Posted on 04/21/2006 5:16:32 AM PDT by IrishMike
What can be more astonishing between a saint confusing people and a rogue speaking the truth? Two such unexpected observations became media bytes recently. The Dalai Lama, on a month-long trip to the US and South America, said at San Francisco and Chicago that Islam is a religion of compassion which is being unfairly marginalised by few extremists. (snip)China wants to promote Buddhism, which is also in sync with the ageless Chinese ethos. Intriguingly, Buddhism can help cope with psychological problems amongst people of China, the country with highest execution and suicide rate. (snip)I hold the Dalai Lama in the highest esteem. However, his certification of Islam left me bewildered. It might be true that only a minuscule section of Muslims is indulging in suicide bombing. But why is this section not inspired to work among the sick, poor, illiterate and lepers like Christians? (snip)There can be no bitter irony than a Buddhist monk defending Islam as religion of compassion. Except for mountainous pockets like Ladakh, Tibet and the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Buddhism disappeared from India under the sword of Islam.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypioneer.com ...
Islam is a psychopathic mental illness which is run by, of and for extremists. A peaceful, moderate muslim is a contradiction.
The dolly llama should get his head out of his ass. If it wasn't for free countries like ours, he would have no place to go.
There, I think that's more correct.
All of the regions of the Subcontinent and beyond, which were Buddhist majorities prior to the arrival of the Muslim hordes, converted en-masse to Islam.
The places?
The list is long, but from west to east, along the Indian Subcontinent:
Afghanistan>>>Pakistan>>>Kashmir>>>East Bengal>>>Indonesia>>>Malaysia>>>Southern Philippines and Thailand.
-converted en-masse to Islam -
The muslims wiped them out.
Did the Dalai giggle as he said this?
I think he should take his muslim lovefest tour to southern Thailand. I think the Buddhists there can stand a bit of enlightenment about who is killing them.
The crusades get a bum rap. They were a response to Muslim imperialism.
The Dalai Lama is just a liberal smuck. It is popular to bash America and Christianity at the same time rationalizing the brutality practiced and/or supported by the majority of Muslims.
Plus, he is afraid.
The Red Chinese are 'using' the dalai Lama as their puppet, as the ChiComs want no part of Christianity or Muslims.
"""In the past, the Dalai Lama has criticised both Christianity and Islam for their evangelisation and conversion programmes. Communist China has persecuted all religions including Buddhism. But now, faced with Christian evangelisation and Islamic resurgence, China wants to promote Buddhism """"""
There's a great deal of dispute about how Buddhism was, for the most part, driven out of India, but one thing everybody should be agreed on is that Hinduism reasserted it's dominance before the birth of Mohammad in Mecca.
I think this is the first time I've seen Islam blamed for the reduction of Buddhism in India.
First of all, they didn't kill everybody. In many places, particularly where Nestorian Christianity held sway, conversions were exceedingly common.
The biggest battles, though, were along the Indus River Valley (today's Pakistan). Still, before partition there were still millions of Hindus along the Indus, and at the time of the Moslem Arab invasions, these people were ALL Hindu ~ not Buddhist!
Most of the other areas you name in Southeast Asia were either Hindu or animist. Just this morning I was watching a story about the existence of slavery in the same areas and the narrator noted that slavery was prohibited in the Moslem city-states in the Indonesian archipelago (and other Malay speaking areas), so they came up with alternatives that did the same thing.
Indonesia, et al, was hardly a single nation/single culture/single religion sort of place at the time of the arrival of the Moslems.
Afghanistan was the primary site of the Silk Road and was long fought over by everybody. It's enough to note that the favorite Afghan home temple is a model of a small, but modern looking marble building. It has 4 minarets. On top there's a large brass tray. If you flip the tops on the minarets, you can put candles in there. No matter who the local prince might be, or what army was marching through, the Afghans were prepared with a suitible home temple.
Oh, what's that? Moslems don't have home temples?
True enough, but in Afghanistan they also have mezzuzah's on their doorposts, and the folks who arrived in America were already knowledgeable in all the major religious holidays for everybody!
I'm not sure Islam has ever really conquered the place, but if they are going to be killed for a religious reason, they are prepared to switch at a moment's notice.
The Crusades were a reaction to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, not the Moslems. The Moslems in Egypt were pro-Crusader.
The "Panchan Lama" is the Chinese puppet ~ not the Dalai Lama.
Were not the Turks Muslims?
and are ?
I don't consider him any better than so-called "Christian" televangelists who preach to, and prey on, the weak and wounded for money.
Unfortunately, he's garnered a good deal of admiration from the young and ignorant in this country who are too lazy to actually figure out for themselves that Buddhism is far more pure and simple than the Dalai and his entourage would have them believe.
The only way I'd consider him a bigger joke than he is, is if he claimed to be a Taoist.
Although mass slaughter occurred through India and other areas, when you start getting out to the East those places were mainly converted peacefully when they were exposed to Islam as trading partners. In Malaysia, for example, the king decided to convert to Islam, taking his kingdom with him. The Philippines was converted over time through missionary work.
Protesting over voluntary conversions? Buddhism has always been much more evangelical than Christianity. Of course there have been more Christian converts, due solely to opportunity (ie. western imperialism), but Buddhism spread throughout nearly all of Asia with a pacifist philosophy and no armies. They have a strong history of missionary work.
The DL should figure out who his friends are.
"Turks" are an ethnic group. They were converted to Islam.
"Moslems", however, are a religion. They are made up of many different ethnic groups.
The Crusades are popularly thought of as a battle between Islam and Christianity. In reality, the Crusades (that were successful) were actually a battle between Franco-Belgian knights, and the Turks. Most Moslem states of the time managed to steer clear of this battle. They didn't like the French, of course, but they liked the Turks less.
Actually, NOBODY liked the Turks~!
Buddhism is hardly monolithic. The Dalai Lama is pretty much a Northern Buddhist, and the "simple, pure" Buddhism you are talkinga bout is probably a Southern Buddhist phenomenon.
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