Buddhist Dilema during the colonial days

Buddhists dilemma during the colonial days

Buddhism was portrayed as sinful and blasphemous as a religion of the illiterate and backward people. It was then highly fashionable to be Christians, use Christian names, eat with steel forks and steel spoons, and carry a holy book every Sunday.

Buddhists were also hindered in other ways:

1)      Their children must be baptized to be eligiable for birth certificates

2)      Unbaptized couples could not solemnize their marriages,

3)      Non-believer must be converted to the Christian faith before he or she can marry that fashionable Christian

4)      Government jobs, and all jobs in Christians owned companies were only open to Christians, (practiced until 1970’s in South-East Asia)

Criminals who were chased by the police cannot be arrested once they run into a church or a churn compound. The authority to deal with the criminals was automatically handed over to the priest, who normally would convert the criminals to the Christian faith, if they were non-Christians and the sins would be forgiven.

The latest incident I heard of was during the 1960’s when three youths lighted three cigarettes and threw them on a cinema hall cotton curtain. The guard called the police and these three fellows were locked up at the local police station. The next morning, a Western Christian priest came to the police station to demand the release of the three youths. These three youths were released to live with the priest, in the church for a few weeks and the charge against them was dropped.

Buddha Explains how a so-called almighty god was created:

This so-called almighty god, who did not know where he came from, and where he will fall from this Brahma world, thinks he is permanent, immutable, eternal, not subject to change, and remain as something eternal.

He thinks “ I am almighty, the conqueror, the one who cannot be conquered by others, surely all-seeing, all powerful, the ruler, the creator, the excellent, the almighty, the one who has already practiced calm, the father of all that are, and all that are to be.”

Occassionally, he appeared in the lower planes of the Brahma world, who have shorter spans of  life  and says “ I am permanent; I am almighty; I created you all.”

When those Brahmas heard him, they believed him, and thus became the holders of this view. From there this idea spread to the deva worlds, and the human world.