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“Murdered by such a loser, such an incoherent person”

Peak Talk has the perfect summation of the tragic affair of the murder of Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim fanatic.

61 comments to “Murdered by such a loser, such an incoherent person”

  • GCooper

    Eloquently put.

    It does seem as if this utter worthlesness is the defining characteristc of these pathetic wastes of carbon. An intervew on Today with a schoolfriend of Yasin Hassan Omar revealed him to be cut from similar cloth.

    No doubt jihadist recruiters single out this type, but it’s hard not to reflect that they have a frighteningly large number of similar morons from which to choose.

  • “It does seem as if this utter worthlesness is the defining characteristc of these pathetic wastes of carbon.”

    I originally took the plural “these” as referring to Mohammed Bouyeri and Theo Van Gogh. While on reflection I don’t think that’s what you meant, it’s a pretty accurate summary. The former was a murderous fanatic, the latter was a mysogynist antisemite (of course, nobody should be murdered for their views, however stupid or appalling the views are).

    (I wrote a related article a couple of days ago).

  • Dee

    They’re basically modern day neanderthals. They haven’t developed mentally past a certain stage. He probably thinks the world is flat. I heard someone describe them as ‘Flat-earthers’ recently which I think is an eloquent term for these ‘people’.

  • Lets be honest. These guys can’t relate to women. Thats why they want their 72 Virgins. Sad in every sense of the word.

    Oh and I think John b is right about Van Gogh. Not that his rebellious teenage view of the world was a reason for him to be murdered.

  • Sam Roony

    John b,

    I think I hear echos of the Islamic “But” in there. Followed the link, and read the comments. Ouch! Murder is not a good thing, but some right wing bastards aren’t half asking for it, was the message I got.

    Looks like the Bernard Manning summer season will have to be called off!

  • DavidBruno

    Poor Mrs van Gogh was probably trying to find the right words for the press on leaving court. An examination of them is not going to throw much light upon Bouyeri and his real motivations: yes, he might have been a loser. However, what turns a loser into a religious fanatic who is prepared to murder ‘infidels’ – paticularly those that are outspoken about Islam – and to kill himself in the process?

    As Britain is now facing exactly the same home-grown ‘lethal-loser’ pathology in the form of suicide bombers, it’s a question to which we also urgently need to find answers.

    Indeed, the parallels are compelling, given that Bouyeri was the head of a Dutch terrorist cell called the Hofstad group which was planning terrorist atrocities including explosions at a Dutch nuclear plant.

    Bouyeri said quite clearly in court that he murdered ‘for his religion’ and that, if ever released, he would ‘do it again’. He also turned to van Gogh’s mother during the trial and said with not a flicker of emotion: “I cannot feel your pain because you are an infidel”. If these are the words of a ‘loser’ they also show chilling self-control and complete dedication to his cause.

    The note that Bouyeri knifed into van Gogh’s chest also contained a list of other people whom he intended to murder including Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali who scripted the film “Submission” and who had based the film partly on the extensive research she had undertaken as a Dutch Labour MP (she later switched sides when the Labour Party tried to suppress her report) into the ways in which some Muslim women were denied civil rights – by Muslim men – in their communities in Holland as well as obviously in Islamic states under Sharia law. She already had a bounty on her head for her ‘mistake’ of saying the ‘unsayable’ before the “Submission” project was even an idea.

    As for Theo van Gogh, he was a professional provocateur who was an equal opportunities offender and satirist. The Dutch have a strong shade of offensive and outrageous black in their humour. Van Gogh played at the most extreme end of that tradition.
    His foul-mouted provocations were given additional oxygen from three other directions: first, the mightily-PC Dutch political establishment which tried to censor open criticisms of minorities for fear that the cracks in its poorly-constructed multiculturalism would turn into canyons; second, the Dutch general public who frequently make comments and jokes behind closed doors about the idiocies of their elites and the madness of Dutch tolerance being extended to those who want to destroy their ‘decadent’ society; third, the hysterical reaction of some Muslim community leaders in every rowdy confrontation (in the press, via the Internet, on TV) with van Gogh which ratcheded up the stakes and the tension over the course of a couple of years.

