Miscellaneous Topics discussion

[dhu]

<b>Giant turtle found in Vietnam</b> (Pioneer)

Cleveland:Researchers from the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo have discovered a rare giant turtle in northern Vietnam - a find that carries great scientific and cultural significance. Swinhoe's soft-shell turtle was previously thought to be extinct in the wild. Three other turtles of the species are in captivity.

The discovery represents hope for the species, said Doug Hendrie, the Vietnam-based coordinator of the zoo programme. Turtle expert Peter Pritchard, president of the Chelonian Research Institute, confirmed the find based on a photo Hendrie showed him.

There have been rumours for years of a mythical creature living deep in the waters of a northern Vietnam lake. Some villagers west of Hanoi claimed to be blessed by catching a glimpse of it's concave shell. <b>A national legend tells of a giant golden turtle that bestowed upon the Vietnamese people a magic sword and victory over Chinese invaders in the 16th century. Whether that sacred turtle has materialised in the 21st century will be a matter of cultural debate among the Vietnamese.</b>

[dhu]

Hindu prayer request denied by Australia House of Representatives

[acharya]

“Islam and the absence of Buddhist terrorists”: Rebuttal to Chan Akya of Asia Times

The incomprehensible “gabalty-gook” written by Chan Akya in his article “Islam and the absence of Chinese terrorists” was totally devoid of any semblance to reality. His selective use of historical facts showed dishonesty and blatant Islamphobic bigotry.

FACT: Hinayana Buddhism lost its classical fight against Brahmanism in Hindu Kush, Taxila, Kushan, Kashmir, and other areas of the Subcontinent and was banished from India

FACT: To survive in China Hiniyana transformed itself into Mahayana (Hiniyana light with a more acceptable light skinned oriental Buddha, instead of a dark-skinned Indian Siddharta/Buddha).

Sitting on a sanctimonious horse acting “holier than though”, and passing judgment on another religion shows pure unadulterated racism. Living in a Buddhist glass house, Ankya should know better than to throw stones at Islam!. Neither Hiniyana, nor Mahayana Buddhist is immune to violence or terrorism. Ankya says that “the history of Buddhism has much to do with this divergence.”. He may be partially right, Muslim terrorists originally trained by the CIA (Bin Laden who turned on the their maker) kill one or two, or dozens or hundreds. For every Bin Laden there is a Kim Jung Il.Buddhists also kill by the dozens, but there is a qualitative and quantitative difference in Buddhist atrocities. The Buddhist terrorists kill millions. Let me remind Akya of some historical anomalies in his ridiculous article.

1) The Sinhalese-Tamil (Buddhist-Hindu) civil war in Sri Lanka is of course taken toll of thousands of lives, and as of last week was on the cover story of all major news organizations. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamils are both accused of terror tactics and committing atrocities.

2) The Cambodian killing fields were red in blood, not because the Khemers were docile Buddhists.

3) The violent perpetuated in Buddhist Vietnam between rivals (US as well as Vietnamese) was more violent than any we have seen in recent times.

4) Where was Mahayana Buddhism during the Sun Yet Sun and Maoist civil war?

5) Where was Buddhist “ahimsa” (non-violence) during the Cultural Revolution?

6) Why was Buddhist-Taoist philosophy unable to “to fill the poor with greater optimism about their lot” during the Japanese invasion of Korea?

7) Why was Buddhist philosophy in hiding during the rape of Nanking by Buddhist (Japanese) soldiers?

8) Why was the “enlightenment” absent during the abduction of 300,000 Korean women by Buddhist (Japanese) soldiers in Korea?

9) Why doesn’t Mahayana Buddhist-Taoist philosophy stop the genocide of Ughurs?

10) The human rights records of Laos, and Burma are not written in gold in the history books of tolerance and enlightenment.

11) The Thai massacres of Muslims in Thailand should not be a reason to criticize all Buddhists!

All Buddhist countries have seen unprecedented violence in the past 70 years. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous! Ankya knows well, the neither Islam, nor Hinduism, nor Sikhism, nor Buddhist nor Christianity has a monopoly on terror or violence or genocide. It is not the religion, but politics and colonialism, and occupation that create violence.


http://rupeenews.com/moins-articles/muhamm...rists%E2%80%9D/

[Bodhi]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hindu guru held for indecency continues tour in US (Lead)

New York, April 30 : A prominent Hindu religious leader with a worldwide following and a huge ashram complex in the US, who was detained on charges of indecency with minor girls, is carrying on with his scheduled programme.

<b>Swami Prakashanand Saraswati</b>, 79, founder of Barsana Dham, a 200-acre temple and ashram complex near Austin, Texas, was accused of groping two underage girls on several occasions between 1993 and 1996.

