[Buddha-l] religious pluralism in Asia

[SJZiobro at cs.com]

curt <curt at cola.iges.org> wrote:

>Now if the Japanese had just applied the same measures across the board 
>to all religions save one, and if they had persisted in this practice 
>for 15 consecutive centuries, then we could begin to draw parallels with 
>Christianity. There would also have to be equally sadistic measures 
>applied within the one allowed religion in order to enforce a monolithic 
>conformity and crush all manifestations of "heresy". And the single 
>allowed religion would also have to articulate an explicit theory of 
>persecution based directly on its own religious teachings. These are not 
>rhetorical jabs at Christianity, nor are they in any way exaggerations - 
>they are the factual parameters for any genuine comparative approach to 
>the phenomenon of religious intolerance. I point out these unpleasant 
>facts because I think there is a tendency to view any and every specific 
>instance of religious intolerance as somehow rising to the same level as 
>the systemic intolerance characteristic of Christianity. That bar is 
>pretty danged high - and Ieyasu didn't come close.

Curt, I am not attempting to be academic here.  One unpleasant fact is that a fair degree of bullshit comes through in your attempts to portray your anti-Christian proclivities as entirely historicaly driven.  Christianity is no more a monolithic reality than is Buddhism, especially if you know what is its history (rather than old polemics from another century).

Stan Ziobro