I think I envy those who practice buddhism. It's the most tolerant spiritual experience ever if you asked me. This comes from someone who has seen what religion (Christianity mostly) can do to a supposedly decolonizing Africa.
A church can be build within 24hrs where I come from. It's a thriving business crippling the marginalised even more. What I mean to say is, temples and other religious places should be respected but I am yet to see.
i have said on many occasions that I am not a religious person but if i was forced to choose one it would be Buddhism. I enjoy the architecture of all religions for sure, but not necessarily their practices. Buddhism doesn't really appear to have any desire to recruit or except in very rare situations, dire enemies that must be destroyed.
It's just....peaceful.
Religion is forced down your throat in Africa and it's oppressive. But there's also no room to say that out loud without having bitter arguments with believers so I have learnt to avoid such. I didn't know they don't recruit. I just find it tolerant than everything else 🤷♀️
I have heard stories like this about Africa. Is it Christianity? There is an influx of churches in my part of Chiang Mai at the moment and I met some "witnesses" at my local coffee shop. They were nice and didn't bring religion into it until they were leaving when they gave me a card. I suspected that they were witnesses though because they were dressed really nice on a tuesday morning, were all foreign, none of them spoke Thai, and they were in a neighborhood on foot that no tourist would have any good reason for being in because there is nothing to see here.
Yes it is Christianity but Islam is used for advocating for patriarchy too. It's a spiral I worked to get myself and thinking out of.
I see them in your words, lol. I also see the in the neighbourhood. To get rid of a group, I usually ask them if it's okay for me to light a blunt as I listen 😂
oh and some of the "churches" that I have seen in the west are embarrassing and just like you said, put up simply to make money off the patrons.
The problem would be pointing that out to any of those patrons. Smh. Brainwashed lot.
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