the "buddhism is self destructive lol" thread

edited August 2008 in General
I don't have the power to move shit but to get rid of the clutter...


You're absolutely right, behemoth, but the fact that he did it in his full monk regalia leads me to believe there was some measure of religious intent. I don't know the whole story, frankly don't care and honestly don't know why I'm continuing the discussion, but I guess what I'm trying to say is I've seen more buddhist monks set themselves on fire which is like, the height of self destructive, than any other religion. I'm not a friend of religions everywhere as everyone from IS knows all too well. I think I fought with khan and jakey about it far more than I should have, but political reasons or not, the guy set himself on fire and was a buddhist monk. That's all I got.
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Comments

  • edited August 2008
    And Christians and Atheists in business suits hang themselves sometimes.
  • edited August 2008
    that's totally true, but they don't set themselves on fire. Maybe it's just me and my fear of being set on fire, but that shit has got to be the worst way to die.
  • edited August 2008
    Drowning/suffocating has always been high on my list of horrible ways to die... though, I think you're right, fire has to be one of the worst.
  • edited August 2008
    I really hope you're just being facetious Noobity.
  • edited August 2008
    No, he's not.
    He's really like this.
  • edited August 2008
    Fucking Mike...
  • edited August 2008
    Noobity wrote: »
    ...the fact that he did it in his full monk regalia leads me to believe there was some measure of religious intent.
    Alright...
    Noobity wrote: »
    ...I don't know the whole story, frankly don't care and honestly don't know why I'm continuing the discussion...
    Uh huh...
    Noobity wrote: »
    ...I think I fought with khan and jakey about it far more than I should have...
    Sooo... in retrospect, was this thread really all that great of an idea to start? I dunno, I guess watching people get annoyed at each other is kinda fun over the internet, but I don't know how worth it this argument really is. If it really bothers you, add better reasons of why you think it was a religiously motivated act of irrationality, don't just try to start trouble by saying something you have no intention of backing up with solid, real evidence. On the internet, people don't usually give credit to someone who basically says "But despite everything you're saying, I still think I'm right just because."

    I'm not mad at ya, but please don't just start stupid arguments here for the hell of it. Debates on (these) forums are supposed to be intellectual and informative (or otherwise humorous, e.g. the state comptroller debates), not just trying to win the argument by persistently saying you're right. If you have a better argument to make, by all means, go for it; otherwise please don't bother making threads that won't end up being worth reading other than to see members of the forum get annoyed at one another.
  • edited August 2008
    Noobity's always been like this. Oddly, he never annoys me like John does.
    Noobity, if you hate all religions and their believers for no reason other than the title they have given themselves, then you're no better than those religious nuts who hate science without learning about it. That sort of attitude only gives credibility to the people you hate.
  • edited August 2008
    I'm going to have to say severe mutilations via bear, wolf, shark, ect. while on fire is at the top of my worst ways to die list.
  • edited August 2008
    Well the thread was never meant to be a religion bashing thing, and in fact it isn't. I was making light of what Jakey said, "buddhism is self destructive...?" something something whatever. I was simply pointing out that there was that one buddhist who set himself on fire. Y'all're the ones who blew this out of proportion. I was trying to be funny, sorry my sense of humor sucks. However, I'm not going to be lectured about what I'm trying to do when it's not what I'm trying to do. You guys want to miss my point (that, once again, there was that one buddhist monk who set himself on fire, regardless of the reason, this is a self destructive act) then of course that's fine and dandy. Hell I'm surprised nobody noticed the "lol" at the end of the thread which I personally thought denoted the lack of seriousness to the thread in general. but that's ok, I should have expected this from the far more mature environment than IS was. have fun guys.
  • edited August 2008
    It's only' cause Mario isn't here, we are lost in a humorless void without him.
  • edited August 2008
    No one is missing your point, Mike. They are just questioning the premise that your assertion "there was that one buddhist monk who set himself on fire, regardless of the reason, this is a self destructive act" necessarily means that his devotion to Buddhism is the cause of those self-destructive actions.

    Defend it on its merits if you want, or just say it was just an intended "humorous" or "lighthearted" remark and be done with it, but don't try and conflate the two by willfully refusing to back it up your claim and then trying to say that everyone calling you on it is blowing it out of proportion. Otherwise, and I say this with love, but you look like someone who is on the one hand making wild assertions and on the other hand backing out on them when you actually have to explain them by claiming that you weren't serious in the first place and everyone is an humorless dick to cover your ass.