    Van Gogh found in radical Islam a religion that not only did not find him funny, but which has followers who issue death threats (ie to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to the Mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, to his Moroccan-born deputy, and to MP Geert Wilders – who have all ‘offended Islam – to name but 4) and are prepared to carry them out with unshakeable resolve: his dying words were the ultimate in irony: “Can’t we discuss this?”

    THis is not the end of this story: Bouyeri will soon be on trial with other members of the Hofstad group and has become something of a hero among other alienated young Muslim men in Holland.

  • There seems to be a creeping acceptance that an offence to Muslim sensibilities gives a carte blanche to Muslims to extract retribution.
    This is called submission,there is NO “Yes but” at any level,we would simply be engaging in a macabre game of “Simple Simon Says” where every part of our culture caused offence.

  • snide

    but “Islam is a religion of peace!”….

    Sorry, I couldn’t resist it

  • Verity

    Robustly put, Peter. “Muslim sensibilities” are of no more account than the sensibilities of people who believe themselves to be Napoleon Bonaparte or the Queen of Sheba. They are deeply delusional and not able to engage with normal people.

    Sam Roony, I also heard an echo of the exculpatory “but” in the above post.

    Bouyeri and others of his ilk has provided gruesome proof that they are not just full of hot air and juvenile posturing. The koran teaches that anyone who isn’t a slave to allah – aka – an “infidel” – is garbage to be disposed of. When is the British lefty dhimmi government going to wake up?

  • Verity,
    The bottom line is there should be no exception to the laws of the land for Islam.I would appear that Islamism is totally incompatible with Western law,those who regard themselves exempt from those laws must live elsewhere.

  • Uncle Bill

    Sorry there is no elsewhere.

    Islam is a religion of peace.

    The problem is that those who have not read and understood the Koran are not aware of what the word ‘peace’ means in the context of Islam.

    Peace=
    1) all Jews dead
    2) all infidels (non-muslems) dead
    3) all non-middle eastern muslems dead
    4) all false muslems dead
    5) the entire world under the law of Allah

    There maybe a few other deaths required, perhaps pigs and all other species demed to be ‘unclean’.

  • Davitamon

    Actually Bouyeri has just recently (Tuesday) been sentenced to life imprisonment.

    Van Gogh’s parents yesterday told the Dutch press that their 14-year old grandson has been beaten up twice by Muslim youth and was told at school that it was a good thing his father was murdered. He has had to change classes because of this. Also neighbors have contacted the police because of Muslims (who were thought to be carrying a firearm) were asking around the neighborhood for the whereabouts of Van Gogh’s son.

    On both incidents, the police did not bother to show up, as they did not bother to protect Van Gogh in spite of repeated death threads and expressed concerns about his safety by among others Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

  • Davitamon

    Ofcourse that had to be “death threats”.

  • Verity

    Peter – No arguments from me.

    Uncle Bill – No, they don’t discriminate against non-Arab Muslims. The deal is, every human being has to be a Muslim, by the sword/bomb/suicide splodeydope – whatever – if they won’t come willingly.

    Anyone who still refuses, can save their life by acknowledging the superiority of Islam and agreeing to be a second-class citizen – but tolerated – called a dhimmi. Tony Blair is a dhimmi, which is why Siqbal Sacristy and Igloo deign to go to Downing St for meetings with him. That he has even acknowledged them to be legitimate enough to be negotiating with is proof of dhimmitude.

    Dhimmis have to pay extra taxes – jizrah(?) – and have to be in their homes by a certain hour in the evening. In some countries, dhimmis are not allowed to wear shoes.

