[Inenuedbabnor]

You think that is the easy way out? Having to witness such horrors as that? Having to live each day thereafter, if you survive, knowing that, yes, you could have stopped it, yes you could have saved those children, but no, you did not stop it, no, you watched it.

No need to make this into anything personal.

[paydayloanfasters]

Lol. I'm not. I am just saying. You said it was the 'easy' way out. I was making it clear and blunt, that it is in fact, not the easy way out.

If anything, the easy way out would be to do nothing, to declare pacifism.

[Cnbaapuy]

By easy, I don't mean simple or free of emotional distress. By easy, I mean fastest and most certain.

Killing may appear to be the easy solution in extreme situations, as it is the only guarantee that the perpetrator ceases causing immense harm to others.

Pacifism is something that few people have the strength to muster. It requires going against everything society has taught a person. There are some so-called pacifists who are passive and do nothing. There are others who are active and find working alternatives. To be actively pacifistic is the one that requires the most effort.

[viagbloggerz]

I understand fully. But I am talking about the particular case, where no matter how you look at it, it is either them, or the innocents. There is no talking, there is no alternative. They have the guns, the power, and the lack of want, to be nice? They know very well what they are there for. And they will do it, unless you do something about it.

And Bravery is also something few people have the strength to muster. The ability to fight the fear, and go beyond, to act, and do what must be done for the sake of another.

[RogHammon]

The Jews still exist today, ONLY, because of great men, brave men, who took the risk to their own lives, who took the lives of others, with an evil ideology that proclaimed death to an entire people.

[tropicana]

You think that is the easy way out? Having to witness such horrors as that? Having to live each day thereafter, if you survive, knowing that, yes, you could have stopped it, yes you could have saved those children, but no, you did not stop it, no, you watched it.

Many people make this mistake. Mostly people from sheltered societies exposed all of a sudden to harsh realities that exist in other places.

As you say these things happen all the time everywhere in this world. And you can do lots to stop these things. Yet you dont. If you think it is so horrible? Why do you not? Because you are not there? Does it become less horrible for those involved at one place because you were not there? I do not get it. You are more concearned with your own feeling than that of those suffering? How noble.

Just because in one instance you were there and could do something about it...what about the ten thousand other places you could not be? Was it less horrible there?

Every second you can do something to save someone somewhere. And mostly it does not involve killing someone rather it involves living for someone. Why dont you?


/Victor

[Numbiydq]

Then we fundamentally disagree on whether such a scenario is possible. I don't think there could be a case where no matter how one looks at it, it is either them or the innocents. Call me unrealistic, but I have never been one to conform to the majority perspective.

Thank you for your understanding. Let us all be the embodiment of bravery.

[Mark_NyB]

Have you ever read about the holocaust? Have you seen the news on what goes on in africa? There is no majority opinion to it. It's simply fact. Situations like that happen everyday.

Jews were taken to camps, and gased on a regular basis. Africa is a living hell, you can ask anyone who has been there. That situation I named, is very real, but the case where the gun is available to the innocent one, is rare.

[VIAGRA-]

By and by, what I have meant by all of this, is that I think, personally, the Buddha would have indeed approved of the actions of those brave men, those soldiers in WW2, because it is a people on a whole, for no other reason, other then being them, not bad, not evil, simply common folk living day by day, being slaughtered for no reason at all other then their genetics/ethnicity.

The only logical conclusion to genocide when there is either fight, or be killed, is to fight. And to say otherwise, is to choose your death, the death of your loved ones, and possibly even the death of Buddhism, should that have been attacked instead of Jews.

The precept of no killing was meant for the every day life, and had nothing to do with defending an entire people against needless slaughter.

[Attarderb]

But lets agree to disagree, Abhaya! Sorry if I seemed angry in any of those posts. I wasn't. Just heated. It's how I get when I really get into a discussion about something such as this.

[clomoll]

Many people make this mistake. Mostly people from sheltered societies exposed all of a sudden to harsh realities that exist in other places.

As you say these things happen all the time everywhere in this world. And you can do lots to stop these things. Yet you dont. If you think it is so horrible? Why do you not? Because you are not there? Does it become less horrible for those involved at one place because you were not there? I do not get it. You are more concearned with your own feeling than that of those suffering? How noble.

Just because in one instance you were there and could do something about it...what about the ten thousand other places you could not be? Was it less horrible there?

Every second you can do something to save someone somewhere. And mostly it does not involve killing someone rather it involves living for someone. Why dont you?


/Victor

Victorious. This entire discussion has been based on the person 'being there'. In that exact situation, or others like it. I have no idea why you are saying all of those things, other then to attack me.

