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Comment by inglor | Hacker News Reader

Excuse my ignorance - but does Buddhism have a concept of "holy war" like in Christianity, Judaism and Islam? If so - are they using religious justification for the killings or is the killing purely ethnical?

I don't want to spark arguments - so feel free to just post some reading material as a reply if you'd prefer to and I'll read it.

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No, Buddhism as a religion doesn't, although you must understand that even in Christianity and Islam, the whole notion of "Holy War" is more a smokescreen to hide the much more prosaic underlying causes for war that have always been true throughout history: land, resources, human slave labour, control in general.

And it doesn't matter what justification is used for killing, really. One must look at the case from all angles, as the your parent said. However war and killing has never resolved long running conflicts in history. It merely subsides for a while before rearing its head again.

We really must put an end to quarrelling based on religion, race, ethnicity, and other puerile differences, or our species is never going to reach its potential on this planet.

I agree with everything you said, except for " it doesn't matter what justification is used for killing". I think that we should strive to understand the reasoning and aspects of human psychology/sociology that make some such "justifications" more effective than others, so we could do better at promoting peace.

Buddhism has a fairly explicit prohibition against killing or even working for companies in the business (i.e. gunsmith.)

This goes even as far as not executing serial killers.

So this is unprecedented, which is part of why many are so shocked.

Almost all religions have prohibitions against killing; almost all adherents ignore religious rules whenever they would require acting against their immediate self-interest.

Buddhists are no exception. Sad as it may be, such atrocities are not unprecedented and have accompanied Buddhism throughout its history; just as they have accompanied any other faith.

If you are interested, the book "Buddhist Warfare" collects a few interesting essays on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195394844

Yes there are those who distort religion, but many religions have war ingrained in their identities, their foundations. Their gods, as described in the ancient texts, sanctioned and blessed war. The Abrahamic faiths are perfect examples of this.

Buddhism, from it's source, is different in that its first espouser categorically denounced violence against all living things, which makes any Buddhist warfare a shocking example of human ills. The Buddha even goes as far as to denounce just retribution.

> Buddhism has a fairly explicit prohibition against killing

It is easily worked around by dehumanization of your opponents. In buddhism such people might be considered icchantika for example which is basically someone who can never reach Nirvana and thus killing these "non-people" is akin to exterminating pests.

Obviously, there are many ways to dehumanize someone and sadly this is happening in many societies around the world right now.

There is NO concept of holy war in Buddhism. It's purely about love (Mettā).

Although a very (very) few monks are trying to implement such idea. When there is zero reference to support their idea in actual Buddha's teaching, they are seeking and using some ancient India/Sri Lanka historical arguments.

Unfortunately, with the situations with Rohingha conflict, they are gaining some support.

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