  • For the record (and pretty much as stated in the original post): Theo Van Gogh was a dickhead. He didn’t deserve to die. The man who killed him was far worse than he was. Anyone who gets tetchy about their imaginary friend in the sky being insulted is ridiculous, and ought to grow up.

  • Rollo

    The sheer moral decrepitude of these people is staggering. I have spent some time peering at Muslim-focused “news” (read propaganda) and discussion sites recently, in an effort to gain more of an understanding about the burning issues at the heart of these matters. I am still reeling at the sheer amount of self-justified ignorance and hatred that spews forth from these sites. “Flat-earthers” is a good point of reference for the mindset of these macabre simpletons. On some of the more mainstream sites, I came across articles espousing the killing of white Christians, holocaust denial, rejection of Darwinism, literally mind-boggingly crazy junk science, and more burning self-pity that I could stomach. This disturbing ideology has been allowed to fester and rot in our midst unchallenged for too long, and it’s not racist to say so.

  • DavidBruno

    It can be a very dangerous thing to point out – even in a European democracy – some of the barbaric practices and human rights abuses that take place in the name of Islam. As Fadina Sahindal found out after deciding to exercise not only her free will, by choosing her own husband, but also her freedom of expression, by campaigning to help female victims of honour killings and bravely speaking before the Swedish Parliament on the subject. Sadly, not long afterwards, her armed father caught up with her and killed her.

    More here: http://www.rationalist.org.uk/newhumanist/5thColumn/sweden.shtml

    Conversely, it is extremely easy, in a European democracy, to criticise openly the more reactionary views of Christians with impunity.

    Of course, once the Incitement to Religious Hatred Law comes into effect in the UK it may become even more difficult for the British equivalents of Fadina Sahindal to campaign on behalf of their oppressed Muslim sisters without being branded ‘Islamophobic’ or inciters of hatred and possibly falling prey to prosecution.

    Hopefully, Charles Clarke will now think twice about pursuing this ill-judged piece of legislation.

  • DavidBruno

    johnb,

    “For the record (and pretty much as stated in the original post): Theo Van Gogh was a dickhead. He didn’t deserve to die. The man who killed him was far worse than he was. Anyone who gets tetchy about their imaginary friend in the sky being insulted is ridiculous, and ought to grow up.”

    Whether someone gets ‘tetchy’ is irrelevant. I think the problem is when someone in a European democracy which affords full civil rights and equality before the law gets rather more than tetchy and puts his religious calling above the law and issues – and carries out – death threats, murder, suicide bombings against those who wish to exercise their own freedoms within the law. There is only one religion in whose name this is being done in Britain, Holland, Sweden, Spain etc etc…and it ain’t Christianity.

  • “Theo Van Gogh was a dickhead. He didn’t deserve to die. The man who killed him was far worse than he was.”

    John b,
    It isn’t a case of whether van Gogh was a “dickhead” ,nor is not “deserving to die”,it isn’t even a case of better or worse……….it is simply the law of the land that citizens cannot murder each other.
    Provocation may be taken into account at the trial and may even reduce the charges,here it was cold blooded premeditated murder and mutilation.
    There are no excuses !!!!!

  • Verity

    Exactly, Peter. In an advanced society, it is against the law to haul even dickheads and people with other annoying habits off their bicycles, shoot them several times and then plunge a knife (carrying threatening, handwritten message, yet) into the chest of the dying human being. We call it murder.

    The individuals are primitive and superstition-laden and are better off in their own societies where they can hang homosexuals and bury adultresses (an adultress is someone who was raped by someone other than her husband) up to the neck in sand and stone them to death and kill anyone who contravenes their Stone Age beliefs. And rape doesn’t count as a rape unless the woman can produce three (male) witnesses (who witnessed it but didn’t stop it?).

  • John K

    So the perpetrator’s got a life sentence has he? What does that mean in Holland I wonder? I bet he’ll be out in eight years, twelve tops.

