http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31918269

Reminds me of the way Muslims were reacting to the Muhammad cartoons...

http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_52/820936/141223-philip-blackwood-kns-3_8ee1b07e9327ae21137cfc2662ef6eeb.jpg

Here's the picture three guys went to jail for.

..when an irate man came to the buddha, venting his venom, the buddha smiled and graciously refused his gift of anger.

for you sticklers..sorry i don't remember the sutta.

As my teacher of buddhism on university said. People think buddhist are some holy people but they are just people. they eat, fuck, swear, commit crime and can be utter assholes.
I guess this is an example that quite a few Myanmar buddhist are utter assholes =).

Burmese law makes it illegal to insult or damage any religion.

It is the law there, some cultures are different.  

For instance. 

Alabama

It is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.

Mississippi

Private citizens may arrest anyone who disturbs a church service.

New York

In New York City, it is illegal to fart in church with the intention of causing a disturbance.

Australia

• It is illegal to wear hot pink pants after midday Sunday.
• It is illegal to change a light bulb unless you are a licenced electrician.

Milan requires that citizens must smile at all times, or face a fine

In Oklahoma, it is against the law to have a sleeping donkey in your bathtub after 7pm

Flushing the toilet after 10pm is illegal in Switzerland

New York City  

Citizens may not greet each other by "putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers". 

Humans are funny, yet not so funny...  isms are funny...  

“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think. ” 
― Arthur Schopenhauer

Psi  

And to be fair, 

The case comes amid a surge in Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar — which emerged in 2011 from half a century of military rule and global isolation.

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=51,12149,0,0,1,0#.VQoFYVX3-ix


And 

Persecution in Myanmar[edit]The Government of Myanmar has attempted to control Buddhist institutions through coercive means, including the intimidation, torture, and murder of monks,[10] After monks played an active role in the protest movements against the military dictatorship in 2007, the state cracked down on Buddhist monks and monasteries.[11]


I know one of the precepts is to not kill. but personally, it should be okay in self defense or the protection of innocents, then when done defending innocents, then , simply go back to training in precepts, like a samurai, and be happy and harmless.  

Persecution of Buddhists.

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

Maybe they are just tired of taking shit.  Pendulum swings, karma... Humanity...

Psi

Life taught me that most people are idiots, not just a few Myanmar buddhists. and that no religious beliefs or practices are necessary to increase human intelligence. in fact all they do is hinder it. committing crimes and being utter assholes is not the preordained fate of being 'people'.   

there are no samurai in japan simply because they were never harmless. like all believers they got carried away and turned into a bunch of thugs. so japan used it's intelligence to bring that mindset to an end. when samurai realised they were now considered morons they lost face and bowed out. whats left is yakusa
 
the best way to stop taking shit is to drop the control-of others-tactic and use your own brain. no belief system, no matter how much you 'like it' justifies hobbling the growth of intelligence.    

Psi,

Do you think that the law that you can't wear a fake mustache in church and being sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for displaying a picture of the Buddha with headphones are equivalent? 

Do you think 7 million people being busted in the U.S. for having a naturally growing plant (pot) between 2001 and 2010 is equivalent to using a picture of an honored national figure to sell alcohol, a known and physically addicting class of drug, and wearing a fake mustachio in church are equivalent?

What about smokin' a joint rolled from an Old Testament page, wearing headphones, with a fake mustachio, and being on facebook, flushing the toilet late at night in Sweden?

Psi

 no belief system, no matter how much you 'like it' justifies hobbling the growth of intelligence.    

Sounds great! Let us all start that from this moment forward. 


Psi

Really?  Is the above statement true or just a belief?

The Buddhist concept of reincarnation and rebirth led samurai to abandon torture and needless killing, while some samurai even gave up violence altogether and became Buddhist monks after realizing how fruitless their killings were. Some were killed as they came to terms with these realizations in the battlefield.


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


Yakuza had nothing to do with the Samurai.  

Despite uncertainty about the single origin of yakuza organizations, most modern yakuza derive from two classifications which emerged in the mid-Edo Period (1603–1868): tekiya, those who primarily peddled illicit, stolen or shoddy goods; and bakuto, those who were involved in or participated in gambling.[3]"Tekiya" (peddlers) were considered one of the lowest social groups in Edo. 

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

Sigh 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcVESkQeAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXoprlMxgP0

And my favorite,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfnXU0ZEyJo

exactly, none of those are worth imprisoning people over yet even a religion the world imagines is the most harmless has done just that. what next shoot up the south park staff?

honestly the sooner people see how primal passions drive their fairy tale beliefs and religions and use their awakening intelligence to delete them (rather than escalate them with what little intelligence has come online so far) the better.   

I admire your sentiment

Sounds great! Let us all start that from this moment forward. 


Psi



eh? no i'm not saying Lets All Be Clones? I said "use your own brain" 

Psi wrote, "Do you think 7 million people being busted in the U.S. for having a naturally growing plant (pot) between 2001 and 2010 is equivalent to using a picture of an honored national figure to sell alcohol, a known and physically addicting class of drug, and wearing a fake mustachio in church are equivalent?

What about smokin' a joint rolled from an Old Testament page, wearing headphones, with a fake mustachio, and being on facebook, flushing the toilet late at night in Sweden?"

Nope, to your first question. And the second is hilarious. You juxtapositioned the silly US laws in such a way that it is reasonable to conclude that you might think that, so I asked.

