FirmhandKY
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
This doesn't make much sense to me. We're now evaluating religions on the basis of whether Communism wipes them out or not?
LaM,
Pull back a bit in your thinking. Obviously, I'm making some suppositions and saying things in a condensed way. I'm sorry if I'm not clear. One of the suppositions is that Communism as a belief system is tantamount to a religion. I think you could make a good argument (and I've seen them) that "The State" replaced "God" in that theology. It has its doctrine, dogma, sects and it's heretics.
It's a failed "religion" in my mind, not only due to its recent repudiation and failure in most countries in which it is practiced, but due to the fact that it represses the human will. However, it embraced the use of power, and in comparison to Tibetan Buddhism still holds sway in a civilization of some political and economic power (China), although you could make the argument that what is practiced in China today is less Communism than a continuation of historic Chinese traditions of government.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
I'm not sure where to begin with all the problems in this analysis. You're saying that what you call the "weakness" of Tibetan Buddhism contributed to Tibet's conquest at the hands of the PRC. There are several things wrong with that statement alone. First, it's what's known as an unverifiable thesis, because there is no way you can go back in time and watch what might have happened if Tibet had not embraced Lamaism.
You did notice that "weakness" was in parens, did you not? I realize that was a loaded term, and was using it somewhat out of context because it is not a value judgement as to the worth of the religion. It was my "weak" attempt to sum up a judgement as to the viability of the Tibetan branch of Buddhism to survive as a political entity in the political power matrix of the world's current nation-state system. (*whew, big words*)
As far as an unverifiable thesis ... well ... even you admit below that the likelihood of a resurgent Tibetan state headed by a theocratic Dali Lami is unlikely.
There were Buddhist states in pre-British India. There are none now. There were Buddhism nations in SE Asia at one time. There are none now.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
Historians don't deal with unverifiable theses--or, when they do, they get chastised for it.
Second, I don't believe Tibet would have stood up for a moment even if it had embraced the most militaristic religion on earth. There were overwhelming geopolitical reasons why the PRC occupied Tibet--and will never relinquish it, for that matter. Do you really believe that if the Tibetans had been a bunch of Christians, they'd be living in their own free state now?
Perhaps Tibet couldn't have stood up under the Chinese assault regardless of whatever religion it had, very true. Your statement is also an "unverifiable thesis" as well.
But how many other Buddhist states exist today?
Some religions (Christianity and Islam are good examples) embraced the power dynamics of their respective civilizations, and spread themselves widely to all corners of the world, and insinuated themselves in the structure of their nation-states and my thesis is that this has contributed to their spread and survival. Buddhism has been less "successful", or when it has succeeded, those nation-states have not survived.
While you can argue that doesn't make them better (and I'd agree), it does make them more successful in the cold calculations of survival. Which IS a very Darwinist point of view, and one that I think is valid in many respects.
And to address your "unverifiable thesis" again, look at the history of Islam in Afghanistan, and what a non-modern, tribal society can accomplish when the primary religion embraces certain concepts of power. The British tried to subdue the country. The Soviet Union tried to subdue the country, and the US was only able to subdue the country (for now, anyway) with the help of large sections of the population. Afghanistan is an excellent petri dish to see the clash of civilizations based on differing "religions" (Islam, Communism, and the Christianity-based West).
Tibet has similar terrain, and the lack of modernity. But the country was certainly more united than Afghanistan ever was - yet the Chinese subdued the entire country in a short period of time. For some heart-rendering reading, you should look up some of the histories of the Chinese invasion of the kingdom, and the total inability of the "Tibetan army" to protect its state.
Would it have made any difference if the country had been Christian? dunno. But Christianity isn't confined to a single mountainous kingdom in the heart of Asia. It has spread itself acrosss "6 continents" as has been yelled by WtH.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
And that brings up another problem: What is "weak" about Buddhism? Isn't Christianity "weak" too? Neither religion bases itself on the question of how to respond to inimical nation-states; that's not what their founders had in mind and it's an invalid standard to judge them by today. You seem to be thinking of religions as though they were animals in the wild, and the one that survives must be the fittest. That itself is about as un-Christian a viewpoint as I can imagine. Jesus was not a Darwinist.
"Weak" as in didn't successfully encourage those things in a nation-state or civilization that would prepare and assist the culture in the Darwinistic struggle for dominance and survival. Such encouragement doesn't necessarily reflect the specific moral teachings of a religion (although it can).
And how do you know that Jesus wasn't a "Darwinist"? He was silent on that issue, if I recall, although there is something about lions laying down with lambs ... 
And just for some clarification, I have constantly used such terms as "civilization", "culture", "nation", "nation-state". Each of those have a very specific meaning, and are not always the same thing. I know this can cause confusion, but I hope my overall thoughts are clear.
FHky
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