  • Unbeliever

    Meanwhile, more Muslims pour in to Holland, and the ones already there out-procreate the Dutch by a factor of at least three. And the Islamisation of Holland will accelerate, as ever-increasing numbers of Dutch find the situation intolerable, and leave for the US and Australia. Terrorists like Bouyeri are the least of their problems.

  • Verity

    Terrorist activity ought to carry the death penalty, but it will be a cold day in the dhimmitude of Europe before that comes to pass. Next worst, make them serve their sentence in prison in the hope that the other prisoners will have a go. After they’re released, take their DNA and isometric photo or whatever and deport them to the land of their ancestors. In this case, Morocco. By virtue of the aid Morocco gets from the EU, Morocco and other lands of ancestors should be obliged to take them. What they do with them is up to those countries.

  • Verity,
    I cannot understand why the laws concerning conspiracy to commit murder isn’t automatically invoked for members of terrorist gangs.Obviously Cherie would not approve,have you read her latest? She simply does not understand who is being killed here.

  • Verity

    Peter – I don’t think it’s that Cherie doesn’t understand. I don’t think she’s nearly as bright as is put about, but she’s bright enough to understand who is being killed. She is a vicious, spiteful, totalitarian socialist/communist and she has the know-it-all adolescent notion that she is qualified to change the world. Don’t forget, she and her weak husband were very committed CND-ers before they realised it was making them unelectable. Then the dumped the CND, but not the mindset. They sincerely believed in destroying the defence of the West. And still do.

    Her husband got elected, but government’s being run by Cherie. Everyone should go to (Link) and read her piece, which she has frankly titled, “Put a sock in it, Cherie”.

  • Verity

    Uh, that’s Melanie Phillips’s link. Sorry.

  • John J. Coupal

    Life without parole.

    On a positive note, the tax payers of Holland will house, feed, provide medical care, and finally bury the loser. The time span involved may be a few years, or many.

    If I were paying taxes there, I’d be one very unhappy dhimmi.

  • Who cares about Van Gogh anyway?…

    Yesterday, Sheikh M. Al-Naseem the grand Mufti of Birmingham showed there are still Muhammedan clerics with real backbone: “Tony Blair is a liar […] So we cannot give our blind trust to the Government[…]There seems to be a directive to target Muslims. Terrorists can be anybody- we will have to see wether the bombers are truly Muslims”

    Wow! As far as I´m concerned, the guy is the greatest Muslim thinker since the days of Avicen of Bukhara

  • Mr Abdul certainly has a point
    How can we trust serial liars and war criminals like Blair and his favourite Israeli volk/pop idol herr general Sharon?

  • “Targeting muslims”. A very interesting projection,muslims seem to be murdering others,it is of course heinous to arrest muslims in connection with this.Bu how about a deal no bombing no arrests,Simple !

  • DavidBruno

    Abdel,

    Avicen of Bukhara was indeed a great Islamic thinker whether in his interpretation of Aristotle or in his contributions to medicine through the Shifa (The Book of Healing) and Al Qanun fi Tibb (The Canon of Medicine). But, he lived in the 11 century DOH!

    I think that your putting Sheikh M. Al-Naseem in the same league as Avicen is a lilttle bit silly, to say the least.

    Seriously, if you really want Islamic scholars and thinkers to make serious contributions to the sciences and to civilized life again in the future, you should be encouraring a re-discovery of Ijtihad, Islam’s lost tradition of intellectual enquiry.

    That will of course require an Islamic version of the Reformation and utilisation of the talent of 100% rather than just 50% (the men) of Muslims’ intellects.

    I suggest you go read the contribution to this important debate being made by Canadian lesbian Muslim Irshad Manji. She might give you some hints on how to become a forward-looking moderniser and lift you out of your denial.

