fallenleaf Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 This morning, at work, I was googling around looking for various sites. First I was looking for ex-muslim sites because of a thread I was reading over on the internet infidels board. And a lot of the people kept saying they had never seen an ex-islam site. It occured to me that I had never seen a board devoted to ex-buddhists. "Well surely," I thought, "there must be one out there!" So off I went, determined to find a collection of people talking about how Buddhism abused them. Okay, I failed... there are "testimonies" of people who left Buddhism -- mainly for Christianity which didn't shock me when I read them. But one page I found in particular was interesting. http://khmer.cc/community/t.c?b=18&t=512 This is a thread about people who left Buddhism to become Christian. The specific question is about what was wrong with Buddhism (or what it lacked) that made people become Christian. One member, uh-oh, posted a long rambling rant which basically asserted the general beliefs of Christianity. Stuff like: i believe that there is a God that created the world and the universe and everything in it..i believe in a living God that truly love his creation and full of mercy and grace..i believe that He created his creatures with free-will...i believe that the world went wrong when Satan took rule of it..i believe that our relationship with God ended when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God by falling into the temptation of Satan...and i believe it hurt God intensly yet Him being merciful and full of grace, made a plan for us humans to be reconciled with Him without messing with our free-will... Which is not so much a problem with Buddhism but a recognition of accepted beliefs. Or it might be possible that this was the world-view the person happened to be born with. I know I was born with a world-view lacking all these things, so I will grant that it may be possible to feel them naturally. But when pressed as to how he knew these things he vomited out this wonderous apologetic comment: Scripture is breathed out by God; it is God-breathed... now understanding this still doesnt prove much...im just as skeptical as you guys are except i research for the truth...one of the reasons why i believe the bible is the actual God-breathed words is it's scientific foreknowledge..ie -Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) a Brittish scientist after lifetime of study found the 5 fundamentals of science: Time, Force, Space, Matter, and Energy... ...however in the Bible, 3,000 yrs prior already revealed these basic element in Genesis 1:1 "In the begining (Time) God (Energy) created (Force) the heavens(Space) and the earth (Matter)." Does he really believe that is proof that the bible contained the "5 fundamentals of science" 3000 years beforehand? Also, why is God energy and created a force? Created is a verb which doesn't describe any of the normal "forces" I know about. Wouldn't it be more logical to state that God was the force and created represented energy? And doesn't the fact that we can debate these things mean he pulled it right square out of his ass? Oh, the best response to the original question -- heck the only response really since we can't count uh-oh's restatement of his current beliefs as a problem would be: Christianity is convenience and accessable. Lack of materials such as books to reinforce buddhist tradition. Everything that is Khmer take a back seat to pop culture. The same goes with religion. Note Khmer is the traditional language of the members... so I think the person is saying that everything traditional takes a back seat to popular culture. I do agree though, buddhism does suffer from not having "one big book" to turn to for all the answers... and it lacks formal ceremonies and gatherings which a lot of people seek out to find belonging. Anyway... I'm off to find the secret gathering of people talking about the evils of Buddhism and the mistreatment they have suffered from it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotter Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 There is an ex-muslim website: http://exmuslim.com However, their status of ex-muslim is they have become Christians, not ex-muslim in the sense that they don't believe in anything. --- For the ex-Christian members here, would that arouse your thoughts that they get into something that you left? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ ficino ♦ Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Over on Secular Web (Internet Infidels) there's a thread entitled "So it turns out Buddhists suck too" - starts with post #2412311. It's more of a complaint against Buddhist prudery than it is an argument against its truth as a religion http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=125672 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fallenleaf Posted June 5, 2005 Author Share Posted June 5, 2005 There is an ex-muslim website: ... For the ex-Christian members here, would that arouse your thoughts that they get into something that you left? Yep, I know... I was looking for some ex-buddhist sites. I couldn't really find any. I did find a lot of criticism (most of which I had read before) by people but nothing which compares to the stories you find told by ex-{christian, muslim, etc} As for if it arouses my thoughts, not really. I think people often end up searching and trying a lot of different things to find what works best for them. Over on Secular Web (Internet Infidels) there's a thread entitled "So it turns out Buddhists suck too" - starts with post #2412311. It's more of a complaint against Buddhist prudery than it is an argument against its truth as a religion http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=125672 Yes... I just read this entire thread. I even found a semi-reference to the "virgins under the temples" thing @ http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jam...aught/holy.html Human sacrifices were still occurring in Buddhist Burma in the 1850s. When the capital was moved to Mandalay, 56 "spotless" men were buried beneath the new city walls to sanctify and protect the city. When two of the burial spots were later found empty, royal astrologers decreed that 500 men, women, boys, and girls must be killed and buried at once, or the capital must be abandoned. About 100 were actually buried before British governors stopped the ceremonies. Sadly, I see no reference to where this information was obtained. Of course, it speaks more against the ruling class of Burma than it does against Buddhism. Horrible either way really. But the people who "attack" Buddhism in the thread do a piss-poor job of it. I could do a better job and not even break a sweat. The worst thing of all, they keep confusing the "problem photo" with the one in the article... which was not the photo which caused the uproar. That's why they keep thinking the girls wouldn't have known it was a temple and keep talking about them being on a public beach. The actual photo clearly shows the temple and the girls are leaning on a railing in front of it. Let's see... aside from the over-mentioned abuses of Tibet, we have a strong prohibition among early monks from touching a woman. This still holds true in some branches to this day -- a monk will not even allow a woman to directly hand them something to avoid the risk that their fingers might brush each other. Zen actually has a parable about this very issue and its foolishness but it is common. Also, although women were permitted to be "nuns" by the Buddha himself, many cultures didn't allow that and made the monks a male class only. These two things are a very common factor which has played a role in Buddhism (in varying amount and different geographic areas) for a large portion of its existence. I would insist that these are wrong, and point that the second of these arose as a cultural adaptation made to the beliefs when they entered a country which already had women as a lower "class." The first has a basis in preventing "illicit" contact in the sangha (Buddhist monk community) where celebate monks and nuns would work close to each other. The idea that they should not touch each other was intended to help them keep to that vow of celibacy. But, even though there are reasons... these are things I would consider legitimate "issues" of Buddhism. And the denial of sexuality in many branches is also an issue which I believe warps the intention of the practice. All of these could have been discussed... but they got off track and ranted about the Dali Lama's palace (the leader of a very well known sect of Buddhism but also a very tiny one) and driving temple supports through the chests of virgins -- which may have been an exaggeration of the "unproven" event I was able to find. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fallenleaf Posted June 5, 2005 Author Share Posted June 5, 2005 Sounds similar to what people who leave Christianity have to say. LOL! Exactly! I was reading them and thought, "deja-vu. Hmm, I bet there are stories like this from most religions..." which led my mind to wonder if I could find a site dedicated to helping ex-Buddhists overcome it (just to see if my own personal leanings have destroyed people so deeply) but haven't found anything like it. Sure, there are people who left... and sites talking about how bad it is... and how wrong... but it doesn't seem to fuck people over as harshly as monotheism does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 For the ex-Christian members here, would that arouse your thoughts that they get into something that you left? Well some people are predisposed to be fooled more than once. Or a perfect saying (modified): “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on you again.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotter Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Cool information. Madame M. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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