Between those who beat up Muslims and those Muslims who seek to destroy non-believers lie those of us who ridicule such mystically-inspired idiocy. What great company we keep.WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.
Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.
What a Dick.
). The other major tradition extant, Theravada, disregards all Mahayana literature as heretic hi-jacking, but the cultural accretions still prevent understanding of and contradict what the Buddha actually taught as presented in the Pali Canon. The whole edifice has been fucked over royally by people's desires, bigotries, ignorance, greed, etc. As far as I can tell, the best thing to do is to buy up the Pali Canon, as I have done, and read the damned thing for yourself, disregarding all the religious woo-filled crap commonly associated with the title 'Buddhism'.
On a more serious note, I would not imply that "atheist condemnation" is on anywhere near the level of conflict and strife that theists have perpetrated in the past and present. In the linked article the Dalai Lama does not care to point out the distinction.