Wise up.

  • Thread starter Thread starter SAGAN
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but Sagan, but you started this discussion by complaining that Christians join forces such as that.

also how can you truly stop someone that does not want to be stopped without hurting them?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]but Sagan, but you started this discussion by complaining that Christians join forces such as that.
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I actually have no idea what your trying to say here.

Ultima Avatar, research about where Buddha went after becomming enlightened.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]And what if the police force wasn't there? And what if you didn't care about the someone about to be beat to death? But you were the only one who could do anything? Just sit by and watch him die or push the guy around who's attacking?
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If I was the only one that could do anything, than I would do something, as I said, you can restrain a person without beating the crap out of them. As I assume you are all saying you would do.
If I happen to hurt the person that I am restraining, then, oh well, thats not very good, and yes thats bad karma, but not as bad as the person that was attacking the innocent. It was not intended for me to hurt the person, because it happened by mistake when holding them down or something.
 
You didn't define harm, pain and hurting for me yet. You seem to be wishy-washy on things like that so I need a clear definition of what they mean to you: when you "hurt" someone. If they whimper in pain? If they cry out? If there's a fountaing of tomato juice splurting out of their arm? But what if they, "'Tis only a scratch?" What if they didn't feel it? On a morphine injection? And they couldn't tell you hit them: "HIt me again, whiteboy! Yeah! Yeah! Again. Uh! Yeah!. One more time. Slice off that arm. Good! Now hack off the other one! Didn't even feel it. Ha!"
What if the pain's not immediate? It comes later?
What IS pain? My brother doesn't have the strength I do so he can't carry things I can, and he's a wuss and little things make him whine and complain. So suppose you shoved a guy into a wall to avoid him from slitting your wife's throat? And he had a bad bone disease and died a sudden death? Or what if he just moaned like a coyote to the night sky after you tapped him away from your child?
Tell me how you define pain, hurt, harm and suffering for another. When are YOU the judge of when to stop "hurting" someone, if ever at all?
Dude...this hurts my head: enlightenment is a state...not a location! Gad! And can we trust one man who says he went to this place and returned and talked of it? Can we?
 
after Budha becammed enlightened he went around teaching enlightenment and the search for Nirvana and more specifically searching for parinirvana (the ultimate or final Nirvana) where the 5 component parts of your self dissolve back into the life force of the universe and is acheivable only at the time of death, and only if you are a especially spiritual person, otherwise your 5 component parts of your self, deconstruct and mix with other 5 component parts, to create new selfs to try it again.

You've been calling parinirvana, enlightenment for quite awhile now.  (these next questions are not an attack, I am truly curious) How familiar are you of the entire belief system you claim to profess?  Are you a realitively new conversion to Budhism?  How much did you learn about this religion before you decided to join? (if you don't wish to answer, don't.  As I said, I'm just curious)

you said
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]thats what the police is for, to prevent that.
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 and that's when I gave my reply, which is basically
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]if you don't believe in violence, and are saying if 'Christian's are peaceful why do we join these things' then how can you use the police to protect you?  That's endorsing the violence that the police cause
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[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I said, you can restrain a person without beating the crap out of them.
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 Really?  How exactly are you going to do this?  I've never been able to restrain someone without hurting them first, and just the act of restraining someone falls outside the Tibetan style of pacifism.  It is violence and harm according to their dogma (couldn't think of a better word to describe here).
 
Ultima Avatar, your immaturity is almost leading me to ignoring you. You know what pain is, you dont need to make childish responses to it.

And *SIGH* once again you are not researching anything because Buddha was not the only one to get to such a place, and teach of it.
I could just as well say a simmilar thing about Christianity, can we trust one man who claims to be the son of God and talk about such a place as Heavan? Stop being narrow minded.

Anyway.. as for Kidan, I have been a Buddhist for quite some time now, and I know about my relgieon. I have a Tibetan monk as my Lama. Although at times I have confused myself with my responses to your questions, I have said incorrect things, those are my mistakes.