This has had to do with the First Precept. I am not ranting about how we need to go out of our way to save these people, as much as i'd like to, your right, it happens every day. As I clearly said many times, if you ARE in the situation...

[draigenia]

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. I am not denying the severity and tragedy of the Holocaust, African genocides, or any other historical events.

I am simply suggesting there are alternatives to killing people in return for killing people.

To speculate on whether the Buddha would or would not have supported WWII or other wars is just that - speculation.

Logic has no guarantees.

Opinions will vary.

Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65)

"Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....065.than.html

[ppaelkos]

But lets agree to disagree, Abhaya! Sorry if I seemed angry in any of those posts. I wasn't. Just heated. It's how I get when I really get into a discussion about something such as this.

No worries. I will bow out respectfully at this point. Hopefully my contributions weren't entirely useless.

[statistica]

They weren't, Abhaya! I understand you, as you understand me. This is just a discussion on wether or not to act, to kill, when that is all there is left.

And thank you for that quote!

[levitratestimon]

Victorious. This entire discussion has been based on the person 'being there'. In that exact situation, or others like it. I have no idea why you are saying all of those things, other then to attack me.

This has had to do with the First Precept. I am not ranting about how we need to go out of our way to save these people, as much as i'd like to, your right, it happens every day. As I clearly said many times, if you ARE in the situation...

No not to attack you. To make you think. you weren't making much sense some posts ago but as you say later it was a heated discussion.

Peace.

I think there is no leway in the first precept. It is wrong to kill. Period.

But while living in this Samsara we do not have a choice some times. But that does not IMO relieve us of the burden of the act of killing. It would have been bad to kill Breivik but on the other hand it would have been good to save all those children. So killing Breivik you would have done one bad thing and one good thing. Live with it.

According to the classical view of kamma we can not escape it. An action with ill intent based on lobha dosa moha brings bad results.

The assumption that killing sometimes is excempt (did I spell that allright?) from kamma law is IMO a point made through out buddhist history to relieve the burden of genocide from old rulers and kings.

If you make a choice then you got to live with it. That is life. I mean if your child is threateaned you do not stand around wondering how to act so as not to get sued in a court of law by the person threatening your child. You just act and deal with the consequences later.

/Victor

[catarleriarly]

"It is wrong to kill. Period."

It may be sad to take a life, but to outright say it is wrong, is an opinion. And, IMO, wrong itself. Was it wrong to kill the S.S. of the Nazi Regime, to free the jews and other captives from the camps, from being gased and systematically murdered? No. It was the only option, a sad one, but one forced upon the Allies by the Nazis. If you have a few hundred prisoners in a camp a few clicks away from your camp, do you rally your troops to go ask them to nicely not murder all of those innocent people? No. You go in guns blazing, and save them from that horror.

And you really should have read the entire thread if you were going to make such statements. I gave very specific, in the moment circumstances. What would you do if you were that teacher? I would hopefully pull the gun from the bottom drawer and try my best to alleviate as much suffering from the children as possible by taking out their attackers.

I believe in logic, and protecting the masses, and the innocent ones therein. When a few decide that a race or ethnicity is not worthy of life, and are not capable of being turned from that viewpoint, do you protest them all the while they set those innocent, beautiful people to the firing squads? No. Well, you can, but I like to think i'd be better then that. You can't always cling to a precept that was given for every day life, and not for special cases such as the holocaust, Islamic Terrorism, and the genocide being done in Africa, you have to think of it in a wider range, taking into account the many lives being taken by an insane few, a few who cannot be talked to about it, who can't be protested, who will not stop but by force alone. You have to think about the impact being done to society as a whole. Your right, it's wrong to make the choice to kill, but it's not wrong to kill when the choice is being made for you, with no alternatives.

You never did answer that question, that particular scenario, Victorious. Would you have sit by and let them kill/rape every last one of those younglings? And if not, would you feel like a coward as you witness, first hand, the horror they would have inflicted upon them?

Was it wrong for the men of those villages who wanted nothing more then happiness, love, and safety for their children, to fight back and kill as many of those genocidal maniacs as possible? No. It was sad that the choice was made for them.

I think perhaps there is a clinging, an attachment, an indoctrination, to the first precept. The Buddha did not have genocide in his days. There was noone killing another, bent on wiping out an entire race/ethnicity, simply because they were who they were, their genetics. I love the Buddha, and what he taught, but he was also a very logical and realistic man. He would have not enjoyed the holocaust, but he would also have understood what we had to do, the people we had to kill, to free those people.

