thread locked in 3, 2, 1 .....

The world doesn't revolve around gay rights issue however much you want to make it do so.

Buddhist monks have had issues just like Catholic priests it just isn't that well known.

Here's a partial list:

Buddhist Clergy Sexual Abuse:
Annotated Bibliography
http://www.trimondi.de/EN/deba01.html

Did God get the Hebrews out of slavery or not?

Is that slavery symbolic of sin?

Don't people sell themselves into slavery? Don't people's own sins contribute to self enslavement?

"The most unusual observance that God commanded the Israelites through Moses was the keeping of the year of jubilee. For most people this celebration occurred only once in their life time, and for many not even that, as it occurred only once every 50 years.

At this year of jubilee all Israelites who had sold themselves into slavery were set free, and all land that had been sold reverted to its original owner. This meant that no Israelite could ever be in permanent slavery; nor could any Israelite permanently lose his inheritance."

Quote from The Year of Jubilee site:
http://www.growthingod.org.uk/jubilee.htm

You may find this interesting if a bit sensational. I just found it myself and I find it hard to believe because the Dali Lama looks so benevolent.
But there is a small not well known group of people alleging that the Dali Lama had connections to the Nazis.

If you remember the movie Seven Years in Tibet, Brad Pitt starred as Heinrich Harrer. What people don't know is that Harrer was both a member of the SA and the SS. They also allege that the Dali Lama's predecessor owned slaves in Tibet.

This is very interesting but a bit sensational. I'm having a hard time believing it but its something worth researching into:

The Secret Truth of the Dali Lama
http://www.newspiritualbible.com/index2

You have to remember the God of the bible says "People are fooled by appearances." No wonder so many people on here post pics. They say "a picture is worth a thousand words" but God says "appearances are deceptive".

You don’t have to go for the bizarre conspiracy theories. There is far better stuff out there:
http://canterburyatheists.blogspot.c...l-tibetan.html

Oh that is much better written article but different details.

It all sounds a bit like the Indian caste system where you can't escape your lot in life if you've been born into misery. That's why some Untouchables in India feel motivated to convert to Christianity.

What are you trying to prove Splendour?

Is it;
Buddhism is just as bad as Christianity?
That all religion is pretty bad?
That everyone should pick on Buddhism for a bit and give Christianity a break?
Buddhism is worse than Christianity and therefore people should pick Christianity over Buddhism?

Well, therre is no atheist political dogma. But yes, people care about those that affect them. Gay rights in the US are very much affected by Christianity, and only negligibly affected by Buddhism. It would be a complete waste of time to argue against Buddhism's anti-gay features if one were trying to push forward gay rights in the US.

At this point: nothing.

I'm just having fun investigating the dark side.

Buddhism is the dark side?

No. Yahweh doesn't exist afaik.
Supposedly it was a sin for the Egyptians to enslave the Jews. But it was not a sin overall. If i lived back then (and arguably now) and was Jewish i could own slaves without sinning as long as i followed Yahweh's slave guidelines.


This is one of the uglier defensive's of biblical slavery. Not all sold themselves. You could inherit the children of slaves and also take slaves in war. Even forcing sexual slavery through forced wedlock on the women who were captured.


Sure i guess. But that just gets back to the defense of two wrongs make a right. It does nothing to take away the immorality of biblical slavery.



I already know all this. It does nothing to take away the immorality of biblical slavery.
Never said Buddhism or the Dali Lama are without criticism.

The topic of biblical slavery has been done in the past. Unfortunately nobody on here ever retains the information. Just their own biaes.

I know quite a bit about it. But even if i took you sanitized version of it, its still immoral by our modern morals.

@OP

The Dalai Lama isn't even practicing real Buddhism it's just another branch off. Real Buddhism doesn't believe in reincarnations which the Dalai Lama is, there is no holiness in real Buddhism and thats what Dalai Lama is, there is much more but those alone turned me off from even exploring further. Furthermore according to this "This means that the Dalai Lama is speaking on behalf of 0.09% of world Buddhism. Less then 0.1 % of Buddhists. That is the real perspective."
he hardly represents any of the Buddhism community, again he is not real Buddhism he goes against a lot of what real Buddhism is and I say he is far from it.


If you want to know what real Buddhism is I suggest you read this book http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Plain-Simple-Steve-Hagen/dp/0767903323]here.

Real Buddhism contains no supernatural beliefs.

Thanks for the tip.

Mostly the past day or so I've been looking at the Dalai Lama and Tibet and I found myself in one offshoot of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism also known as Lamaism isn't pure Buddhism. It seems to be a hybrid of Buddhism and the much earlier Bon animist religion that preceded it in Tibet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6n

It makes you wonder how the Dalai Lama got to be so prominent and representative of Buddhism to the West and why not someone else.

