• tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    What atrocities have mainstream Buddhists participated in? I know there have been Buddhist terror groups but it really doesn’t seem like the norm. Aggressive and greedy people use religion as a tool, some religions are more likely to engage in violence than others though.

    • BAIZI@lemy.lol
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      1 year ago

      In ancient China, Buddhist organizations also had a history of annexing land, oppressing people, and competing with secular governments.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Buddhism has extremely good PR, but ultimately it is just that: PR. You can find messages of peace, compassion, and violence in plenty of religions to higher or lesser degrees, but as soon as they become large enough to be politically relevant, one leader or another will resort to violence sooner or later, and will take advantage of their followers’ faith to justify it.

      As for Buddhism specifically, this is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence#Regional_examples

      • Alistaire@sopuli.xyz
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        5 days ago

        someone old commented somewhere that the monks took over the place and made them built temples for free and control the people, have political control and raise funds to make more temples and spread