re: #140 acacia

Very true about Luther. Anti semitism is the biggest wart on the Protestant reformation. Luther advanced a lot of good things but I’m afraid he gave anti semitism a good boost. My own view of the Church is that it got off to a good start, was very inclusive and loving but then the “old guard” co-opted it and reinstalled things such as the woman’s inferior place, form over substance, celibacy for priests, ritual, etc. Both Catholics and Protestants have been struggling ever since. If you think of it, the most trouble free religions have been those that don’t have a highly structured set up like Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, etc. There’s not a whole lot of strife in those. On the other hand, the Big Three - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have a continuous history of strife.

There are cases of Buddhist violence.

Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism

More reference here:

Buddhism and war

Buddhism and violence

But Buddhism, like the other great faiths, has not always lived up to its principles - there are numerous examples of Buddhists engaging in violence and even war.

* in the 14th century Buddhist fighters led the uprising that evicted the Mongols from China
* in Japan, Buddhist monks trained Samurai warriors in meditation that made them better fighters

In the twentieth century Japanese Zen masters wrote in support of Japan’s wars of aggression. For example, Sawaki Kodo (1880–1965) wrote this in 1942:

It is just to punish those who disturb the public order. Whether one kills or does not kill, the precept forbidding killing [is preserved]. It is the precept forbidding killing that wields the sword. It is the precept that throws the bomb.

Sawaki Kodo

In Sri Lanka the 20th century civil war between the mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority has cost 50,000 lives.