And Lamaism has deity figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lama

Also the weird thing is if you look at the Buddhist Wheel of Life it's held by Yama, the Lord of Death. Picture of the Wheel here:
http://www.tharpa.com/uk/art-Wheel.of.Life-208.html

Quote: "Western concepts of Tibet embrace more myth than reality. The idea that Tibet is an oppressed nation composed of peaceful Buddhists who never did anyone any harm distorts history. In fact the belief that the Dalai Lama is the leader of world Buddhism rather than being just the leader of one sect among more than 1,700 "Living Buddhas" of this unique Tibetan form of the faith displays a parochial view of world religions."

Article discussing the Western myth of Tibet here:
Myth and Reality by Foster Stockwell
http://journeyeast.tripod.com/myth_and_reality.html

(LOL... sometimes I think we suffer more from myths today than in other centuries because we have myth spinning television and so many hidden biases in education)

Tibet was so inaccessible that many myths surround it. Reminds me of the immigrants who came to the U.S. under a freedom myth only to work in sweat shops.

Quote from Stockwell:

"In 1713 the Qing court granted the title "Panchen Erdeni" to the fifth Panchen Lama, thus elevating him to a status similar to that given to the Dalai Lama (Panchen means "great scholar" in Sanskrit, and Erdeni means "treasure" in Manchu.)

The largest part of the Tibetan population (more than 90 percent) at that time was composed of serfs, who were treated harshly by the landlords and ruling monks. All monasteries had large tracts of land as well as a great number of serfs under their control. The ruling monks' exploitation of these serfs was just as severe as that of the aristocratic landlords.

Serfs had no personal freedom from birth to death. They and their children were given freely as gifts or donations, sold or bartered for goods. They were, in fact, viewed by landlords as "livestock that can speak." As late as 1943, a high-ranking aristocrat named Tsemon Norbu Wangyal sold 100 serfs to a monk in the Drigung area for only four silver dollars per serf.

If serfs lost their ability to work, the lord confiscated all their property, including livestock and farm tools. If they ran away and subsequently were captured, half their personal belongings were given to the captors while the other half went to the lords for whom they worked. The runaways then were flogged or even condemned to death.

The lords used such inhuman tortures as gouging out eyes, cutting off feet or hands, pushing the condemned person over a cliff, drowning and beheading.Numerous rebellions occurred over the years against this harsh treatment, and in 1347 alone (the seventh year of Yuan Emperor Shundi's reign), more than 200 serf rebellions occurred in Tibet."

geez... what a mystery. Why would people posting on a forum populated mostly by people from Christian dominated countries mostly talk about the positions of Christianity? Gosh, there must be some reason for this. WHY aren't they talking about the what some obscure African Tribal Religions teach about gays? Why are they wasting their time discussing the religion practised by the majority of people in their culture when they could be discussing religions that have no bearings on their lives?

More great questions from Splendour. If you flat out ignore the obvious answers to her questions then they seem real mysterious.

This is classic....
Splendour brings up gays in the thread. Wondering why people always focus on Christians and their stance on gays.
KB points out that the reason they don't talk about Buddhists and gays is because Buddha didn't talk about it. He asks her to show instances of gays protesting against gays like Christians do.
At which point Splendour says;

No this is a very relevant thread. I've heard some very pro-Buddhist statements on 2+2 and I believe these people have recommended it as a belief system to Christians and other people without knowing much about it. I recall at least 2 of them were regular atheist posters.

Why didn't the Buddhist Lamas get their people out of slavery?

Isn't reincarnation a form of karmic slavery?

wait a second.... Is Splenda a ping pong playing cat? What is her game? Appearances are indeed deceptive.

(quote added to classic collection!)

Why didn't the Lamas lift the slavery in Tibet?

Because they can't because of the laws of karma. People are serving a sentence for their previous lives and only the monks escape The Wheel of Life.

In Christianity all Christians are priests.

And even when you point this out to her, she is blissfully unaware

You're the ones that are unaware as you have subpar understanding on religious topics.

The Vinaya text is very complicated on this:

Lay followers and monastic practices

In Buddhism, the acceptability of homosexuality for a layperson is effectively not a religious matter.[2] "Sexual misconduct" is a broad term, subject to interpretation according to followers' social norms. Early Buddhism appears to have placed no special stigma on homosexual relations.[1]

The situation is different for monastics. For them, the Vinaya (code of monastic discipline) bans all sexual activity, but does so in purely physiological terms, making no moral distinctions among the many possible forms of intercourse it lists.[3]

Some Buddhist orders may specifically prohibit transgender, homosexually active, or homosexually oriented people from ordination but accept homosexuality among laypersons (citation needed).

Among Buddhists there is a wide diversity of opinion about homosexuality. Buddhism teaches that sensual enjoyment and desire in general, and sexual pleasure in particular, are hindrances to enlightenment, and inferior to the kinds of pleasure (see, e.g. pīti, a Pāli word often translated as "rapture") that are integral to the practice of jhāna. However, most Buddhists do not pursue skill in meditation or aim for enlightenment. For most, the goal is a pleasant life and, after death, a pleasant rebirth. For these Buddhists, enjoying sensual pleasures in a non-harmful way is normative.