    Goddamn it, I really meant to stay away from this thread.
  • edited August 2008
    Blargh. I was going to write a big ol' post in my defense, but it's not worth it. I'm not mad at you, and I do think you were starting some sort of religious debate because you labeled the thread as "buddhism is self destructive lol." I don't think you would have created a new thread to talk about a Monk who set himself on fire unless you wanted to talk about the fact that he was a Buddhist Monk and how that points to him doing it for religious reasons. That's pretty much the meaning I got from your first post; besides, if you just wanted to say that setting yourself on fire is self-destructive, wouldn't a post in the other thread suffice?

    If I'm mistaken, I'm sorry. I just don't like watching/being in religious debates, neither over the internet nor face to face, because they never end well. If your post was truly meant to be humorous and not religion-bashing, then please just watch what you say next time. Religion-bashing is definitely the message you conveyed, despite what you really meant to say; unless the bashing was what you meant to be humorous, just make it a little clearer on what was worth making an entire new thread for. Putting something like "lol" at the end of something bold or offensive doesn't make it any less bold or offensive, and it irritated me to think you'd try to start a serious debate without trying to be serious about it.
  • edited August 2008
    I have no idea what the sodding hell is going on here :)
  • edited August 2008
    and I don't know why you Brits hate sod so much.
  • edited August 2008
    Ah, here we go.

    On the internet, you gotta be careful (not just Noobity, everyone listen up). When you're typing on a computer, you sometimes aren't thinking straight. When you type something, and post it, knowing others will not react until they see, it's risky. When you type something, be it a comment, thread, or signature, you might have good intentions when you type it, but that's because you're the one writing it. All that the rest of the Internet can see is just the plain-and-simple text. Really, we're all nothing but bits of interactive text to one another. And since somethings can be interpreted many different ways, things can go bad very quickly. Noobity here could've meant that he genuinely hated Buddhist people (which most people would assume wasn't the right answer), or he just could've been having a silly thread, satirizing a religeon. I mean, his intentions were good, and some people didn't catch on. Especially with something like religeon, if there was a shadow of a doubt that he meant harm, someone's gonna react.

    To sum up, when you post something, try to remove yourself from your own head, and say "what would I think if I was reading this?". Lord knows I've had a few things I thought were funny be quickly turned against me.

    But to everyone, if something a member says comes of as completely offensive, don't respond negatively (not that anyone did), they probably had good intentions.

    So keep that in mind, and we'll have less awkward "everyone v.s. one guy" threads.

    Just lighten up a bit. It's the internets.
  • edited August 2008
    Some things are very limited on potential interpretations. One example might be...oh, I don't know, horse cock. Another would be directly saying you hate all religions. Frankly, he made statements that he shouldn't have made, irregardless of context, and then tried to cover his tracks.
  • edited August 2008
    I don't think that religion should be taken more seriously than other things, hell we make fun of politics, and the Chinese, and other people all the freaking time. As we all know (probably) only some really anal people overreact and are offended by that stuff.

    I understand people don't like it when others don't take them seriously, but it's not usually difficult to tell what people mean Frankly, given the quite obvious context of his posts on the other thread, I'm actually really surprised anyone took it as seriously as they did, ans this is the OB for *your religions savior's* sake.


    Anyways, on to what's important.
    Noobity wrote: »
    Hell I'm surprised nobody noticed the "lol" at the end of the thread which I personally thought denoted the lack of seriousness to the thread in general. but that's ok, I should have expected this from the far more mature environment than IS was. have fun guys.

    I read that last sentence as,
    Noobity wrote:
    You guys have fun without me because you people are too mature to make fun of religion no matter how silly and lacking in seriousness it may be. It's boring and stereotypical for an adult to lose any tolerance for offensive jokes and I'd rather not hang about with a bunch of stiff-necked people like you. I'm leaving.
    Some one go confirm that please.
  • edited August 2008
    No one was offended by what Mike said, we were wanting him to back up his...unusual statements with substantive argument or evidence. It has nothing to do with people being overly sensitive to the topic.
  • edited August 2008
    Well, you're missing a point or two NoLonger. There is a sense of taste in the stuff we make fun of, and we have our hands in most of the stuff we criticize.

    We make fun of politics, mostly American, because they're funny. And most of us are American. I make fun of British English because Night Lord is here, but that's okay too. China comes up too because it's communist, and because it's hosting the Olympics right now. And it's okay too, because I live and work in China, and I know that there is an Orange Belt Freedom Task Force always at the ready to extract me if something happens.

    And even the stuff that we do make fun of is based in some sort of intellectual fact. But I think that most people's problem here was that he took one instance of someone setting himself on fire, and then subsequently assumed he did it because he was Buddhist, without really taking the time to understand the reason behind it. Then he made a comment about all Buddhists who have ever practiced peacefully over its 2500 year history.

