On 2008-May-23, at 16:15, David Henderson wrote: > The Imperial Japanese army had 5 million members at it's height. It > committed acts of terror including suicide bombings. It did have an > official religion, Bushido, which is a form of Buddhism. Therefore > Buddhism *is* the most terrorist inspiring religion in history. > > Bushido is *not* a religion. It is a combinatory word form of Bushi > and Do or warrior and way in english.
Something that changed my perspective on a lot of things religious and spiritual, was a talk by an American Zen master, Genpo Roshi, who was a long time student of a Japanese master. Genpo said that it took him many years to eventually realise that half of what he was learning was Zen, and the other half was "militaristic Japanese bullshit", and it took him many years to learn to tell the difference. I think the key thing about what's misleading about calling terrorists "Islamic", is that while it's true that these terrorists are quoting Islamic verse, *any* text is interpreted when it's read, and it's interpreted by the reader through the filter of whatever stage or worldview they are inhabiting. I vaguely heard somewhere that Timothy McV. had been reading Vedanta, and interpreted it in a nihilistic way that justified in his own view, why killing was fine. I'd like to find a reference, but I don't find it hard to believe. Stefano _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
