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Comment by _dain_ | Hacker News Reader

buddhist countries had feudalism

Ok. I stand corrected about a god specifically but I stand by the idea that there needs to be a strong supernatural narrative. If there is no god, there needs to be some kind of future reward for accepting a low rank in current society. Buddhism provides a nirvana/afterlife narrative to justify why people should accept/embrace suffering in the current life so it serves the same purpose as a god.

> Buddhism provides a nirvana/afterlife narrative to justify why people should accept/embrace suffering in the current life so it serves the same purpose as a god.

And now you are making a gross mischaracterisation of nirvana. It is nothing like Heaven (Buddhism has heavens and hells too, or higher and lower planes of existence). And no, nirvana does not 'serve the same purpose as a god'.

gulags were invented by a country professing state atheism

There is still the promise of potentially being freed after some time and most people who were there believed to some extent that they deserved to be punished for being a bad communist.

If the class difference is big, the narrative to justify the difference must be strong; even under serfdom or slavery, there were uprisings when the narrative was weak. The lowest class has to be (to some degree) content with their situation.

Just look at what the "buddhists" are doing in Myanmar

ouch for jongjong's argument

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