I never said the police would be violent, if someone plans on hurting you or someone else, and make threats, the police can stop that, and do stop that without violence, I don't know what the police are like where you live. Obviously different to where I do.

I'm not exactly sure how the act of holding somone back from hurting someone else is against my religeon. I dont know where that comes from. I have not had a problem in the past of holding down someone without actually hitting them or kicking them to get them down, I have learned martial arts in the past since before I was Buddhist, I dont have a problem getting someone to the ground or holding them back without beating them.
 
ah, ok, I was just curious.

now, from what I understand Tibetan style budhism abhors and teaches that at no time shall you commit a violent act against another.

Restraining someone is a violent act.  Any form of restraint whether it's knocking them down, punching them out, or throwing a lasso over them is violence.  It's violence because you are physically imposing your will over the other person's

The police force is based upon government sponsered violence.  The police go out, and enforce (physically in necessary) the will of the government on the government's constituents. While at times they may talk people out of situations, and often they enforce rules without violence (i.e. speeding tickets, etc)  When they are chasing someone down, to apprehend them, they will knock them down.  they will run them off the road,  they will shoot them if someone else is in imminent danger, for them to do less would put themselves and the innocent in danger.  Imagine a world where the police had no guns, we'd have crime even worse than it currently is, and plenty of dead police officers, for the criminals would still have their guns and would not hesitate to use them.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Kidan @ June 30 2003,6:03)]Imagine a world where the police had no guns, we'd have crime even worse than it currently is, and plenty of dead police officers, for the criminals would still have their guns and would not hesitate to use them.
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Well actually, I live in a country where the Cops aren't armed as a matter of course, and we have quite a lot less violent crime than the US (In my area it's actually on its third year of downtrend).

In Britain Criminals seem to mostly use guns on other armed criminals - most of them know that provided they don't use guns on civilians or the police they are, in turn, safe from our Armed Response Units.


Eon
 
Eon while this is true, how long did it take before this became ordinary?

Also while we share many cultural norms, in the US, the concept of arms is to tightly integrated with our cultral values.

I doubt that we (as in the US) could acheive that. We have random shootings now, even when our officers are armed. Here where I lived, just a few months ago, a young man went driving, and shot two people, he didn't know, in the head, for no reason. He just wanted to kill a couple people. It is my opinion that if the criminals are afraid that they might get shot (by either the police or their marks) they are less likely to perform violent crimes. It is also my opinion that if we truly punished people, pubiclly and harshly, then people would be more afriad of committing violent crimes. But this is a totally different discussion, and as you pointed out, my comment had flawed logic for the discussion at hand
 
Sagan, the reason I'm asking you to define those boundaries for me is this: WHEN do YOU know you're hurting someone? How are YOU going to restrain someone without hurting them? You have NOT defined for me what "pain, hurting, suffering, harm" are. You say you would restrain someone without hurting them, but you CANNOT unless you define what hurting someone is. What is hurting someone to you (nothing extreme...we're going for restrainment here)?
Please define it for me. *I* know what *I* think "hurting" someone is, but you may have a different idea as to that, so when YOU hurt someone it may not be what I would classify as hurting someone.
Do you understand now?

And what police force do you know of that does NOT hurt someone to restrain them? When a man is on the run, he is hit with a stick, or he is thrust on the ground, or onto the cruiser hood for checking. If he fires and there is no way out of it but to fire back and disable him, they WILL shoot. Violence is necessary in physical restrainment. You cannot stop someone from moving unless you impose enough of your strength, as possible, to keep them from moving away, be it with a bullet, your hands, your fists, or a really big stick. IF they do not want your will to become true, they WILL fight back. And then your restrainment force must become a higher level. Violence is necessary in stopping someone else from doing what you don't want them to, so long as it's not verbal (and you excluded verbal earlier).
 
