[allmost]

The Buddha would not approve.

[agere_contra]

The Buddha who threatens to burn down your house is not the true Buddha.

[Ronin]

Now this is odd. Everywhere in the world I have been to so far, the Christians have pretty good relations with the Buddhists.

Obviously they disagree on a lot of points but to do violence to another person over reasons of religion is anathema to everything Buddhists believe — again, based on my experience. It is totally counter to the Eightfold Path.

Having said that, some people call themselves Buddhist who aren’t, just as some people call themselves Christian who aren’t.

I am not casting any judgments at this point, but there is one thing I am sure of. Buddhists are not Muslims and there is no tradition of proselytizing by force in Buddhist thought.

I will be watching this story with interest.

[jimtorr]

I’m thinking agitators from India might be behind this.

[dljordan]

That’s pretty strange. You don’t hear a lot about rampaging Buddhists.

[docbnj]

Buddhists and Christians usually coexist well. However, in every traditionally Buddhist area, their are people who are not religious. These attackers of the church may have been political operatives. My suspicion is that they could be Tamil Tiger supporters. Note that the article points out that the 150-year-old church had no record of problems with its neighbors. The attackers were a gang of thugs. Where did they come from?

A problem with Buddhism is its passivity. The police apparently did nothing in this case.

Formerly Buddhist India was overrun by violent Muslims, and Buddhism was essentially wiped out in its area of origin. Buddhism survived on Sri Lanka, because it is an island. The civil war there was instigated by immigrant Tamils, Hindus from the mainland. The Tamil Tigers are a terroristic guerrilla movement. It took years for the Buddhist majority to mobilize and to effectively defend themselves. At last they are doing the job, and have almost succeeded. The guerrilla sympathizers have now turned to demonstrations, trying to pressure for a cease fire to save their skins, arguing that it is needed for the sake of civilians whom they themselves are using as shields.

It would be an expected tactic for the Tigers to do anything necessary to embarrass the country, including attacking the Christians, who have links to other countries, and whose plight (they imagine!) might stir up antipathy towards the majority in Sri Lanka.

[reaganaut]

I am not surprised. There has been an increase in radicalization in both Buddhist and Hindu countries.

A group that helps Persecuted Christians throughout the world:

http://www.persecution.com/

[kellynla]

There are apparently some people around the world who have entirely too much time on their hands...if these clowns would focus on their own religion, families and work instead of worrying about the “Jones” down the street...they'd be doing something constructive...