[extropy-chat] Books: Harris; Religion and Reason

[Robert Bradbury]

On 1/10/06, The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  but to believe that
> there is something inherently pacifist about ALL
> Buddhism is to ignore Buddhism's historical context.
> Remember that various sects of Buddhism have easily
> had as great an effect on Asian military tradition as
> Christianity has had on Western military tradition.
>
> >From the Shaolin warrior monks of China to the Zen
> Buddhist influence on the Budo arts of Imperial Japan,
> Buddhism has served the violent ends of the states
> that have sponsored it as readily as Islam or any
> other religion.


The quoting I'm seeing in gmail is a bit strange so I'm not sure who  is
saying what.  However in defense of Harris he did note a possible exception
with respect to (Zen) Buddhism with respect to its possible influence on
Zero bomber pilots in WWII.  This involves discussions of various flavors of
religions which may have been influenced (corrupted?) by state agendas.  The
relationship between "religion" and "culture" in Japan, particularly the
"god-like" stature of the Emperor (not too different from the pharaohs of
Egypt) is very complex [1].

Robert

1. Just as an aside it is interesting to note that the longevity of
political systems based on a physical embodiment of a "god" (e.g. those of
Japan and Egypt) seems to be significantly greater than systems lacking such
a component. Interesting to consider whether those in favor of a FAI are
attempting to recreate an evolved form of such a framework.
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