When it comes to evils such as the holocaust, there is no choice for pacifism, unless you would like to simply sit back and watch the destruction. Imagine where we would be today if we did that to the Nazis? Well. I would be fine, i'm supposedly apart of the Master Race, you however, would have been either enslaved or killed.

Perhaps the 'intention to kill' comes into this too, like Element had mentioned/quoted. We never intended to kill those people who are out there using genocide to wipe out entire ethnicities, they forced our hand, by not leaving any alternatives.

[UBJ3kvP1]

Musicizgod,

To me, having done comparative religious studies for a number of years now and meditating also, have allowed me to perceived this:

Killing vs. Murder is not the same idea.

Killing:

In the animal kingdom, animals who operate on instinct not intellect, attack and eat different species or even one another.
If we are strict vegetarians, We must kill tofu to eat it and we must kill life in water to drink water.
If we are meat eaters, Consider the mental state of the meat eater and consider the mental state of the animal at it's time of death, which is usually violent.

Meat consumption is NOW not a necessity any more as alternate forms of food exist which provide the nutrition of meat.
I do not condemn people who eat meat as they might be ignorant about this or their particular religion o.k.'s this practice.
I myself stopped eating meat for a number of years and recently started eating meat due to the fact that other people's beliefs aren't mine and if I was invited to go to their home for lunch/dinner, I would cater to them. I however do wish to remain a vegetarian.

Whether a person is a Christian, Muslim, Jew, "Hindu" (I hate that term!), Buddhist, Jain, occult practitioner, etc. THESE are the salient points.

Murder on the other hand deals with human on human morals & ethics sir.

For example, I murder you because I have hatred about you or the concept of "you" that I have.
Nationalism, political party affiliation, selfish ambition and religion play a part in causing war and the galvanizing of the mind towards attacking another person.

When politics in a nation or between nations become muddied and/or religion comes in, murder ensues and people call this "our struggle", the "righteous cause", our "patriotic duty," etc.

As the Bible, the Buddha and others have stated: This is a cause & effect world and WE have made it what it is.
Do we as sensitive and mindful people understand this salient point also?

Clarity on whether something is killing or murder is necessary as this world is simply rampant with this type of vagueness.

I hope this makes sense. I also have not attained to being perfect so grace is given to others.
Thank you,
Stefos

[Qynvtlur]

Hey there, Stefos. And yes it does. It makes alot of sense. Your right, there is a big difference between murder and killing. Murder is what was done to the holocaust victims, killing is what was done to the men who did it to them, the Nazis.

"Clarity on whether something is killing or murder is necessary as this world is simply rampant with this type of vagueness."

Exactly. That is why I created this thread. Because as a Buddhist, I will not kill a single thing should I be able to help it, and try to resolve any and all conflicts in a peaceful manner, but as a realist and logical man, I understand that people like Islamic Terrorists and the past Nazis are people who have to be fought back with violence, sadly, because that is the 'only possible option left'. I made this thread to sort of challenge the minds of the many Buddhists here, or perhaps maybe I would be shown wrong? But it is just too unlikely to think that the Buddha had meant absolutely no killing, when there really just are times that it is absolutely necessary for the better of the whole of the Human Species. We can't allow people like this to continue on, we must come together to stop tragedies such as this, and obviously peaceful protest and non-violent action will not work, and only when every alternative is explored, which those alternatives for most of the terrorists/murderers today have been explored, there is only one option left, the death and/or imprisonment of them, for the better of the majority, for the defense of the helpless.

"Meat consumption is NOW not a necessity any more as alternate forms of food exist which provide the nutrition of meat."

Yeah, but sure is a hell of alot cheaper then eating vegetarian, sadly. Here in america at least. It is cheaper here probably to eat McDonalds then it is a pure vegetarian/healthy diet.

[RildFiemodo]

Is it blameless to kill, when the enemy is one who can't be spoken to, stopped through peaceful protests, or non-violent actions, and is only bent on your destruction, and that of your loved ones, and in self defense?

My short answer is yes, given the circumstances. Morality is not abiding my a strict code of conduct when certain situations imply that doing so causes more harm than good.

[Psymoussy]

I agree Deshy. There just comes a point when there needs to be action taken, of course, go through all peaceful outlets first, but logically/realistically, you just simply cannot be a pacifist in everything. I think the Buddha had meant the first precept for everyday life, not in times of war, when there is no other option but to fight, or be killed. It's one thing to not fight back in a fist fight, another to watch your people be killed one after the other and not pick up a weapon and help the helpless.