I've been travelling through South East Asia and Korea/Japan recently. Cambodia, for instance, is a very Buddhist country and much like Thailand, they practice Buddhism as a religion. Cambodia has a very rich history, and Siem Reap is an amazing sight of the Angkor and Khmer civilizations. The temples on these civilizations shared both Hindus and Buddhists origins. It seems that there were some conflicts/similarities between both of these religions.
But something caught my eye, and I think this is how I became biased toward Buddhism. Monks, supposedly the most innocent creatures in the universe?, were begging commercial shops in the street. In Thailand metro, monks have their own priority seats. In Phnom Penh, the religious ministry has a massive establishment with security/guard escorting the "minister?" everyday.
I think, and might be wrong, that the "Buddha" was not really much different from any other prophet. A highly deranged individual. His writings were made up with time, and given the size of Asia, it had multiple bifurcations. The religion itself got used by the establishment to establish and exercise power.
Not really much different from the world today. And not really different from a militaristic order. Religions benefited from a less structured and modern world, because being loose (vs. a military rule for example) made them evolve with generations and mutate into the powerful institutions that exist today. The spiritual meaning deriving from a religion might be an artifact (a side-effect?) rather than the reason of existence of religion itself.
> I think, and might be wrong, that the "Buddha" was not really much different from any other prophet. A highly deranged individual
That's a pretty wild leap to make from your observations. So wild, in fact, that I'd say you really wanted to make it rather than caring about the facts. Why would the imperfect nature of modern Buddism as practiced in Cambodia be proof that the Buddha was "deranged"?
Why would the behavior of any living person be proof of the mental state of someone who died thousands of years ago, for that matter?
Agreed. Most prophets seem to be deranged. The prophet of Islam was probably a schizophrenic, Jesus was also delusional and Buddha did some pretty extreme things like abandoning his wife and newborn son to starve himself in the forests which is not what any mentally sane person would do. And yes Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar are all majority Buddhist countries but don't even follow the basics of buddha's teaching like non-violence given their rather violent eating practices involve killing all sort of animals.
But something caught my eye, and I think this is how I became biased toward Buddhism. Monks, supposedly the most innocent creatures in the universe?, were begging commercial shops in the street. In Thailand metro, monks have their own priority seats. In Phnom Penh, the religious ministry has a massive establishment with security/guard escorting the "minister?" everyday.
I think, and might be wrong, that the "Buddha" was not really much different from any other prophet. A highly deranged individual. His writings were made up with time, and given the size of Asia, it had multiple bifurcations. The religion itself got used by the establishment to establish and exercise power.
Not really much different from the world today. And not really different from a militaristic order. Religions benefited from a less structured and modern world, because being loose (vs. a military rule for example) made them evolve with generations and mutate into the powerful institutions that exist today. The spiritual meaning deriving from a religion might be an artifact (a side-effect?) rather than the reason of existence of religion itself.