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[Akura]

Christians. I know religion is generally a bad topic to go off about around here, but still, I'm finding I really hate Christians. Oddly, Christ himself I have no real problem with, just his followers. Spending about 2.5 hours in truck(and on a goddamned milk crate with a pillow, since there was no middle seat) between two guys whose heads were shoved, not only the same distance up their respective asses, but bent in there at the same angle, didn't help any. Having read and understood most of the Bible, I could generally prove most of what they spiel on about is mostly BS, but they're not going to listen if I did.
For example, for the past week, my boss has been going on about how evil Jehovah's Witnesses have been handing out their information(which, according my boss, is Satan's propaganda), during our outreaches, and has been telling us to stop them if they do. Personally, I want to get in contact with the local Witnesses and try and get them to take a more firm approach at trying to steal converts away from us. Considering our outreaches are events open to the public, I don't think we can legally stop them. It'd be hilarious just to see what would happen.

What's even sillier is that my principal is my Chemistry teacher, and he forgot to come for Chmeistry class for 2 days, wasting 3 periods in total.

I had a chemistry teacher who did the same thing, but worse. Yay for recycled tests from the previous year, otherwise we wouldn't have passed that year.

Ugh. Reminds me of my Web Design class. First third of the year, we had a teacher who was extremely good at her job(and as a bonus, the class got some really goddamned comfy chairs during that time). Around the second third, the teacher got offered a principle's job at another school and takes it. Cue getting the entire gamut of useless substitute teachers. After a while, I get so sick of the other students putting games, virii, and porn on the computers I go to the administration about it. They give us a replacement teacher who is an extreme bitch, knows little of the subject, and tries to teach us things that is not quite the subject(and far too advanced for us anyway) we were supposed to be learn. She tried to threaten my own graduation prospects(empty threat, it was an elective class I didn't need), and according to my older sister, it's the same teacher who threw a book at her while she was pregnant(I think, not 100% sure it was the same teacher).

[Willfor]

Christians. I know religion is generally a bad topic to go off about around here, but still, I'm finding I really hate Christians.

Isn't generalized hate one of the reasons you're feeling this way about them?

Anyway, the reason it's a bad topic to go off about here is because there are those of us on this forum who are of the Christian persuasion who would, you know, rather not be hated indiscriminately for existing? I get that you're in a rather bad situation, but your situation is not being caused by Christians. It's rather being caused by ignorant people who happen to be Christian. And ignorant people exist in every single categorization across the board.

[nenjin]

"Ignorant Christians", like the man said, is probably the better sub-group to rant about.

I'd like to say that the world would be better off if people focused more on people of their faith mis-representing it to the rest of the world.....but history shows that has pretty terrible outcomes too.

It's funny. If any organized religion actually lived up to the principles of its most sacred figures, there'd be far less violence, war and hatred. I don't even think Buddhism can claim to be free of it.

[Urist Imiknorris]

It's rather being caused by ignorant people who happen to be Christian.

I think it's caused more by hateful people using Christianity as an excuse to hate people.

[Nadaka]

Even radical heretic I, do not hate Christians.

[Loud Whispers]

It's funny. If any organized religion actually lived up to the principles of its most sacred figures, there'd be far less violence, war and hatred. I don't even think Buddhism can claim to be free of it.

...

Really?

D:

Never even heard of dukka? D:

[nenjin]

I have now, but there's sectionalism and conflict within Buddihism that has very little to do with its actual individual truths, and that's what I was referring to. Maybe that's dukka in your view.

[Loud Whispers]

On the contrary, there is actually no conflict within Buddhism - the very act of starting conflict over beliefs goes against the core of Buddhism. That's why when asked what they believed about a creator God, the universe or any other philosophical question, they just went;
"Lol don't care, too busy being helpful. These are all distractions."

[Frumple]

That hasn't stopped people claiming to be Buddhist from indulging in the occasional spat of internecine conflict and miscellaneous other sorts of violence, though. Which is what nenjin was saying.

Yeah, it goes against the core of the religion, but that's not really been stopping enough people, apparently. As nenjin notes, it's really quite a shame

E: Also, yeah, there's Buddhist sects and splinters that do make metaphysical claims or include deities of various sorts. The ol' Gautama didn't have anything to do with that nonsense, but it's been a loooong time since he was the sole influence on Buddhism in general

[Loud Whispers]

Whatisthis o-o

You can still be Buddhist and a bad person. The difference being no one's a bad person because they're Buddhist.

Yeah, it goes against the core of the religion, but that's not really been stopping enough people

I really haven't noticed many people waging war in the name of freedom from craving and suffering...?

[Frumple]

It's funny. If any organized religion actually lived up to the principles of its most sacred figures, there'd be far less violence, war and hatred. I don't even think Buddhism can claim to be free of it.

Whisp, the thing that started this minor derail.

Pretty much all the major religions and their major sects are very strongly anti-violence -- yes, even Islam, generally considered by westerners to be the most overtly violent. This isn't stopping people claiming that religion from ignoring the principles of their sacred figures and going about and mucking everything up.

Basically, no one's a bad person because they're X religion, be it Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc., so forth, so on. It's just kinda' sad that so many people claim to be <Insert Religion> and then pretty much ignore the core teachings of their holy figures and go about messing crap up.

The Buddhist groups aren't free of that, unfortunately.

[Loud Whispers]

But there are no doctrines in Buddhism. It's basically what would happen if Atheism became a religion. And I'd be more worried if most people actually followed what their religious/holy leaders said or did... Imagine everyone getting killed for working on Sundays. Or disrespecting parents. And yes, people can do bad things because of religion. Islam isn't generally considered to be overtly violent, it just is. Honour killings?

[Frumple]

It... that's basically the point, LW, that folks are following the teachings of their religious/holy leaders and/or cultural background instead of the teachings of their actual holy figures -- the priest instead of Jesus, the imam instead of Muhammad, the guru instead of Gautama, etc.

I couldn't quote to you exact numbers, but there's at least a few lines in one of the supplementary texts (a compilation of the sayings attributed directly to their prophet.) to the Quran that pretty explicitly mimics the "Thou shalt not kill" thing; Honour killings are against the teachings of Muhammad. Hate is against the teachings of Jesus. Violence is against the teachings of Gautama. It doesn't stop the people claiming to follow those figures from indulging in all of the above.

The sad thing is that people let their cultural background or current religious figure lead them toward actions either implicitly or explicitly against the teachings of their primary religious figure. Thus the 'organized religion living up to the principles of their most sacred figures' thing.

And, as the general note, Buddhism isn't a singular thing anymore, and never really has been. There's sects and offshoots that are explicitly theistic, some of them fairly major. There are a lot of different flavors of Buddhism, yeah.

[Glowcat]

There are also parts of the text which explicitly call for killing. Trying to attribute scripture to what any particular holy person said is folly because what we think we know of them isn't very trustworthy. The "Holy Books" we base our understanding on are often contradictory and seem more to be a collection of religious traditions than any definite indication of what their prophets actually said. At least with regards to the Abrahamic tradition and its offshoots.

[kaijyuu]

I hesitate to call anything "human nature," but getting caught up in any sort of fervor (be it religious or otherwise) makes people really, really manipulatable. Nationalism is a good example.

I'd say the problem is people getting blinded by singular goals, groups, or ideas. Once that thing becomes important to a person, they can be manipulated by an outside force (such as leaders) into doing horrible things. They excuse their behavior because "it was done in the pursuit of X good thing" where X is the aforementioned goal, group, or idea. An outside force isn't even needed if they need a convenient excuse for something they decided to do themselves.


Anything "serious business" is dangerous without self control and reflection.