Spreading Buddhism to weaken armies?

[DGA]

Untruths have a way of getting exhausted, leaving only truth to remain.

Untruths are like getting rid of moss west of the cascades. you think you are rid of it, but it just comes back.....luckily I love moss, otherwise I would have to move to Spokane and......no....just.......no.

There's moss in Spokane too. There's Dharma in Spokane. And some gorgeous waterfalls right in the center of town. It's a little rough around the edges but I'd move there over a lot of other places I've been.

[Myoho-Nameless]

Can't get the ferns to propagate either.

I'd say untruths are more like plaque. There is no rational person who likes it, and you keep brushing or resign yourself to halitosis and rotting teeth...

Thats sad, ferns are very interesting. One of the first if not the first plants to have vascular tissue (mosses don't, thats why they are small and like it wet). I guess sort of like the first vertebrates or animals with bilateral symmetry, I guess.

I think it was Richard Dawkins who compared ideas to viruses. And I think there was some fear in Roman times that Christianity would wussify the Legions. I mean, you go from heroes who are conquerors and warriors to sad saints and martyrs.

I think bad ideas have come with Buddhism too, and that Buddhists ofttimes have trouble shaking bad ideas off. Unless you want to be specific and refer to the obviously superior Lotus School. Though....how many of us are Confucianists and nationalists too?

[Queequeg]

And I think there was some fear in Roman times that Christianity would wussify the Legions. I mean, you go from heroes who are conquerors and warriors to sad saints and martyrs.

IIRC the fear was more existential. The early Christians denied the legitimacy of the Roman State. Those people were not wusses at all - it takes guts to die the way they did refusing to renounce their faith. They just refused to die for the Emperor, and that was the problem.

But, in the end, the Romans won and came to be embodied in the Roman Catholic Church. There was plenty of conquering and killing in the name to come for Christians.

Been working my way through Gibbon. I've lost interest now that I'm at that part discussing the Byzantines. Just a catalog of ineptitude and vice, and the esoteric debates about the nature of God.

I think as a general rule, bad ideas tend to spontaneously spring from defects in our construction as homo sapiens. Things that help us survive all these years also tend to warp perceptions of reality. I'd like to think we're getting better and better at compensating for the defects - the way we're able to compensate for the distorting effect of telescopic lenses to produce more accurate images of space. Buddhism, despite its accretions, still seems to me the best discipline for neutralizing these intrinsic defects.

I suppose I should admit, I hope for Dharma to spread for the sake of our descendants. If something better comes along, sign me up for that.

[Taco_Rice]

But, in the end, the Romans won and came to be embodied in the Roman Catholic Church. There was plenty of conquering and killing in the name to come for Christians.

Tell that to Alaric, Martin Luther, The British Empire, and the various groups that moved in and settled in Italy over time.

Unless you want to be specific and refer to the obviously superior Lotus School. Though....how many of us are Confucianists and nationalists too?

Either you actually believe that the Lotus School is superior or you're being sarcastic, thereby indicating that you also hypocritically claim to adhere to a school that you don't actually believe in and you don't even have heritage as an excuse for hiding behind it.

Richard Dawkins

Religion, philosophy, and science have always been closely intertwined. What Dawkins attacks is the present state of religion.

I think bad ideas have come with Buddhism too, and that Buddhists ofttimes have trouble shaking bad ideas off.

Then do the work and cast them off, Nameless!

Take up the Bodhisattva's burden—
Put forth your best and cede
Go send yourself to exile
To serve the race's need
To break the heavy fetters
Of fluttered mind and wild
Of this deluded human race
Half devil and half child!

[Myoho-Nameless]

Either you actually believe that the Lotus School is superior or you're being sarcastic

Actually, it could have been, and in fact was, something else.

Then do the work and cast them off, Nameless!

I think I did. Or at least I have a process.