this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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I don't follow religious doctrine either, but as long as the adherents aren't acting in ways that are harmful to others, I personally try not to insult or belittle them or their beliefs.
The information regarding the CIA is interesting though. The fact that the US reneged on their promises and only used Tibet to extract information about China is depressing, but not surprising.
Magical thinking, in and of itself, is harmful to all of society.
Perhaps, but some of the greatest inventions and discoveries were made by people who followed magical thinking.
Religion has unquestionably caused untold suffering, but that's not the only outcome of religion. There has also been untold suffering that had nothing to do with religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
I don't recall Tibetan Buddhists being involved in that.
Genocide is never justified.
It's also wrong to act like the actions of Myanmar or any perpetrator of genocide are representative of a religious monolith. Do you think it would be beneficial to insult and vilify Buddhists, and normalize that behavior because of the actions of Myanmar?
Insulting and vilifying adherents of a religion, and treating them like a monolith are exactly what leads to religious persecution, and in some cases genocide.
On a more basic level, it's just needlessly hostile. Life is difficult enough on its own, why spend time and energy insulting others based on something that overwhelmingly does not affect you or your community?
Exactly, genocides happen and no religion is good at preventing them. All religions are equally useless as sources of truth and morality. We should neither vilify or praise anyone for being religious or adhere to one religion of the other.
Religion also isn't a prerequisite for genocide. Whether or not all religions are equally useless for truth and morality is a big and absolute statement. I can't say that I agree or disagree because I'm not familiar with every religion.
This I agree with 100%.
I don't think you have to know all religions to be able to say that. You just need to know what religion is and how it works. Religion can't be the source of truth because it's based on faith, not truth. If you look for truth without any dogma restricting your research you're a scientists, not a theologian. Religion can't be the source or morality because it's goal is to enrich and empower the people that control it, not to teach anything useful. If you teach about morality without demanding obedience and money from your followers you're a philosopher, not a religious leader.
The Buddhist successors to the Mongolian/Qing Dynasty were plenty harmful to others. That's what sparked the student revolts responsible for their leadership's removal.
You can blame the icky yicky communists for polarizing and galvanizing upwardly mobile tibetan youth into an insurgency. But falling back on CIA agitprop to justify what was effectively a US military operation intended to destabilize a border region isn't proof of your humanitarianism. Even the Dalai Lama himself regrets letting the CIA militarize Tibet.
It's the story of the Cold War told over and over again. The goal of these operations is to spark civil war, not to liberate or liberalize any population.
It's my understanding that those harms were political and not religious in nature.
Why the disparaging adjectives? I feel like I'm missing the point.
I don't think there is any justification. It was selfish and self serving from the beginning. If the CIA had followed through on their promises, that would be a different story. But they clearly never intended to do so.
Amen.