Why?

What conclusion would you draw from someone hounding you with non-stop criticism on the Net for 6 years like a pit bull.

Lots of people have misogynistic strains. That's why women used to hold the position of tea servers in Japan for generations. In the West women go to work to work. In Japan they go to work to serve the men tea.

Um... please demonstrate evidence of me being the biggest misogynist on the board. Otherwise I'll bring this to the attention of the mods. For what its worth, this is the oddest slur from you in all the years we've been here as I don't think anyone's ever accused me of the like.

Ahh... this explains it a little. In Splenda's mind, if someone criticizes Splenda, you are attacking all women. Therefore, to criticize Splenda is to a misogynist.

Similarly, if you critique her logic, you are also attacking all Christians.

I gave up on Splendour long time ago... I still reply to her posts but I know my reply is just going to bounce back and won't be absorbed.

Report it. Who cares?

You made the impression through your own postings over the last several years.

Nope. Well, only in your unbalanced mind... At least that's the impression you've given through your postings over the last several years.

Don't worry.. No one thought you'd have any proof. Just more of your un-Christ-like behavior.

LOL...your pattern of behavior is the proof.

And your posts show it.

A sign of misogyny is accusing women of irrationality thereby implying they are inferior.

I may be irrational but only a misogynist would say it over and over. So you're no true advocate of women's rights. Your actions undercut your pretend stance on women's rights. You just use women's rights to bash religion.

ermmm no. he is accusing you of being irrational because you are irrational, not because you are a woman, or inferior, or any of that crap. Because you demonstrate your irrationality over and over, people feel the need to point it out to you over and over..

Do you really think that this one isolated incident sullies the entire religion?

No, it is not. The Pali Canon contains plenty of stories of women reaching Nibbana.

There's really no such thing as "Buddhist culture", as there's a lot more to a culture than the prevalent religion. Japan, China, Sri Lanka, and Thailand are all very different cultures. And why do you assume that people who think Buddhism is better than Christianity haven't studied Buddhism? Millions of reasonable people have studied both and decided one or the other is better for them.

And the deep south here in the U.S. is largely Christian and still largely racist. Shouldn't Christianity haved cured racism by now? Do you see how ridiculous this argument is?

You should really quit telling people what they need to go look up.

In Japan today, women can work in whatever field they want. They have equal opportunity employment laws, too.

Women are perfectly capable of being irrational, as you frequently prove, and there is nothing misogynistic about a man noticing it. If I see a black guy stealing something and I call the cops, does that make me a racist? If I hear a woman talking irrational gibberish, does that make me a sexist?

Because if that's how things work in your mind, then aren't you a sexist yourself, sitting here telling a bunch of men what they don't know and don't understand, as if you, a woman, are on some intellectual plane that we dumb Y chromosomes can't reach?

No but this is exactly how many of the atheists on here think and argue against religion.

They take incidents and guilt associate all Christians to the incidents. Otherwise why run the Catholic priest scandal 600 times on here and the Theravada scandal not at all?

They also say because some Christians screwed up Christianity is bad. But individual Christians are not the founders of Christianity.

This is all poor observation and conclusion drawing on atheists' part.

The point of a Christian's life isn't to follow other Christians and pattern on them. The point of a Christian's life is to focus on Jesus Christ himself and pattern on him.

Unless you can indict Jesus Christ himself which you can't you need to stop bashing Christianity.

No, but I think the lack of reaction from the temples is not very encouraging.

http://www.budsas.org/ebud/majjhima/...udhatuka-e.htm

"It is impossible that a woman should be the perfect rightfully Enlightened One. It is possible that a man should be the perfect rightfully Enlightened One. "

...

This does not refer to becoming an arahant (Buddha). It refers to being a sammasambuddha (which is usually translated as rightly self-awakened one), which is a person who discovers the Dhamma on his own without instruction. This is what the historical Buddha did. Buddhists believe that the Dhamma has been discovered many times in many places. It will be lost here eventually and it will be found again somewhere else, and it will be found by a man. Why is that? Don't know. Why can only women have babies?

This quote does not mean that women cannot become enlightened. Again, there are a lot of stories of women becoming enlightened in the same Pali Canon you just quoted from.

Not to nitpick, but it's Thich Nhat Hanh. The fact remains that there is not a Buddhist culture; there are many different types of Buddhist cultures. His argument that culture and religion are inseparable does not contradict this.

Right. Neither is Buddhism. That was the point.

That's what they chose to do for a living. Most secretaries here in America are women, because that's what they chose to do. It doesn't make either culture sexist.

Did you just compare kurto and Breizik? Holy ****!

You frequently post irrational commentary, Splendour. You're doing it right now. It doesn't make people sexist to notice it. In fact, it makes you a sexist to automatically call a man a sexist just because he criticizes a woman. DUCY?

There is no traditional atheist position on women's rights. Stop putting words in other peoples mouths and beliefs in other people's heads. If someone calls himself an atheist, all that tells you is that he does not believe in god. That's it. You know absolutely nothing else about what he believes and doesn't believe.

Of course. But you posted as if Buddhism was somehow at fault for not having cured sexism in Asia, which is just as ridiculous as Christianity not having cured racism (or sexism) in America.

This post is a big miss.

You want to see a non-sexist in action sometime then watch the way OrP or bunny exchange posts with me.

kurto chose to be the way he was a la the Sam Harris school of sarcasm and something in him likes it.

