(November 16, 2015 at 5:20 pm)Evie Wrote: Bullshit? If a Jain is ever violent they can't possibly be doing it for Jainist reasons. Not the case with some other religions.
If you think otherwise you may as well claim when atheists are violent they do it for atheistic reasons.
Why wouldn't you claim that? Oh, because atheism has got absolutely nothing to do with violence. But neither has Jainism. Something being a religion doesn't automatically give it a potential for violence. It is because most religions have violence within their texts.
Even so, most people don't have time to read all the texts and comprehend/memorize everything. I doubt most Christians read the bible frequently, specially in Europe. Some may even only go to church once or twice a year. I also doubt all Muslims read the Quran, they probably read it more than Christians read the bible, but I doubt most Muslims have memorized all the hadiths. You don't necessarily need to read the books to be X and you can do something in the name of X and say it was because of X - That doesn't say much about the situation. If someone becomes very devout, that is an entirely different matter.
I think in the case of Jainism you can't justify actual violence, but it can have problematic things like the batshit crazy things they believe about Nirvana and so on.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
