The Barbarism of the Buddha

[aneeshm]

In a recent discussion on Mohammed, the point came up that all religious leaders and founders are flawed and were barbaric by modern standards.

I personally consider Buddha the greatest Karma Yogi to have ever walked this Earth, so naturally I'm going to be biased in his favour. When I googled "criticism of Buddha", I came up with nothing.

Does anyone here know of anything the Buddha did which could be called barbaric by modern standards?

[SlowwHand]

Ate to excess.

[Dinner]

Thais make statues of a skinny Buddha.

In any event I doubt anyone can come up with a major crime Christ was supposed to have commited. We just need to face the fact that some religious leaders were good and others were just blood thirsty tyrants.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Ate to excess.

Actually, only Chinese and Japanese Buddhas are chubby.

[SlowwHand]

Uh oh. I have the Indians riled up.

[Nubclear]

Buddha
Buddhism :|
Christ
Christianity

The philosophies of buddhism are wonderful, when you strip the excess layers of superstition away.

[CrONoS]

There was a thread some months ago, one of the Israelis member of poly argued(is that word possible?) that the Christ acted violently when he chased away the merchants who are selling things in the temple!!

[snoopy369]

I think the main issue is that we don't exactly get a full listing of everything christ/buddha/etc. did ... just the rosy stuff their followers feel like telling us.

It's quite possible that Buddha owned slaves, had four wives, practiced S&M, etc...

(I am not buddhist and do not know if it is possible to directly disprove the above. It's just an example.)

Also, ask Karl Marx what he thinks of Buddha ... he'd probably say he was horrible for being an agent of class oppression and collaborating with the upper class oppressors...

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by cronos_qc
There was a thread some months ago, one of the Israelis member of poly argued(is that word possible?) that the Christ acted violently when he chased away the merchants who are selling things in the temple!!

argued is correct

Christ certainly lost his temper there... how relevant that is I suppose could be argued. But remember the jews that were the major converts at the start were expecting a violent god that reacts with a bad temper to things that are wrong, so this Christ is consistent with their expectations. Is this in every gospel, or only in the jewish gospels?

[aneeshm]

AFAIK, the Indian sculptures of the Buddha show him to be of typical ideal Kshatriya build - not lean, nor heavy, but with immense strength. Even when he is meditating, it seems he has the power to shake the world.

Here is a nice picture:

[Nubclear]

practiced S&M,

So?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
AFAIK, the Indian sculptures of the Buddha show him to be of typical ideal Kshatriya build - not lean, nor heavy, but with immense strength.

That's biologically unlikely. He was probably at least a little overweight as a prince, and substantially underweight as an ascetic and beggar.

[Arrian]

Actually, from what I know of Buddist teachings (not a heckuva lot), it does seem quite benign. One could be "philosophically" Buddist w/o being religious at all, it seems to me, as well, which would take out the hocus pocus. But again, my knowledge is very limited, beyond what I understand to be the core idea: the root of human suffering is desire.

But for all I know somebody managed to twist Buddism in order to justify some sort of slaughter. It tends to happen. Humanity is like that.

-Arrian

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Arrian
the root of human suffering is desire.

Unfortunately for Buddhist philosophy, desire is also the root of human achievement.

[Arrian]

Heh. True.

-Arrian