jijaji Posted October 28, 2001 Report Share Posted October 28, 2001 Sri Lanka's Buddhist clergy want to ban conversion to Christianity World news radio Australia Sri Lanka's influential Buddhist clergy have called for laws to ban Christian conversions spreading in poverty-stricken rural villages and vowed collective action against the practice. They have adopted an 11-point plan to fight proselytisers, active in several districts of the island and called on the authorities to immediately pass laws to prevent conversions taking place under the cover of helping rural communities to improve their economic standards. They say a shortage of Buddhist monks in several temples is also allowing Christian priests to make inroads into the Buddhist heartland by converting farming communities. The monks say about 23,000 Buddhists are being converted to Christianity each year and proselytisers have targeted 5,000 out of the 25,400 villages in the country for their activities. (31/07/01, 06:07:26 AEST) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
premananda Posted October 31, 2001 Report Share Posted October 31, 2001 I wish the Buddhists all good luck in their efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suryaz Posted October 31, 2001 Report Share Posted October 31, 2001 Originally posted by premananda: I wish the Buddhists all good luck in their efforts. What??? We could ask : Why do the Buddhists not have enough compassion and charity to help the peasants improve their living conditions? What of their ahimsa doctrine? Why should the Buddhists group to function so as to violate the improvement of living conditions for the masses encouraged by the Christians? The masses did not take sannyas or monkhood? The monks did. They can live as monks. Are not people free to choose? Or would the Buddhists prefer the peasants could not? Why do the Buddhist not want to promote something other than the peasants' continued living in squallar (tama-guna). Does the poverty of the peasants give them power? If the Buddhists cannot create satva or raja-guna living conditions for the peasants why try to create the continuity of tama-guna tama living conditions. In short could it not be argued that the Buddhists actions do not promote ahimsa at all. Cheers [This message has been edited by suryaz (edited 10-31-2001).] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.