    Furthermore, his comment didn't seem to be in jest; at the very beginning he mentioned that he's discussed this before with Khan and Jakey, who are some of the OB's most opinionated members, so he's obviously extremely steadfast about this. Combining that with DBD's comment about him always being like this, he seemed to me ready to defend his point. But instead he backpedaled when people blew up at him.

    He can believe whatever he wants, but if he starts a thread about something, he's got to be willing to follow through.

    And it's no big deal, really. I'm not going to think any less of him, nor am I going to put him down in any other threads. Hell, if anything, this has been a really interesting thread, because I got to type a big long post like this about it. And it's a hundred times better than those stupid no-thought spam threads that pop up here and there.
  • edited August 2008
    I still think it's arrogant for anybody who's never been to Libya to tell them they're wrong for throwing that teacher in jail.
  • edited August 2008
    I thought it was EXTREME that she was thrown in jail. I understand why it was offensive, but, eh. I think it more deserved a slap on the wrist punishment rather than full-blown jail. But, you're right, I'm not from Libya, I don't understand just HOW offensive the named teddy bear was... more offensive than anything you can compare it to in America, I assume.

    And Ryan, I completely agree: I would much rather post in this thread than the spam threads, if given the choice.

    To clear the record, I'm not overly sensitive to talking about religion because I'm religious. I don't like talking about it because there's so many things that can't be proven by fact, and in the end of almost every religious debate I've had, the majority of the people think "Well I still think that you're wrong and I'm right." I didn't want to go through all of that, especially since I'm not aware of anyone on the forums being buddhist to try to defend it, and I wouldn't have said anything unless I figured it was just going to go in that direction. By saying something without backing it up with evidence is bad enough, but insulting a major religion while you're at it... I thought it best to ask whether it was a good choice to create the thread in the first place.
  • edited August 2008
    I'm Pagan, I defend every religion.
    But regardless, the issue here isn't Mike bashing a religion. It's just the stupidity of even creating a thread titled "buddhism is self destructive lol". What's more he's asked to back up such a statement and retreats into an agrument that he was just kidding and we're all picking on him.
  • edited August 2008
    From the title of the thread I think it's safe to assume that he really did mean it as a joke, as such I refuse it was him backing into a "stop picking on me" argument, from what I've been able to to tell he's plenty old and mature enough to not do that.

    Anyways, I'm atheist, I defend every religion from bigots, though I don't agree with they're beliefs. I also think it's fine to make fun of what ever you want as long as you don't cross any huge boundary. I read his first post and thought, "Hah, I wonder why he did set himself on fire, I'll go look up the story and give him a link, he seemed pretty oblivious about the subject too, in fact, he said so.
  • edited August 2008
    Other than the "lol", nothing particularly stood out in what Mike said that said anything other than "I'm making an assertive statement about (topic X)". But maybe I'm wrong! Please enlighten me on how it is clearly meant to be read.
  • edited August 2008
    HEY JAKE DID YOU SEE WHAT I SAID ABOUT LIBYA LOL?
  • edited August 2008
    OMG JOHN YOU'RE SO INSENSITIVE I CAN'T STAND JOKES ABOUT SUCH CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS WAH WAH WAH
  • edited August 2008
    GOD DAMNIT JOHN YOU'RE SUCH AN INSENSITIVE FUCK.

    WE'RE OVER.
  • edited August 2008
    Well the thread was never meant to be a teddy-bear bashing thing, and in fact it isn't. I was making light of what Muhammad said, "Libya is self destructive...?" something something whatever. I was simply pointing out that there was that one Libyan who set a school teacher on fire. Y'all're the ones who blew this out of proportion. I was trying to be funny, sorry my sense of humor sucks. However, I'm not going to be lectured about what I'm trying to do when it's not what I'm trying to do. You guys want to miss my point (that, once again, there was that one Libyan who set the school teacher on fire, regardless of the reason, this is a pretty cool act) then of course that's fine and dandy. Hell I'm surprised nobody noticed the "lol" at the end of the thread which I personally thought denoted the lack of seriousness to the thread in general. but that's ok, I should have expected this from the far more mature environment than IS was. have fun guys.
  • edited August 2008
    Other than the "lol", nothing particularly stood out in what Mike said that said anything other than "I'm making an assertive statement about (topic X)". But maybe I'm wrong!

    It's a proven fact that if Jakey is wrong the Orange Belt explodes and resets. The last time Jakey was wrong was January of 2006.