Hey Ryan and all, 

Really I just look at this from an Anthropological point of view, it helps one to not get involved so much.  There are many types of cultures, and many types of memes that get passed along from one group of humans to another.  I do not live in Myanmar, I do not have a Bar in Myanmar, I do not wear a robe, I do not get into rites and rituals, or other types of social customs.  I could never put someone in Jail for posting a pic or wearing a fake Mustache.  But, my main point is that most of humanity is absurd in it's laws and customs, but strangely, without laws and customs, most of humanity would act out like animals, as is seen in riot and mob behaviour.  I have no solution, other than to stay away from the crazy, and when in Myanmar do as the Myanmars do...

I also had one other point I was making with the silly laws and stuff, Absurdity in Governments is not just in Myanmar, and what may look absurd to us, will look perfectly sane to them.  And what we do in our own countries is probably hypocratic if we were to judge other countries.  One can blame Religions or Governements or Whatever, But really it is just people.  And we sometimes act like animals, for we share the same genes, so not too amazing.

Speaking of Juxtaposition, the Piers Anthony book by the same title is excellent...

Psi

Psi,

I agree, and the example of criminalizing a drug like pot is obviously a failure and the ramifications of this failure is bigger than I can imagine just like I can't even imagine the size of our solar system. The US has done many silly and awful things, the list is long.

But there is one thing I must say and I don't think you've said this, so let me be clear I'm not saying you said this but the following rant came to mind and I decided to post it!

I want to say not all cultures are created equal. The fact women can drive in the US seems silly to some in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, I have no true ground from which I can state that the universe hath decree that women should be able to drive no matter where they are on this planet. It is rather liberal secular centric of me to assume that women should be able to drive anywhere they damn please on this oval wanna be sphere of a rock called Earth. I have no absolute ground to claim we should do this, and I guess I just don't give a fuck about Saudi Arabian culture, it can go fuck itself, honestly. Perhaps it has quite a few good things that US culture lacks, I'm sure there are a few things given my ignorance. I suppose I take my constitutional rights as a US citizen as a fervent religious follower does and thus in sacred gratitude apply these right and say fuck dogmatism. Fuck dogmatism! Fuck that stupid shit, as a US citizen and it's magickally established laws I hereby subscribe to this magick and utilize my free speech rights to say, I can't fucking believe this shit! I can't fucking believe it took so fucking long to wrench the right for speech and thought away from the religious institutions that would take it back so fucking fast if it wasn't for the fact the most powerful country on earth magickally enforces free speech and the European philosophers that were it's progenitors fucking destroyed the shit out of all of them. Ah, that felt good! And yet, the story is complex. The rationality that lead to all of this was the product of the Protestant reformation. Rationality is a Protestant notion, if my weak history and skimming of David Chapman is correct. And if this progress of rationality that Alin speaks for was invented by Protestant Christians...

But what I really really want to say is, the notion of progress is in some sense an illusion, as progress only makes sense within the system you subscribe to, it's a rather new and rather relative term. Not all cultures have the notion of progress, but they all have stories and dance and religion. It's like, systems are a product of magical intent and we as humans are starting to get the hang of utilizing systems. And of these systems over time we will learn that systems like Saudi Arabia, N. Korea don't work. Neither does current US culture, but the founding fathers of the US were an anomoly and created a monstrous anomoly, the US constitution. And I don't think I'm being naive that this system eventually will trend or converge to more sane laws, like legalization of pot, legalization of same sex marriage, focus on sustainability, focus more on the depths of life than materialism.

I suppose I see myself as a globally, even universally minded person who is tired of cultural relativism taken too far. I also want to argue in favor FOR religion, but I'm going on a retreat tomorrow so I won't be able to argue for why religion is not going away and why notions of progress shouldn't include the end of religion. In lieu of my argument, see David Chapman instead for the curious.

And...

Today (20 March 2015) is new moon.   (Solar eclipses tend to occur at new moon) Also happens to be Spring Equinox.

Also a Uposatha day (new, 1st quarter, full, last quarter moons) -- sort of traditional Buddhist "Sunday".

"The Uposatha (Sanskrit: Upavasatha) is Buddhist day of observance, in existence from the Buddha's time (500 BCE), and still being kept today in Buddhist countries.[1][2] The Buddha taught that the Uposatha day is for "the cleansing of the defiled mind," resulting in inner calm and joy.[3] On this day, lay disciples and monks intensify their practice, deepen their knowledge and express communal commitment through millennia-old acts of lay-monastic reciprocity. On these days, the lay followers make a conscious effort to keep the Five Precepts or (as the tradition suggests) the Eight Precepts. It is a day for practicing the Buddha's teachings and meditation."

For what it's worth...

People should be allowed to do the fuck they want as long as it does not interfere with other peoples freedoms etc. Smoke pot, take cocaine, go on a bender, fuck and be a prostitute, burn bibles, qurans, suttras for the heck of it. Make paintings with muhammed, jesus and buddha in and outright BDSM orgy with fisting and the like.
Thats what I think people should be allowed to do and accepted to do. All people that respond with violence etc towards these things are fucked up in the head.

Yeah, some cultures are primitive and even barbaric.  At times cultures and memes carry on far too long, sometimes humans believe in irrational, illogical, and delusional beliefs, and then make governments that form up around these delusions.  It is absurdity to the fullest.  Hopefully humanity will progress forward and evolve into some kind of Star Trek type governmental system.  But humans may also fall the other way into some sort of dystopian nightmare, as it has already for some on this planet.

Humans have the capability to go either way. 

And to add to the confusion.  Humanity is stranded on this outskirt island planet, with no other habitable planet for billions of miles in sight, with limited resources, yet we are breeding like a virus, and there are still barbaric and primitive governments.  Grok!
Craziness...  

Dukkha...

It is at times so absurd.... reaching ludicrous speed !

Psi

I'll drink to that! LOL!  but it was the fisting that totally cracked me up   Krikies Andreas! 

keep up the good work