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Comment by shockzzz | Hacker News Reader

Buddhism has by far the lowest score of violence of all five big religions of the world. Not to mention that when that violence did happen [...] it has been condemned as explicitly not-buddhist by the wider Buddhist world (for violence has no place in the Buddha's thought)

I want to address this comment because it's a key objection from Buddhist Apologists.

Every small religion is going to score low on the "violence meter." That's because Buddhism wasn't politically successful. China went Communist and took over Tibet, and Buddhism lost in India.

And for those that condemn violent actions - OF COURSE! Everyone does that! Muslims overwhelmingly condemn ISIS, American Christians condemn wars and domestic terror, and many Jews condemn Israel's military behavior.

Many of the popular religions can be interpreted to be peaceful or violent. Blame the people, not the religion.

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But does buddhist scripture, teachings or lore advocate violence in the same way islam or even christianity do? I thought it was all about not harming any living being. Jihad, martyrdom and stoning infidels and such on the other hand are legitimate concepts of islam. Not to mention the violent god of the old testament.

edit: words

It's nearly impossible to verify that because:

1) Most of Buddhist scripture is not translated to modern languages

2) There is so much of it. Which Buddhist scriptures? Zen? Theravada? Tibetan? Tantric? It's hard to say which text is representative of Buddhism as a whole. Some people say all of them are (except when they disagree).

I'd encourage you to wonder if that's the right question to ask. In terms of International war and politics, do the words themselves matter more than how they're used?

In most cases, Buddhists kill others in the name of compassion. It is compassionate to kill a misguided (or Muslim) person and give them the chance to reincarnate as a Buddhist. To me, that's more fucked up than justifying murder by twisting the definition of something like Jihad.

Intent matters.

I believe the core tenets of buddhism to be more about hacking your mind and body with certain lifestyle and practice (meditation etc) and living without infringing on others. The fairytales are extra baggage.

The difference between for example islam is that there are some seriously bad ideas (by socially liberal western live-and-let-live standards) in that scripture. Islam is an inseparable part of the culture in muslim majority countries hence it is bound to influence actions and attitudes to some degree.

> Every small religion is going to score low on the "violence meter."

How is the fourth largest religion in the world a "small religion"?

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