Comments

2
So the victims included a middle-aged woman, an elderly man, and an American with a name and state of residence.
3
@2: Yes, this is typical reporting. British media outlets probably list the hometowns of deceased and just mention the American.
4
How would American's feel if another country... say China... has a bunch of military bases in Des Moines, and Tucson, and San Diego, and Boston? Would you be cool with China having military bases in our cities? And driving tanks and army people around all the time? Would that be something you'd put up with?
5
Oh please, this reads like nothing more than suicide by cop. A 52 year old man whose life has spiraled out of control for reasons we may never know and sees no way to fix it, latches onto the current turmoil in the world and decides to go out in a blaze.

7
I wish we could pack up all the religious extremists in the world- christian, muslim, jewish, buddhist, whatever- and just stick them all on their own little island and leave them there until they sort it all out and learn to get along
8
@7: Let me know if you ever find an extremist Buddhist. Kind of an oxymoron, that one.
10
@8 there is a long history, and current uptick, in violent extremism among buddist groups. Myanmar is a recent example.
11
@8,
Indeed, I have read of a militant brand of Buddhism. My understanding is prior to 1945, it played a large role in the disposition of the Japanese and its aggression in Asia in the 1930s. Note Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and attacked other parts of Asia (The Philippines, Burma, Singapore etc.) en route to Pearl Harbor.

So, @7 has a point.
12
@9: Fair enough, but read the article and you may find that basically everyone concedes that this is a political fight, not a religious one.

I suppose we could argue about what an "extremist" really is, but it always seemed to me that a religious extremist is someone who kills in the name of their faith, not someone who kills for another reason and happens to be of a faith. I would not call Israel's campaign to displace the people of Palestine to be one of religious extremism, but perhaps nationalistic extremism, as an example.
13
@8, @11,

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/opini…

https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/04/22/al…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Myanm…

There. Three references in less than 1 second found through a simple Google search. All examples are recent (within the last few years), cited from sources such as the New York Times and Human Rights Watch.

Now, what were you saying about oxymorons?

14
All religions encourage tribalism, a clear demarcation between "us" and "them". You are either christian or condemned to Hell. Muslim, or an infidel. Jewish, or goyim. Buddhist, or unenlightened. The list goes on.

This separation is combined with a hierarchy. On the DC metro back in 2004, I asked a Hare Krishna attempting to convert me what he thought of homosexuality. He responded that his religion informed him that my "sexual program" was inferior to his (heterosexuality, of course).

This tendency to rank human, to say that one class of human is superior and another inferior is precisely what causes violence, terrorism, warfare, and strife. In truth, no human is better or lesser than any other. However, many humans obsess over whether others "think they're better than" me or we. Humans create social ladders where inevitably someone gets stuck one the bottom rung, even if that rung- indeed, the whole ladder- is total bullshit.

Buddhists are no exception. Neither are Hindus, Quakers, Neo-pagans, New Age movements, or anyone else. So long as you hold the belief that another human being is less human than you are, you have the seed of violence, bigotry, paranoia and assholishness already planted in your brain. All religions do this.

This person's motivation was his religion. Tim McVeigh's motivation was his religion, too. Religion kills.
15
@4, I'd probably run down 40 innocent Chinese civilians and you'd be like "cool." ?

Please wait...

and remember to be decent to everyone
all of the time.

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