According to local media reports, detectives began investigating the swami, a votary of the path of devotional love, in August 2007 but indictment on 20 counts of indecency with a child or sexual contact was handed down in April.

http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=...s&id=54801<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Excerpts from his book were once quoated by some IF member once. But this looks surprising, the cases are as old as 12 to 15 years?

[Husky]

Man, islamis must be the most ignorant people in the world if the guy from The Rebuttal That Wasn't is anything to go by. I've never seen so much (willful?) ignorance in one medium-sized post. Every single 'point' is wrong. Could islami have been more wrong if it tried? Non-existent allah must be proud of this incompetent and dimwitted faithful leading the ummah.

Purple stuff is my own comments. I'd post more links in my comments, but I'm strapped for time and everyone at IF knows these links already as IF members are the ones who put them up. (The many threads on islamism are a good place to start.)
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+May 1 2008, 02:35 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ May 1 2008, 02:35 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->“Islam and the absence of Buddhist terrorists”: Rebuttal to Chan Akya of Asia Times

1)       The Sinhalese-Tamil (Buddhist-Hindu) civil war in Sri Lanka is of course taken toll of thousands of lives, and as of last week was on the cover story of all major news organizations. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamils are both accused of terror tactics and committing atrocities.
There's a major christian hand in this. And LTTE is a christian terrorist organisation with money flooding in from foreign christos. See Sri Lanka thread

2)     The Cambodian killing fields were red in blood, not because the Khemers were docile Buddhists.
Khmer Rouge maniacs were openly anti-Buddhist communists. The victims were all Buddhists. The perpetrators were all communists. Watch any travel documentary on the Buddhist temples of Cambodia and the number of Buddhist skulls of victims of the communist Khmer Rouge tyrants. The communist Khmer Rouge would particularly massacre the Buddhists in the temples in order to make the people dread going to their temples and to defile the sacred site.
But I forget, it would be haraam for islami to learn the truth as it involves watching documentaries about kaffiri Buddhist temples. We all know what the islami does to Buddhist sites: blow it up, like their faithful islami heroes did the Bamiyan and the Swat Buddhas.

3)     The violent perpetuated in Buddhist Vietnam between rivals (US as well as Vietnamese) was more violent than any we have seen in recent times.
N Vietnam was communist and christian (read Avro Manhattan - http://freetruth.50webs.org/D3.htm#Vietnam who wrote about the "The Catholics of North Vietnam, a state within a state"). South Vietnam was under a christian dictatorship, and its Buddhist population was terorrised by the christo government and christo minority. As always. (Again, see http://freetruth.50webs.org/D3.htm#Vietnam)

4)      Where was Mahayana Buddhism during the Sun Yet Sun and Maoist civil war?
Maoists terrorising people again? How unprecented arcasm

5)     Where was Buddhist “ahimsa” (non-violence) during the Cultural Revolution?
Cultural Revolution was the Chinese communists terrorising the Chinese population. Many Buddhist and Taoist victims. And this communist terrorism in China is ongoing.

6)     Why was Buddhist-Taoist philosophy unable to “to fill the poor with greater optimism about their lot” during the Japanese invasion of Korea?
Japan Taoist? Mwahahaha. Ignorant islami argument.
<i>WWII</i> Japan was brainwashed by Nazism - a christoislami ideology, as the islamic Handzar nazis and croatian ustashe and catholic-protestant German nazis show. The Korean victims were Buddhists.

7)     Why was Buddhist philosophy in hiding during the rape of Nanking by Buddhist (Japanese) soldiers?
See above. The Chinese victims were Buddhists and Taoists.

8)     Why was the “enlightenment” absent during the abduction of 300,000 Korean women by Buddhist (Japanese) soldiers in Korea?
Again. See above. The victims were Buddhists.

9)     Why doesn’t Mahayana Buddhist-Taoist philosophy stop the genocide of Ughurs?
:blink Chinese government and its army - what's harassing the islami Uighurs - are communist. Islamic loser who wrote this 'article' can't get it through his head. E Asian does not mean Buddhist when the perpetrators are particularly anti-Buddhist communists, christos, islamis and/or nazis.

10) The human rights records of Laos, and Burma are not written in gold in the history books of tolerance and enlightenment.
Again, see record of communism in Laos and Burma. Islami should stop being racist and pointing at Laotian and Burmese communists as if they are Buddhists just because he's so inept he can't tell the difference between one E Asian and the other

11) The Thai massacres of Muslims in Thailand should not be a reason to criticize all Buddhists!
Islami propagandist finally made his way to the argument he wanted to make. All the above is now supposed to make us think the Thai are the instigators when it is innocent Buddhist monks and lay Buddhists who regularly get beheaded by islamiterrorists, while the Thai Buddhist police only catch the islamiterrorists not regular folks (unless harbouring islamiterrorists).
Thailand took over some Malay land. But just before, islam also took over Malaysia - so why doesn't islam get lost from what is Buddhist land?