Regarding transsexual people, the earliest texts mention the possibility of a person changing sexes; such a person is not barred from ordination, and if already ordained, simply changes orders.[4]

Buddhist texts

Early texts


Buddha is often portrayed as an androgynous and asexual figure, such as in this painting from a monastery in Laos.
Within the earliest monastic texts such as the Vinaya (c. 4th century BCE), male monks are explicitly forbidden from having sexual relations with any of the four genders: male, female, ubhatovyanjañaka and paṇḍaka; various meanings of these words are given below. Later, the Buddha allowed the ordination of women, but forbade ordination to these other types of people.[5] The Buddha's proscriptions against certain types of people joining the monastic sangha (ordained community) are often understood to reflect his concern with upholding the public image of the sangha as virtuous; in some cases, this is explicitly stated. Social acceptability was vital for the sangha, as it could not survive without material support from lay society.[6]

From wiki's LGBT topics and Buddhism:
Lay followers and monastic practices

In Buddhism, the acceptability of homosexuality for a layperson is effectively not a religious matter.[2] "Sexual misconduct" is a broad term, subject to interpretation according to followers' social norms. Early Buddhism appears to have placed no special stigma on homosexual relations.[1]

The situation is different for monastics. For them, the Vinaya (code of monastic discipline) bans all sexual activity, but does so in purely physiological terms, making no moral distinctions among the many possible forms of intercourse it lists.[3]

Some Buddhist orders may specifically prohibit transgender, homosexually active, or homosexually oriented people from ordination but accept homosexuality among laypersons (citation needed).

Among Buddhists there is a wide diversity of opinion about homosexuality. Buddhism teaches that sensual enjoyment and desire in general, and sexual pleasure in particular, are hindrances to enlightenment, and inferior to the kinds of pleasure (see, e.g. pīti, a Pāli word often translated as "rapture") that are integral to the practice of jhāna. However, most Buddhists do not pursue skill in meditation or aim for enlightenment. For most, the goal is a pleasant life and, after death, a pleasant rebirth. For these Buddhists, enjoying sensual pleasures in a non-harmful way is normative.

Regarding transsexual people, the earliest texts mention the possibility of a person changing sexes; such a person is not barred from ordination, and if already ordained, simply changes orders.[4]


Quote from wiki's LGBT topics and Buddhism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Buddhism

Wow. Just wow.

We had this conversation before. I explained to you that there are different flavors of buddhism as there are different sects of christianity. Saying that every christian should be lumped in with rattlesnake handlers, pedophile priest protectors, and baby drowners is silly. To say that maybe the dalai lama might have known a nazi once and therefore he is evil is congruently silly.

Fwiw the bible does NOT say a lot about homosexuality and when it does it is only in the old testament and is equal to eating shrimp or having sex with your wife when she is on her period...it is right there in leviticus. But, the bible is very clear in support of slavery, and even in the new testament. So, I really don't see how that got to be an issue.

As I said last time there were absolutely baseless attacks on buddhism..the reason it is popular with informed people who are not confining their research to writings of glenn beck level bat-**** crazy people is because it makes no requirement of faith whatsoever. In fact the admonishment is made to have "faith" in nothing and only believe what you yourself can prove or reason from what you observe yourself. That is appealing to many people. In fact if they find something in their "scripture" (if you can call it that) that does not match up with science...they cut it out...literally with a knife. No religion does that. I don't call it a religion, I just think of it was a philosophy. I don't believe in magic anything, and most people that would self apply the term buddhist don't. It is important to be loving and kind to everyone because it is wise and the best strategy for everyone (even for selfish reasons). That is all it is about.

BTW why didn't the Lamas lift slavery in Tibet?

Contrast this with the early slavery abolition movement in the United States. Many of the early abolitionists were Christians. Starting back in England with John Wesley the father of Methodism who wrote a letter to Wilberforce enjoining him to stop slavery and it led to activism to stop slavery on Wilberforce's part.

In Christianity we can actively take stances against evil there is no karma to submit to.

Jesus Christ broke the Wheel of Karma but I've have heard lots of atheists argue for Buddhism and make suggestive (seductive?) statements that Buddhism is better. I guess if your focus is carnal then it is better.

Imagine you have to go another round of suffering in this world because you fell for this sticht because they don't grasp the difference between real freedom into eternal life and reincarnation.

Study up on Judaism. Judaism has reincarnation beliefs.

Quote:

"The Jewish understanding of reincarnation is different from Buddhist doctrines. It in no way leads to fatalism. At every point of moral decision in his life, a Jew has complete free choice. If not for freedom of choice, how unfair it would be of G-d to make demands of us - especially when reward and punishment is involved! Reincarnation does not imply pre-determination. It is, rather, an opportunity for rectification and soul-perfection."

Quote from chabad.org here:
http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/artic...ncarnation.htm