war...or "try" to prevent it.
The first step (and hardest step), in my opinion, is the peaceful respect for each others' religion and to follow the tenants of their religion as it is suppose to be followed. However, as long as you have Christians who say "Jesus is the only way or you'll fry in hell in eternity" or the Muslims who say the same thing (as well as other religions), we will never get there.
The good news is, at least in Christianity, is the fact that progressive churches are becoming more accepted by Christians. However, in the overall scheme of things, religion in general is diminishing.
Then you get to the issue of Atheist related warfare (in which 62 million people have been killed in the last 150 years alone by those who were proclaimed Atheists who killed those who followed a religion)...which were vastly more than the Christian Crusades (including the Albigensian Crusades), witch hunts, and the Inquisitions put together. The Black Death created more deaths with over 70 million souls.
So whatever way you look at it, war is a human condition with greed, conquest, power and pride as it's co-morbids. Killing in the name of a religion or killing those who are religious by atheist people is still killing and it all comes back to the primary source: a human being causing it.