    Her website is at http://www.muslim-refusenik.com

  • Why isn’t believing in Islam to the extent that you use it as a reason to kill regarded as criminal insanity? Set up an asylum in, oh, say, Cuba, and keep the terrorists and their sympathizers there until they’re “cured”. Perhaps the critical test would be if they could eat one of those wonderful Cuban pork sandwiches. Anyone who doesn’t like those MUST be crazy!

  • DavidBruno

    Abdel,

    “Who cares about Van Gogh anyway?…”

    Do you believe that van Gogh was killed by a Muslim? Or, do you think that Mohammed Bouyeri is an Israeli secret agent? Or, was he just not a ‘real’ Muslim, because ‘Islam is a religion of peace’…zzzzzz

  • Unbeliever

    Sheikh M. Al-Naseem could well be the greatest Muslim thinker since Avicena. Which is precisely why the Islamic world is such a dismal failure in everything other than terrorism, at which it excels.

  • “How can we trust serial liars and war criminals like Blair and his favourite Israeli volk/pop idol herr general Sharon?”

    Just what relevance does a West Indian,a Yorkshireman of Bangladeshi descent and a Somali refugee have in regard to Sharon?
    Why do the former three feel they afe justified in targeting third parties in a dispute of which the have no part?

  • Samsung

    “Dirka-dirka, burka-burka, Mohammed jihad…. death to the West, death to the filthy Jews, sons of pigs and monkeys. 72 virgins in Paradise. The Americans killed my beloved goats. Allahu Ackbar! Allahu Ackbar!”

    You will have to excuse me folks. Like any good criminal psychologist, I am trying to get into the mind of the Islamic fundaMENTALIST. If I am succesful, I will be able to understand their “grievances” in order to resolve them. So far, all I have come up with is deranged incoherent gibberish, so in retrospect I am am pretty much on track with how they think.

    Thus I have concluded that these people are suffering from a severe mental illlness brought on by being subjected to a rather repressive, misogynistic and totalitarian form of a crypto-fascist, Stone-Age (Seventh century) religious ideology that is struggling to comprehend life in the Twenty-First century.

    Sadly, the only cure for this terrible illness is an injection of hot lead to the brain.

  • Susan

    Verity, et. al:

    It’s THIS article that Melanie posted that you all should be reading. See link therein to speccie article by Rev. Patrick Sookhedo, a UK citizen of Pakistani Christian background.

    He knows what he’s talking about.

  • Verity

    Hello, Susan! Yes, I read The Speccie article and didn’t reckon much to it. It seemed badly articulated and all over the place. Melanie’s sharp mind has served to focus it and she has given it the direction that The Speccie editor/sub should have given it.

    I agree that the Rev Sookhedo knows what he’s talking about, but despite the fact that obviously I’m on his side, his article was wordy without seeming to offer a direction and I just couldn’t get into it. I found myself scrolling down looking for a thought to latch onto. I don’t mean to be offensive, because his thoughts are most welcome and we need more like him.

  • Susan

    I think that Sookhedo was trying to be diplomatic and vague in some places to avoid thought police repercussions, if you catch my drift. Remember he comes from a dhimmi background, it’s probably culturally ingrained to be vague and indirect.

    The most important thing about this article is that he explains the doctrine of abrogaton which negates all the peaceful verses in the Koran in favor of all the violent ones.

    I’ve never seen a mainstream Western publication latch onto this or explain what it means in Islam. Thus you have lots of naive people running around quoting the peaceful verses in the Koran as apologia without realizing what they are saying.

  • I would have thought that the slaughter alone abrogates all the peaceful verses.

  • Verity

    Susan – I seldom, if ever, disagree with you, but I don’t buy it. I don’t think The Speccie was cleverly sneaking in a message. They’re not that good, subliminally speaking. And they don’t have that firm a grasp on the problem. (See Mark Steyn in the same issue.)

    I am guessing that few read Sookhedo’s article all the way through. I’m sorry. I know he’s worthy and definitely has some strong points to make, but it was all over the place, especially given Mark Steyn’s strongly focussed piece in the same issue. People interested in Dr Sokhedo’s piece should start with Melanie Phillips’s take on it.

