At the same gathering, the Dalai Lama insisted that “India is the only country where different religions have been able to co-exist.” This was a bizarre remark, but the Dalai Lama is given to strange remarks. First, could he have forgotten that all over the Western world, people of different confessions have coexisted peacefully? Or is it that he just doesn’t want to say anything in praise of the West, because that would invite comparison with how Muslim states treat non-Muslims (very badly) compared to how the non-Muslim West treats Muslims (very generously)? Second, when he speaks about “coexistence” in India, hasn’t he overlooked the centuries of Muslim conquest and Muslim rule? In all his decades in India — he has lived there since 1959 — didn’t he learn the history of India, the country that gave him refuge, about the mass murder of tens of millions of Hindus, about the virtual disappearance of Buddhism, about the forced conversion of many millions — Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, more? Has he forgotten Mahmoud of Ghazni, and Aurangzeb, and all the other murderous Muslims in India’s history? Does any of that support his claim that India is “the only country where different religions…have been able to co-exist”? Coexistence, of a kind, only became possible in India once the British had deposed the Mughal rulers, and then, since 1947, Hindus dominated — and that domination is what allowed for coexistence.
The Dalai Lama has claimed that Indian Muslims can offer lessons on Shia-Sunni harmony, as Shias feel safer in India than in Pakistan. He’s right – they do feel safer in India. But he’s wrong about the reason. It’s not that Indian Muslims can “offer lessons” on Sunni-Shia harmony to Muslims in Pakistan, which might hold out hope of lessening intra-Islamic hostilities. The sects remain just as ideologically at odds in India as in Pakistan. But the secret of tamping down the intra-Islamic violence is that the Indian government, in which Hindus predominate, can use force to suppress such intra-Islamic violence. It’s not that the Muslims in India are a different, less violent breed than their coreligionists in Pakistan, but that in India, the violence can be better held in check. In Pakistan, the Sunni government does little to reign in anti-Shi’a violence.
The next time the Dalai Lama mentioned Islam was at a gathering of his followers from 27 countries on January 31, 2015. He said that “though terrorism has emerged as a global problem,” it should not be associated with Islam, as “Muslims were neither terrorist nor its sponsorer [sic].” No one had the bad taste to remind him of the nearly 25,000 terrorist attacks (now there have been 33,500) carried out by Muslims since 9/11; no one at the meeting had the nerve to jog his memory with mention of Charlie Hebdo, Hyper Cacher, Bataclan, Magnanville, Nice, London buses and metro stations, Lee Rigby, the Atocha station in Madrid, Theo van Gogh’s murder in Amsterdam, or the attacks at Fort Hood, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Bernardino, Chattanooga, Orlando. No reporter asked him about Muhammad’s claim that “I have been made victorious through terror.”
Like Pope Francis, who now says “equating Islam with violence is wrong” and just this past summer insisted again, astoundingly, that “all religions want peace,” the Dalai Lama is a “spiritual leader” who doesn’t want to call into conceivable question other faiths. All religions are good; no religion, rightly understood, can possibly countenance violence. Repeat ad libitum.
The Dalai Lama offers treacly pieties, insisting that no religion could possibly be responsible for any violence or aggression by its adherents. His worldview cannot accommodate the real Islam, and its violent adherents who make the news every day, so he has chosen to believe in a sanitized, even imaginary, version of the faith.
Yet the Dalai Lama has also shown, very occasionally, signs of justified worry. He has noticed that the migrants flowing into Europe have been a source of great anxiety and disruption, and this past May, in an interview with the Frankfurter Algemeiner Zeitung, he surprised many when he forthrightly said: “Europe, for example Germany, cannot [that is, must not] become an Arab country. Germany is Germany.” And “from a moral point of view too, I think the refugees should only be admitted temporarily. The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries.”
