The BBS in Sri Lanka are also agitating against the Christian community. They are essentially making a lot of noise along the lines of how the great Sinhala-Budhist ethnicity is being eroded by minority influences. This is in a country where Sinhalese make up about 70% of the population.<p>Hair brained conspiracy theories of hidden population control methods are always popping up on the FB pages of these hate groups. An example is the contraceptive laced toffees that are handed out at the counter of a popular clothing store chain owned by a Muslim family.<p>It's all just mindblowingly ridiculous. People just looking for reasons to be assholes to others.
This idea of Buddhists being pacifist vegetarians is very Western - it's nothing I've read or observed in my travels around Asia. Being vegetarian in Thailand is close to impossible (I stopped trying), even though it is a Buddhist country.
"But however any religion starts out, sooner or later it enters into a Faustian pact with state power."<p>This. The basic fallacies of any religious doctrine when mixed with the desire for power makes for a dangerous cocktail.
tl;dr<p>"If you have a strong sense of the overriding moral superiority of your worldview, then the need to protect and advance it can seem the most important duty of all."<p>I'll take "What is the definition of succinct for 1000 Trebeck"