  • Per David Bruno:

    Whether someone gets ‘tetchy’ is irrelevant. I think the problem is when someone in a European democracy which affords full civil rights and equality before the law gets rather more than tetchy and puts his religious calling above the law and issues – and carries out – death threats, murder, suicide bombings against those who wish to exercise their own freedoms within the law. There is only one religion in whose name this is being done in Britain, Holland, Sweden, Spain etc etc…and it ain’t Christianity.

    Well, aren’t the Dutch et al lucky. Here in the U.S., we have at least two religions pulling this kind of stunt.

    See

    (Link)

    and

    (Link)

    For this latter, hold your “feminazi” horses and read the whole thing.

  • none: yup, which is why I have written again and again that intolerance from ANYONE is intolerable. The only diference between the Islamic barking moonbats and the Christian barking moonbats is scale. It is the same problem but it is just that the Islamic ones are a bigger problem.

  • Don’t look now but it seems that Van Goth’s son was beaten up by a group of Muslim men.

  • DavidBruno

    None,

    “Here in the U.S., we have at least two religions pulling this kind of stunt…hold your “feminazi” horses and read the whole thing.”

    Are you totally incapable of reading? I made it clear in my post that I was refering to European democracies and not the USA which I know has its own brand of religious terrorists. However, fortunartely they are not ‘over here’. If they had turned up in the same number as the Islamic brand in cities throughout Europe then I would be criticizing their religious fanatacism too. But, thankfully, they haven’t.

    I have not a clue what the word ‘feminazi’ actually means but I assume it relates to the pro-life versus pro-abortion American polemic and, as I have made absolutely no comment on that here, I suggest you look for someone appropriate to hang your label on.

  • In her article (linked above) Melanie Philips remarks:

    Muslims must stop this self-deception [that Islam is a religion of peace]. They must with honesty recognise the violence that has existed in their history in the same way that Christians have had to do, for Christianity has a very dark past.

    I’d venture to guess that all religions have a very dark past, present, and future. Like politics, religion seems to invite expression of the uglier aspects of human nature. (And no, I don’t for a moment believe that the “good” in religion counterbalances the bad.)

  • Pete_London

    none

    Yeah, we really need to crack down on those Christian terrorists.

  • Verity

    None – Buddhism doesn’t have a dark past at all.

  • DavidBruno

    Verity,

    You mean to say you didn’t hear about that Budhist monk meditating someone to death? ;-))

  • Verity: Touche’. I considered exempting Buddhism from my (mostly accurate) generalization, and admittedly I am hard-pressed to think of examples of Buddhist hordes sweeping down on innocent populations. I can assure you, however, that intragroup politics among Buddhists are as vicious as they are anywhere. All it would take is a critical mass of Buddhist nutters to give us dangerous variety of The Righteous. There is just something about religion that brings out the ugliness in people. (Additionally, albeit off-toipic, I have serious philosophical differences with the main tenets of Buddhism. Maybe I should issue the atheist’s equivalent of a fatwa against them.)

    Pete London: Exactly. Too bad someone didn’t think of squashing the Islamist insects when they weren’t so numerous. However, there’s still time to stop the Christers.

  • None,
    If you add the Christians to the Muslims that leaves you in the shit,who is going to get rid of whom?

  • Verity

    None says – I can assure you, however, that intragroup politics among Buddhists are as vicious as they are anywhere.

    No need to assure me; cite some examples, please. Given that such competitiveness is simply not embraced within the tenets of Buddhism, people advocating fierce one-up-manship or who are fiercely competitive are simply not drawn to Buddhism in the first place. Buddhists would regard intrafactional fighting as what it is – a competition of egos, and Buddhism is all about getting over the illusion of ego.

    You are not going to find a “critical mass of Buddhist nutters”.

    So I think you don’t know what you’re talking about.

