Not quite I think:
The roots of faith-based
terrorism lie in the religious intolerance and militancy embedded in
the history and sacred texts of all the world’s religions.
I realise that in bothering to read this article I have breached one of our recent findings, that there are certain phrases which mean that one does not need to go further, "A Textual Analysis of…." being an obvious candidate.
All the world’s religions? The militant Buddhists?
In
Yep, even militant Buddhists.
Just been hunting the net, trying to find a reference, but without any luck. So sorry, this will be pretty vague.
Some little time ago I read about a period of militant Buddhism (definite) in ninth century (I think) northern China (I think).
How about Mithraism, though? It may have been military, but was it ever militant? Never seen a reference to that. Or the Elysium Mysteries maybe? Hell, you had to pay good money to get into that one.
I believe the ancient Khmer kingdom was upheld religion-wise by a militaht version of Theravada Buddhism, and a similar conception animated various Chinese rebel groups – small swords, red turbans etc. Buddhism as a state religion is also used by the Burmese Junta as a legitimising tool.
There were lots of extremely militant Buddhists in Japan. It is one reason why many Buddhist temples burned down – they were fighting on what turned out to be the losing side in one skirmish or anoher.
More recently IIRC the Sinhalese are Buddhist and they have been oppressing/fighting the Hindu(?) Tamils in Sri Lanka for a while, hence the Tamil Tigers.
The animist “hill tribes of Southeast Asia” were known as the “pleasant farmland tribes of Southern China” before being driven into the hill sby Buddhists who had taken a scunner against animists.
In general, the Buddhists have had the good sense to preserve their reputation for quiteness and pacificism by making sure to either a) conduct their genocides against preliterate cultures or b) lose, badly.
Jains and Ba’hai are probably your best bet for an entirely nonviolent religion. Course, the Scientologists haven’t ever actually topped anyone …
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