This seemed to be a welcome volte-face from the pollyannish pronouncements of the past. Of course, one should notice that he said Germany “cannot become an Arab country,” rather than saying that Germany “cannot become a Muslim country.” It’s as if he still couldn’t bring himself to recognize that it is the faith of Islam, and not the ethnicity of some of its Believers, that makes Muslims permanently hostile to non-Muslims, and unable to integrate into their societies, that is, into Europe. But he certainly appeared to be suggesting that the migrants, almost all of them Muslims, should not be allowed to remain and transform the countries which had so generously admitted them. Rather, those migrants should eventually be sent back to “help rebuild their countries.” It was a welcome display of common sense. He appeared to recognize the danger of letting “Arab” (Muslim) migrants stay, and that a policy of sending them home after they had acquired skills useful in rebuilding their own countries, was morally justified. Some might say — you and I, for example — that it would have been morally justified to send them right back, without that training: the Western world is not some gigantic training center, and it owes the world’s Muslims exactly nothing.
But then, in a visit to Paris in September 2016, the Dalai Lama called for entering into talks – a “dialogue”? – with the Islamic State so as to “end bloodshed in Syria and Iraq,” which showed a complete misunderstanding of the Islamic State. Its fighters are determined to carry on without letup against those it considers — not just Christians and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, but also Shi’ites and even insufficiently-fanatical Muslims — to be Infidels. Not dialogue, but total destruction, is the only way to deal with the Islamic State. But even that will not end the threat, because the ideology on which ISIS rests cannot be destroyed, which means that new recruits to the cause, and new Islamic States, will keep appearing. The Dalai Lama’s notion of a “dialogue” with ISIS is a fantasy solution, by someone who doesn’t know what else to suggest.
In the same speech, the Dalai Lama also repeated that “religion is never a justification for killing,” when Islam – see the Qur’an, see the Hadith – overflows with justifications for the killing of insubmissive Infidels. And the Muslim killers always justify their killings, being careful to cite chapter and verse, from the Qur’an, or to adduce evidence from the life of Muhammad as recorded in the Hadith, that lend textual support to their every act.
Did the Dalai Lama see the killers of Drummer Rigby holding up their Qur’ans and quoting from it? Did he see the many leaders of the Islamic State, such as Al-Baghdadi, or propagandists for Al Qaeda, like Al-Awlaki, similarly quoting from the Qur’an to justify their attacks? Perhaps he managed to miss it all.
In August 2018, the Dalai Lama appealed to Muslims in India to make efforts to reduce Shia-Sunni conflicts that are prevalent in some other countries and asserted that Islam is a religion of peace. He lamented the bloodshed over denominational differences, which he said should be avoided as Islam teaches compassion and harmony.
The Dalai Lama has recently been speaking out about Sunni-Shi’a clashes, deploring them even as he offers no explanation as to why “peaceful” Muslims seem so often to engage in violence.
Addressing an event in August 2018 at the Goa Institute of Management, the 14th Dalai Lama stressed the need for international brotherhood and harmony.
“Muslims across the globe follow the same Quran and also pray five times a day. However, they are killing each other owing to differences between the sects like Shia and Sunni,” he said.
The Dalai Lama said, “I was in Ladakh. I suggested to Ladakhi Muslims that Indian Muslims should make some efforts to reduce the conflict between Shias and Sunnis.”
He told the audience that a national conference of Muslims would be organised in the coming months, which will be followed by a similar convention at the international level.
He said that modern India has remained by and large peaceful due to over 1000-year-old history of religious harmony.
The Dalai Lama’s claim is bizarre. Modern India did not “remain by and large peaceful” during the last 1000 years. It was the scene of bloody conquests by invading Muslims, who killed many millions, and once they had conquered and subjugated the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist populations, they killed tens of millions more. The Indian historian K. S. Lal has written that 70-80 million non-Muslims in India were killed by Muslim armies. Tens of thousands of Hindu and Buddhist temples were destroyed. How can the Dalai Lama be unaware of this long history? After the Communist Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1959, he fled to India, where he, and tens of thousands of his followers, were given permanent refuge. Has he not, in all the decades he has lived in India, had the slightest interest in studying the history of the country that gave him refuge, and the effect of the Muslim conquests on Hindus and Buddhists? Is he unaware that Buddhism, his own religion, was virtually wiped out in India by the Muslim conquerors? Can he, the spiritual head of one branch of Buddhism, really be unaware of what happened to Buddhism in the land of its birthplace? Wasn’t he interested enough to find out?