  • Verity: Think what you like. I simply will tell you there’s nothing quite like the sight and sound of a Buddhist at full boil mouthing platitudes about internal peace.

    It’s amusing to me that Buddhists so often get off scot-free among people who otherwise are appropriately cynical about religion of any sort. Reincarnation? Nutters all. Sorry.

  • Verity

    none – you have tried to change the focus of your comment. Here (again) is your comment:

    I can assure you, however, that intragroup politics among Buddhists are as vicious as they are anywhere.

    Having been called on that, you veer 180 degrees away from “intragroup politics” and argue for a non sequitur:

    I simply will tell you there’s nothing quite like the sight and sound of a Buddhist at full boil mouthing platitudes about internal peace.

    And “a Buddhist” has to do with fierce intragroup politics … uh, what exactly?

    No Buddhist I have ever known has gone “full boil mouthing” at anything. It’s a meditative religion, seeking truth internally. They don’t preach. I have a feeling you have become confused between hippy “Buddhist-for-at-least-10 minutes” or even Hare Krishnas.

    In any event, I stand by my opinion that you don’t know what you’re talking about. If you listen to your inner voice, it may be telling you to stop digging.

  • Chris Goodman

    On Monday, March 20, 1995, on four separate Tokyo subway cars, members of a Buddhist cult known as Aum Shinrikyo punctured bags of liquid sarin wrapped in newspaper with the sharpened tips of their umbrellas. Twelve people lost their lives and more than 5,000 were poisoned.

  • Verity

    There is no such thing as “a Buddhist cult”. There cannot be a cult in Buddhism because there is no central authority or tenet of belief in Buddhism.

    You can call yourself anything you like that will sound legitimate and congruent with the views of needy people/victims. Scientology has had a big success and is still running, as clearly bonkers as it is. So has the “Rev” Sung Moon. Who was that guy in Waco? Jim Jones took the electric cool aid acid test to the max in Guyana. Aum Shrimrikyo is another one, and is banned in many countries.

    I am out of this discussion. Buddhism is not a discursive religion and for someone who’s not even a Buddhist to be defending it by discussing it is silly.

  • Chris Goodman

    “Buddhism is not a discursive religion.”

    “There cannot be a cult in Buddhism because there is no central authority or tenet of belief in Buddhism.”

    “I am out of this discussion…[because I do not know what I am talking about, and therefore]…discussing it is silly.”

    Of the three I think the last assertion [which I have slightly ammended] makes the most sense.

    For those who are interested this link

    (Link)

    gives some details about the Aum Shrinkyo cult.

  • Rollo

    There is no such thing as “a Buddhist cult”

    Oh come on.

  • Western apologists for Buddhism puzzle me, particularly those who believe they’ve liberated themselves from all canned and restrictive philosophies. These people sound as though, having seen and possibly even tasted the worm in the apple of every Western philosophy, they’re determined (desperate?) to find SOMETHING to believe in. Western culture being so debased and all, perhaps The Answer can be found in the exotic East! People who otherwise take a properly skeptical view of Western belief systems are often mesmerized by the promises of Buddhism. What is it–Nirvana? The Wheel? The hope of reincarnation? The promise of finally being able to rise above all those pesky human desires?

    News flash: There is NOTHING to believe in. NOTHING is sacred. Every system of philosophy has something to recommend it, or it wouldn’t be around. Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism et al–there are no exceptions; all contain some value, or they wouldn’t be around. But ultimately they’re all philosophies and organizations that must degenerate because they are put together and manned by HUMANS, who are, alas, not only imperfect, but imperfectible. It makes good practical sense to follow the golden rule, but beyond that … well, we won’t RETURN to dust. We ARE dust, with all that implies. No high-fallutin ideas or philosophies are ever going to change that.

  • None
    ” We ARE dust, with all that implies. No high-fallutin ideas or philosophies are ever going to change that.”

    It means don’t get near the vacuum cleaner.