But Harris is stupid. Sarcasm is no way to persuade anyone. It's source is cruelty.

Read the OT...Start with Hagar. Mockery/sarcasm is always a sure sign of a lack of spiritual promise. The Children of the Promise don't engage in it regularly.

It's not our way. Hence Christians are more gentle. Sarcasm is the way of a savage.

Whatever. I know it's schizophrenic like all religious texts, but to claim that Buddhism is a religion that promotes gender equality is just stupid. More gems:

"Why can't women embark in business/court? Buddha said: Women folk are Uncontrolled, envious, greedy, weak in wisdom, Ananda." (Anguttar Nikaya II.81)

"Monks, a woman's heart is obsessed by form, sound, scent, savor and touch of a Man...Womenfolk end their life unsated and unreplete with two things: sexual Intercourse and childbirth." (AN II.2)

You mock people all the time, Splendour.

But let's get this back on track. You started this thread to learn more about Buddhism, right?

It's a big miss and yet you didn't discuss a single point that Tex brought up in his post.

I was actually going to write something very similar to Tex's - you completely missed the point of the indivisibility of culture and religion, e.g., you can't compare Buddhists in Japan to Buddhists in the States - two different things.

It seems you are upset that some atheist don't like Chrisitanity and point out some faults - so you turn around and try to make the same arguments against another religion.

Seriously, if you don't want people to disparage christianity why do you participate in the same behavior?

I think one of problems is people come to Buddhism with a set of preconceived notions that often stem from their Christian upbringing. Chrisitianity is very rigid with set rules and boundaries, scripture is held in the highest regard, you either believe or you don't, etc ...

Then people try to apply that framework to Buddhism and get confused because there seem to no set rules and flexibility in beliefs, the Buddhist scriptures are considered one of the lowest forms of Buddhist knowledge and they learn about a monk who renounced Buddhism but is considered one of the great Buddhist teachers. It all seems very odd and is not what people think of when religion is mentioned and they just won't let go of their preconceived notions of religion and spirituality.

No I don't mock anyone. I may provoke them. Then respond in kind when they get sarcastic over and over and when I know they are determined to be sarcastic. But I never start the mockery.

Refuting atheist stereotypes is provoking. But provoking and mockery aren't the same thing.

How are you ever going to break free from the atheist stereotypes if you can't examine all the evidence unbiasedly?

Christianity is not an never has been the source of male chauvinism in this world. Male chauvinism has been around longer than Christianity.

So you've got to put the blame squarely on human nature instead of using Christianity as your straw man for male chauvinism.

I know plenty of male chauvinists who aren't particularly religious. I've ran into them my whole life and I can't recall a single Christian among them who was particularly chauvinistic though there are definitely instances of Christian male chauvinists.

Maybe we should start a thread about chauvinism in different religions? Might be entertaining.

But regarding this thread, I'm done with that topic. I have some free time today, so if you'd like to talk about Buddhism for a while that would be cool.

Maybe some other time. I get more of a kick out of making discoveries. I'm rather a kid like that. When you go digging around in ancient history you never know what skeleton you will find.

Of course when I present the discoveries all hell breaks loose.

Who'd have thought people would get so personally invested in their modern opinions?

I don't accuse women of irrationality. I accuse you. I know you've made this mistake repeatedly on the forum but maybe one day you'll get it. You are a woman (notice that is singular). You are not women (that is plural). (if you don't know the difference between singular and plural any dictionary can help.)

I could spend my entire life calling you irrational and it would never make me a misognynist. Further showing you how wrong you are, I've never said "splenda is irrational because she's a woman."

Not true at all. How many times someone points out that you post irrational nonsense has no bearing on whether they're a misogynist. Here, for instance, is a case of you not understanding definitions. If everytime you post something wrong I point it out, I'll never be a misogynist. You are quite often hampered by your inability to understand words.

Your entire claim about me being "no true advocate of women's rights" is because I point out how irrational you are. Your conclusions are.... irrational.

Once again, this is wrong/dishonest. I haven't put down women, I have put down your posts. The only reason that you may have received hundreds of posts calling you irrational is you've made hundreds of irrational posts. Also for the record, its not as if I'm the sole person calling you irrational. It happens all the time by a variety of posters old and new. By your definition they must all be misogynists since pointing out that Splenda is ________ means that you think all women are _______. Of course... that's illogical.
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So you lived in japan (possibly worked in Japan), presumeably you would have realized that women work there. Yet your first post is written to imply that women don't work... they simply serve tea. So you were either living in Japan and completely ignorant of the women who held jobs other then serving tea or you were being dishonest. Which is it?

Of course, once confronted that you were wrong (women do work in all fields and have equal rights), you don't change your position you simply make the change that "a lot of women acted in the servile role of tea servers" which is essentially meaningless to your point. Bravo.

You're an emotionally irrational person by your tenacity in trying to dominate another person.

Your emotional irrationality indicates you are a misogynist. Because you think you have to dominate someone publicly. Dominance and misogyny are linked.

It just kills you that someone of the opposite sex has enough moxie to contradict you.

FWIW, and so you don't have any misguided ideas, you didn't discover anything new or unknown.

By refusing to take part in a dialog about Buddhism in the West you are prohibiting yourself from making discoveries.