I think the general point I was trying to make to you didn't quite register. I am actually aware that the Khmer Rouge was anti-Buddhist...and anti-anything-that-argued-with-it-at-all. As I've stated before, communist regimes have a long, storied past with them not tolerating any kind of dissidence, and indeed want to force the individual to surrender not just their bodies but their minds to the Party as well, which again, I reiterate; exactly as all religions do. Totalitarianism is no different than religions in general; they demand you think a certain way, thinking otherwise is worthy of punishment, you are an inferior being below the head of the party [or an inferior being below god], and to speak out is to incur damnation. There are many more but those are the largest, most over-arching ones and you have yet to dispel the similarities between them that I have pointed out thus far.
It's interesting to note that the "replacement of god," IE totalitarianism, has such striking resemblances to the "establishment of god," IE religion...almost as if both were man-made...but THAT couldn't POSSIBLY be the case...could it?
And I don't really care whether or not anyone can get into a catholic school, again you either are missing the point or, I suspect, are simply not wanting to get it because of the implications. Pol Pot went to a Catholic School [also in that article, at the bottom of the page it indicates Pol Pot is in the "former buddhists" section of Wikipedia; I WONDER WHY] and do I really honestly CARE if he was catholic or not at this point? No. Why did I bring it up and also bring up the parallels between the Khmer Rouge and Buddhist teachings? Allow me to spell it out.
It's where they got the inspiration for what they did later in life. Catholic school is not a secular-centric kind of school. It does NOT divorce religion from education; it MAKES religion the chief component of the education. Now, Pol Pot was apparently a really poor scholar when it came to the aspects of literacy and mathematics, and yet when it came time for him to become a ruthless dictator he enacted policies that sound right at home with Catholic doctrine; all those under your umbrella are your sheep and you are their shepherd and woe betide he who thinks an impure thought. Since you make the attempt so much to try to ignore what I am getting at: The catholic church in its glory days lived off of the illiteracy of those who followed it; literacy was exceedingly rare in the middle ages, and literacy was required to be part of the church's order. If just anyone could read the bible, they supposed, there would be no need for the priests [and the various schisms, especially the Protestant schism, are proof of this fear being well-founded] so they didn't make any effort to elevate their flock to be able to read the bible until certain events eventually forced their hand to change this dogma. Now we compare this similarities with the Khmer Rouge who denounced intellectualism because having more capacity for free thought led to the individual questioning the party. Kind of like today where people who can read the bible often find themselves questioning many aspects of it. Both claim[ed] perfection, all the while knowing what they said is absolute falsehood, because if they truly were perfect, nobody would be able to question them.
But the questions exist, implying imperfection.
Then we go to the idea of heresy. Or thought-heresy. Was it not Catholic dogma that held that holding impure thoughts risked your chances at salvation? Doesn't it still do that? Well, funny thing, the Khmer Rouge used that again in the form of its anti-intellectualism, which I've already mentioned. The catholic church states that if you deny god, you are damned to eternal torture. The Khmer Rouge stated that if you deny the party, you will die a long, agonizing death by torture.
Are you getting it yet?
And you're going to be a sister? Really? I'm going to turn something around on you that the christians love asking me for some reason: "What if you're wrong?" If you're wrong and I'm right then you're wasting your life in blind service to something that doesn't exist. You are forsaking the pleasures of life itself, the limited life you have, in the blind hope that you'll be rewarded for it when you die...except that life is tangible and something you can feel and no matter what you say, you CANNOT PROVE that god is real. You can say that you are "thinking of eternity," but here's the thing; eternity might have a time measurement: The human life. Eternity might be this, and when it ends, thus ends eternity, and you will have wasted your life. I can't stop you, and really if it's what you decide...well, so be it, but I really hope you've actually considered this. I don't mean considered it through the rose-tinted glasses of your beliefs, either, I mean actually stepped back and genuinely thought this over.
It's interesting to note that the "replacement of god," IE totalitarianism, has such striking resemblances to the "establishment of god," IE religion...almost as if both were man-made...but THAT couldn't POSSIBLY be the case...could it?
And I don't really care whether or not anyone can get into a catholic school, again you either are missing the point or, I suspect, are simply not wanting to get it because of the implications. Pol Pot went to a Catholic School [also in that article, at the bottom of the page it indicates Pol Pot is in the "former buddhists" section of Wikipedia; I WONDER WHY] and do I really honestly CARE if he was catholic or not at this point? No. Why did I bring it up and also bring up the parallels between the Khmer Rouge and Buddhist teachings? Allow me to spell it out.
It's where they got the inspiration for what they did later in life. Catholic school is not a secular-centric kind of school. It does NOT divorce religion from education; it MAKES religion the chief component of the education. Now, Pol Pot was apparently a really poor scholar when it came to the aspects of literacy and mathematics, and yet when it came time for him to become a ruthless dictator he enacted policies that sound right at home with Catholic doctrine; all those under your umbrella are your sheep and you are their shepherd and woe betide he who thinks an impure thought. Since you make the attempt so much to try to ignore what I am getting at: The catholic church in its glory days lived off of the illiteracy of those who followed it; literacy was exceedingly rare in the middle ages, and literacy was required to be part of the church's order. If just anyone could read the bible, they supposed, there would be no need for the priests [and the various schisms, especially the Protestant schism, are proof of this fear being well-founded] so they didn't make any effort to elevate their flock to be able to read the bible until certain events eventually forced their hand to change this dogma. Now we compare this similarities with the Khmer Rouge who denounced intellectualism because having more capacity for free thought led to the individual questioning the party. Kind of like today where people who can read the bible often find themselves questioning many aspects of it. Both claim[ed] perfection, all the while knowing what they said is absolute falsehood, because if they truly were perfect, nobody would be able to question them.
But the questions exist, implying imperfection.
Then we go to the idea of heresy. Or thought-heresy. Was it not Catholic dogma that held that holding impure thoughts risked your chances at salvation? Doesn't it still do that? Well, funny thing, the Khmer Rouge used that again in the form of its anti-intellectualism, which I've already mentioned. The catholic church states that if you deny god, you are damned to eternal torture. The Khmer Rouge stated that if you deny the party, you will die a long, agonizing death by torture.
Are you getting it yet?
And you're going to be a sister? Really? I'm going to turn something around on you that the christians love asking me for some reason: "What if you're wrong?" If you're wrong and I'm right then you're wasting your life in blind service to something that doesn't exist. You are forsaking the pleasures of life itself, the limited life you have, in the blind hope that you'll be rewarded for it when you die...except that life is tangible and something you can feel and no matter what you say, you CANNOT PROVE that god is real. You can say that you are "thinking of eternity," but here's the thing; eternity might have a time measurement: The human life. Eternity might be this, and when it ends, thus ends eternity, and you will have wasted your life. I can't stop you, and really if it's what you decide...well, so be it, but I really hope you've actually considered this. I don't mean considered it through the rose-tinted glasses of your beliefs, either, I mean actually stepped back and genuinely thought this over.
