RE: A non-aggressive religion?
November 27, 2016 at 9:50 pm
(This post was last modified: November 27, 2016 at 10:12 pm by emjay.)
(November 27, 2016 at 9:27 pm)Casca Wrote: They may not be physically aggressive, but Buddhists are aggressively sexist.
Women can't achieve nirvana- they must first be reborn as a man, then strive for it.
Nuns have about 100 more rules to follow than monks do.
A nun who has served for a hundred years must still be subservient to a monk who just got ordained that day.
Buddhist celibacy is centered on how women are distractions who are always out to tempt men into sex.
Well, as I said, I don't know anything about how it's practiced as a religion. How their monasteries are structured etc. And surely that's different in different sects/variations/countries? All I'm interested in is what the Buddha taught. What I can get from books and based on one of the central tenets that the Buddha taught which was that you see for yourself... it's not about faith in anything unseen, but seeing for yourself because you can only truly understand something if you see it for yourself and that's what the Buddha wanted. So I only take on board Buddhist teachings to the extent that I can see and understand them for myself without belief. So all that arbitrary stuff you're talking about - sexism etc - doesn't fit that definition because it requires belief... anything arbitrary does. So as far as I'm concerned, that's just superstitious etc crap added on through the years, and not what I'm interested in.
But I suppose ultimately the message here is that when Buddhism becomes or is treated like a religion - in the sense of having rituals, superstitions, and requiring arbitrary faith/beliefs - then it is just as bad as any other in the damage it can cause... such as sectarian violence.
