[Buddha-l] Return of blasphemy?

[Curt Steinmetz]

On 11/9/11 12:02 PM, Jo wrote:
> Respect for religion in parts of the East is often enforced with death
> threats.
>
> Joanna
>

We should not allow the Perfect to be the enemy of the Good. Relatively 
speaking, Eastern religions have a Good, if less than Perfect, track 
record with respect to religious violence. If we fail to acknowledge 
this fact on the ground, and give it proper attention, then we can are 
left only with useless abstractions.

Among those who have gone on the record to state that "Western" 
religions (or, more precisely, "monotheisms", and in particular 
Christianity and Islam) are more prone to religiously inspired violence 
than are Eastern religions (Buddhism in particular) are (links are 
provided to help identify the people named below, they don't necessarily 
take one to examples of what I am talking about, although in some cases 
they do):

David Loy
http://davidloy.org/
Bernard Faure
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/religion/faculty-data/bernard-faure/faculty.html
Arthur Versluis
http://www.arthurversluis.com/about.htm
Perez Zagorin
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/5487924/Professor-Perez-Zagorin.html
Jan Assmann
http://www.litrix.de/autoren/autor/janassmann/enindex.htm
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
http://www.religiousconsultation.org/News_Tracker/is_religion_killing_us.htm
Regina M. Schwartz
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/741990.html
Charles Freeman
http://www.leftistreview.com/2010/11/10/the-closing-of-the-western-mind/tomparslow/

Curt