All Buddhist countries have seen unprecedented violence in the past 70 years. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous!
Islami is not fooling anyone. All over the world where islam has encroached, be it Greece (Anatolia 'Turkey', Cyprus), Serbian land, African countries for instance Sudan and Nigeria, Israel, Persia (see Zoroastrian Genocide by islam at http://www.vohuman.org/SiteMap/ZoroastrianGenocide.htm), Iranian lands, greater India, SE Asian region including the Phillipines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia's borders with Chechnya - it's all a living hell thanks to islam.
Islami who wrote these false arguments needs to get an education. First it needs to stop being a rabid racist who thinks that just because someone looks 'E Asian' they 'must be' Buddhist. I know it may be too much for its islamic brain, but it should at least <i>attempt</i> to learn to distinguish between someone whois  E Asian but is a communist/christo/islami/nazi, and someone who is a Buddhist. Then it should learn the actual facts and history of christoislamicommunazism.
Is it any wonder free people <i>all over</i> have reason to find islam an odious religion of terrible barbarity? We want none of it thanks.

http://rupeenews.com/moins-articles/muha...%E2%80%9D/
[right][snapback]81114[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Is he the best islam's got in its defence? Yikes, islam's influence on people's intelligence is worse than I thought...
Maybe people should stand back and just blow lightly and see islam fall over crumbling to dust by the weight of its own ignorance and of being so terribly wrong all the time.

[Guest]

Life is stranger than fiction....

http://www.jayanews.in/detailpagenew.aspx?...ca-462291496b9d

For plp who don't understand, a pilgrim doing girivalam in thirvanamalai, shot the above video on his mobile, he saw a Siddhar fly off.....

[Guest]

What is Siddhar ?

[Guest]

Siddhars are saints in India, mostly of the Saivaite denomination in Tamil Nadu, who professed and practised an unorthodox type of Sadhana, or spiritual practice, to attain liberation. Yogic powers called Siddhis are acquired by constant practice of certain yogic disciplines. Those who acquire these Siddhis are called Siddhas.[1] Siddhars are people who are believed to control and transcend the barriers of time and space by meditation (Yoga), after the use of substances called Rasayanas that transform the body to make it potentially deathless, and a particular breathing-practice, a type of Pranayama. Through their practices they are believed to have reached stages of insight which enabled them to tune into the powers hidden in various material substances and practices, useful for suffering and ignorant mankind. Typically Siddhars were saints, doctors, alchemists and mysticists all at once. They wrote their findings, in the form of poems in Tamil language, on palm leaf which are collected and stored in what are known today as Palm leaf manuscript, today still owned by private families in Tamil Nadu and handed down through the generations, as well as public institutions such as Universities the world over (India, Germany, Great Britain, U.S.A.).

In this way Siddhars developed, among other branches of a vast knowledge-system, what is now known as Siddha medicine, practised mainly in Tamil Nadu as Traditional native medicine. A rustic form of healing that is similar to Siddha medicine has since been practised by experienced elderly in the villages of Tamil Nadu, and is popularly known as Paatti Vaitthiyam, Naattu marunthu and Mooligai marutthuvam They are also founders of Varmam - a martial art for self-defence and medical treatment at the same time. Varmams are specific points located in the human body which when pressed in different ways can give various results, such as disabling an attacker in self-defence, or balancing a physical condition as an easy first-aid medical treatment.

Siddhars have also written many religious poems. It is believed that most of them have lived for ages, in a mystic mountain called Sathuragiri, near Thanipparai village in Tamil Nadu

One of the best-known Siddhars was Agasthyar or Agasthya, who is believed to be the founding father of Siddha culture.

Abithana Chintamani states Siddhars are either of the 9 or 18 persons enlisted, but sage Agastyar states that there are many who precede these and follow 9 or 18 persons. Many of the great Siddhars are regarded to have powers magical and spiritual.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhar

[acharya]

http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/nvcv.htm
Short Version: "Non-Violence as a Civic Virtue," published in the Newsletter (Spring/Summer, 2005) of the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century.

Long Version: "Non-Violence as a Civic Virtue: Gandhi as a Reformed Liberal," International Journal of Hindu Studies 7:1-3 (2003). Linked with permission from Sushil Mittal, editor of IJHS.

[Shambhu]

I have a question:

Some ppl say Jesus and Mohd are predicted in Bhavishya Puran. Is this true?

They may have, of course, be predicted as world-changing **events**, which they, unfortunately, are.