Ok, due do confusion, I have questioned my teacher on the matters of violence. Mahayana Buddhism, which is the level of Buddhism I follow, does not support violence on innocent people, it is however, seen as a virtuous act to aid someone that is being attacked by another. If I must use violence to aid that person, then it is an act of virtue to use what level of force is needed to stop them from being hurt. As a role of a Buddhist, I must aid anyone that needs help.
 
No, his point is that he (as a Mahayana Budhist ) could protect someone in imminient danger (or actually being attacked), and he would be just and following his belief system in doing so.

but my question is, could he (as a Mahayana Budhist) join the armed forces (or the police force) where his job is to train for violence, and act in a violent manner for the protection of people who may or may not be in imminent danger.

That is a big difference here. As a cop or a soldier, the people you are attacking might not be presenting an imminent danger to or actively attacking those who you are protecting. Is it still protection? yes. As a Christian are you justified in that violence? Yes. But my question is more along the lines of

As a Mahayana Budhist, are you justified in performing violent acts against someone who is not currently attacking an non-combatant.
 
When do you Sagan, know what level of violence should be issued in "prevantative" measures?
After or before the target cries out in pain?
And like I said, what if the guy attacking (and the guy you attack to defend the innocent) has a really, really low tolerance of pain? What then? The "hurt" you inflict is not the same as the "hurt" you would inflict on, say, Hollywood Hulk Hogan.
 
Kidan, I guess I could join the armed forces, I wouldn't, but I guess I could. However, wars are sometimes currupt and I have no idea what i'd be fighting for, other than to stop my fellow soldiers from dying.

Ultima Avatar, I don't really think pain threshhold has any relevance. If i'm stopping someone from hurting someone else, then I take what measures would be nessisary to stop them, if I can stop them without hitting them. Then I would. Before you question something like "well how do you know whats nessisary to stop them". I think that's pretty obvious, if pulling them off the other person or trying to restrain them dosen't work, then you take a more drastic measure. Just think what you would do in that situation, it's not that hard to understand.
 
Please forgive the following sarcasm (it has a moral though).



"Please, dear sir, don't hurt me. I can't touch you for fear of causing pain during my restraint. No, no, no. No need for putting that Ruger to my head...yeah. Good. Now let's discuss Buddhism for a moment while I call the cops. See how easy it was to disarm you peacibly?"

Ehhhh....it doesn't work. Would you shove them? Or take a chair and knock them unconscious.
Ohhhhhhhhh! I know! You were tricky! I get it Sagan. Okay, okay. You can't "hurt" someone (though you haven't as yet DEFINED "hurt", pain, et cetera for me clearly so I'm left with thinking you don't know what they are) but you CAN knock them unconscious, from a distance and painlessly!
You get a tranq dart and shoot it in their neck or their haunches and watch as they crash to the floor.
Hmm. That might leave a headache though when they wake up. So you leave some Tylenol and cushion his fall with pillows!
Dang. To think you had almost foiled me Sagan.





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WHAT is left? YOU haven't told me what you would do, and I don't think you will, because you know all too well what you WOULD do (VIOLENCE! MURDER DEATH KILL, MURDER DEATH KILL!) to "restrain" someone "without force". Or maybe you don't know, and that's why you don't tell me.
Seriously, though, pain threshold may have everything to do with it. My brother has little if no feeling in his upper left thigh so you could stab him there and he wouldn't feel it. But on the right thigh, it would bring him down in an instant. Now suppose whenever you stabbed his thigh and the blood came flowing out it didn't hurt him, but the loss of blood made him frightened for his life and departed quickly to prevent bloodflow and avoid conflict.
Presuming, of course, you know his left thigh is numb. Or else it wouldn't work.

Now tell me, how would you prevent your fellow soldiers from dying in the armed forces? Take a bullet for each one? Or shoot the "other" guys?
 
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