The Off Topic Topic

[Malthus]

I hesitate to claim that the Nazis and Communists were "Christian" in any sense other than ruling over populations whose traditional religion was Christianity. Both had nothing but hatred and contempt for the traditional religions of their peoples.

They certainly were not *motivated* by their religion to commit excesses in the same way that the Japanese were.

They weren't.
The Japanese motivations were pretty standard imperialist stuff driven ever crazier by endless war and nationalism. The religion was just there as an inherant part of Japanese culture for the nationalists to exploit to encourage the people.
Again though- not really relevant to the modern Japanese situation or the suckyness of christianity is monotonising the world.

I don't think that's an accurate characterization. Japanese imperailism was expressly religious in tone - their leader was, literally, a descendant of the Gods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nationalism#Role_of_Shinto

After the Meiji Restoration, the new imperial government needed to rapidly modernize the polity and economy of Japan, and the Meiji oligarchy felt that those goals could only be accomplished through a strong sense of national unity and cultural identity, with State Shintōism as an essential counterweight to the imported Buddhism of the past, the Christianity and other western philosophies of the present..

In 1890, the Imperial Rescript on Education was issued, and students were required to ritually recite its oath to "offer yourselves courageously to the State" as well as protect the Imperial family. The practice of emperor worship was further spread by distributing imperial portraits for esoteric veneration. All of these practices used to fortify national solidarity through patriotic centralized observance at shrines gave pre-war Japanese nationalism a tint of mysticism and cultural introversion.[2]

The hakko ichiu philosophy came to be regarded by militarists as a doctrine that the emperor was the center of the phenomenal world, lending religious impetus to ideas of Japanese territorial expansion.

Sure, the religious impulse was being manipulated for secular ends - the same can be said of the Christian Crusades, or Islamic Jihad.

[frunk]

Isn't that Shintoism not Buddhism though?  Obviously the two beliefs are thoroughly mixed up together in Japan, but I think you can make a distinction. 

[Malthus]

Isn't that Shintoism not Buddhism though?  Obviously the two beliefs are thoroughly mixed up together in Japan, but I think you can make a distinction.

Yup, though I agree the two are not in practice always distinct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakko_ichiu

The issue though is whether Japanese traditional religion - by the 20th century, a mix of Shinto and Buddhism - has been more harmful than 20th century Christianity. To that there can be only one answer - of course it has. It was a major motive for Japanese imperialism, while by the 20th century Christianity was mostly a spend force in terms of motivations for major world events, replaced in the West by political ideologies that owed little or nothing to traditional religion. 

[Razgovory]

Buddhism has no god iirc.

No, they call their gods something else.  Bodhisattvas.  It's Hollywood Buddhism that has no god.

Bodhisattvas are more like saints than gods. They intercecde for humans.

I think the term "gods" is appropriate.  Where as saints were thought to be have been living human beings (with a few exceptions), Bodhisattvas are thought to be higher powers.  Sometimes they are worshiped as gods by non Buddhists.  In many pagan beliefs the role of gods is to intercede on behalf of humans.  Particularly indo-European deities from which Buddhism sprang from.

[Malthus]

Buddhism has no god iirc.

No, they call their gods something else.  Bodhisattvas.  It's Hollywood Buddhism that has no god.

Bodhisattvas are more like saints than gods. They intercecde for humans.

I think the term "gods" is appropriate.  Where as saints were thought to be have been living human beings (with a few exceptions), Bodhisattvas are thought to be higher powers.  Sometimes they are worshiped as gods by non Buddhists.  In many pagan beliefs the role of gods is to intercede on behalf of humans.  Particularly indo-European deities from which Buddhism sprang from.

Bodhisattvas were living human beings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva

Mahāyāna Buddhism encourages everyone to become bodhisattvas and to take the bodhisattva vows. With these vows, one makes the promise to work for the complete enlightenment of all sentient beings by practicing the six perfections.[10] Indelibly entwined with the bodhisattva vow is merit transference (pariṇāmanā).

Specifically, bodhisattvas are humans who could, if they so wished, become buddhas but who delay this to aid other humans to achieve enlightenment - in many sects, by interceding to give to humans some of their accumulated kharmic virtue because that human has asked for it, and so allow that human to get to the Pure Land when they die.

This is functionally similar to sainthood. Catholics (put crudely) pray to saints to intercede for them, and so go to Heaven; some Buddhists ask bodhisattvas to intercede for them, and so go to the Pure Land.

In strict theory, praying to either saints or bodhisattvas doesn't make a whole lot of sense - why should either single you out, just cause you ask them? Bodhisattvas for example are supposed to give their merit to "all sentient beings" - but there you have it.

[Razgovory]

I was under the impression that many Bodhisattvas started their careers as Gods.

Such as this chick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitatapatra

This one is interesting.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C5%8D He seems to have had some origin as Hercules.

[Malthus]

I was under the impression that many Bodhisattvas started their careers as Gods.

Such as this chick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitatapatra

This one is interesting.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C5%8D He seems to have had some origin as Hercules.

I dunno if they started careers as gods, so much as are taken as being manifestations of qualities. The same sort of process happens with saints though - so-and-so becomes the patron saint of X, not really all that distingusihable from the pre-existing non-Christian diety of X.

[Admiral Yi]

Marc Rich's wife just renounced her US citizenship.  According to CNN she's trying to duck estate taxes. 

Probably lengthens Holder's odds a bit, since he vetted the pardon at Justice.

[Ed Anger]

Marc Rich's wife just renounced her US citizenship.  According to CNN she's trying to duck estate taxes. 

Probably lengthens Holder's odds a bit, since he vetted the pardon at Justice.

Also likely improves the odds the House and Senate are going to enact laws to assrape these folks who pull these cunning stunts.

I know that Facebook dude got some Dems hot under the collar.

[Admiral Yi]

Also likely improves the odds the House and Senate are going to enact laws to assrape these folks who pull these cunning stunts.

I know that Facebook dude got some Dems hot under the collar.

I would love to know what Schumer is thinking.  He has been point on this fuck the traitors bill, but this chick pulled in many ducats for the Democrats.

[DGuller]

If people want to renounce their citizenship, they should be able to.  I don't see what laws preventing that would accomplish.  Let them renounce if they want to, for the price of a 100% exit asset tax.

[Ed Anger]

Now , now a more humane 90% exit tax. After all, it worked for the Germans.

[DGuller]

Now , now a more humane 90% exit tax. After all, it worked for the Germans.

My plan would tax liabilities at 0%, though.

[Ed Anger]

I also forgot them taxing for the current year, and the next. 

[katmai]

Marc Rich's wife just renounced her US citizenship.  According to CNN she's trying to duck estate taxes. 

Probably lengthens Holder's odds a bit, since he vetted the pardon at Justice.

His ex-wife