Isntlam says
Stefan Molyneux’s “Truth About the Dalai Lama” on youtube is very good.
simpleton1 says
Thanks Isntlam as I just watched that 2 days ago.
The Truth About Dalai Lama by Stefan Molyneux
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBH0ywUUx5k
1 hour 8 minutes 46 seconds.
A bit long, but does a good background particularly of the life of the Dalai Lama, and how the surprising lifestyle and bringing up of the child in that situation, of what is a very controlling theocracy, and how their thinking works and what other systems it may align too.
There is a part where one can see “follow the money” that influences things.
One automatically from that thinks of many other systems and people in control where “follow the money” can be applied.
Isntlam says
The DL also has strange links to the Aum Shinri Kyo cult and other weirdos. The video has a lot of info you’ll never read in the NY Times.
rbla says
Granted but I still think the Dalai’s recent remarks make him much better than the three M’s – May, Merkel and Macron, the Pope, the Swedish treason class and most other governments in Western Europe, Italy excepted. Also makes him better than the Dems and the Rinos here. So let’s praise and encourage the Dalai in his recent groping toward the truth.
eduardo odraude says
Oh well. A pity. Let’s hope he wakes up about these issues.
Chand says
So did the British do the Hindus a favour by deposing the Mughals? They just conquered India by first pretending to be peaceful missionaries, then as businessmen and then colonized the whole country. They looted and carted away huge amount of wealth and resources to Mother Britain. The Muslims, on the other hand, settled there. When the Indian population began to agitate for independence they sowed the seeds of communal disharmony between the Hindus and Muslims by carving out separate electorates for the two communities in a sinister, deliberate policy of ‘divide and rule’, i.e. create disharmony to prevent a united struggle of the Indian masses against colonial rule. Later the Brits, post WW II pushed this agenda of a separate land for the Indian Muslims which they could influence, to counter possible Soviet expansionism. This policy worked and the land was ultimately divided into India and Pakistan. And Pakistan became a British/US puppet state, opposed to a Soviet friendly India.
Of course there were brutal invasions by Muslims on Hindu/Buddhist/Jain India but that was hundreds of years before the British invasion, and by then a lot of water had passed and Muslims had become an integral part of India. Just as later Zororastrians, Christians and a few Jews. Indian culture today is basically an amalgamation of Muslim and Christian cultures with the native Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and aboriginal shamanism/animism.
So should the Hindus be thankful to the British for deposing the Muslim Mughals so the land would be ruled by the Hindus? Maybe. But in the process two nations, which were once one, are pointing nukes at each other.
Lydia Church says
1. There is increasing persecution of Christians in India lately, as anyone who receives news updates from Morning Star News will know.
2. Coexistence has occurred in the Western nations more than anywhere else, until recently with muslims becoming more aggressive and showing their true colors.
3. Again, no one can force anyone to convert to anything. It still requires your consent. No one can force me to convert to anything. I am a Christian and I will stay a Christian. Notice that I did not say they can’t beat me, torture me, persecute me, or even murder me causing me to be a Christian martyr. (As so many others before me.) They can apply all the pressure and discomfort they are able to. But… they still can’t ‘force’ me to convert to anything else. My answer is still NO! I am a Christian and will die as a Christian. About that, there is nothing they can do. Absolutely… nothing!
4. The ‘all religions are basically good’ is not only false, but the platform of the antichrist. He will unite all religions (except true Christianity) into one as they join under his power. As is already the case. Major religious leaders will ride on his coat tails on that claim.
Now as to why the claim is false (that all religions are ‘good’ just because they are ‘religion’):
1. Take all the religions and belief systems, including devil worship and witchcraft, atheism and anything else. Each one is a belief system that involves beliefs about spiritual realities or ideas and people act based upon these beliefs, whether it is Christianity, islam, atheism, wicca, tribal religions, etc. They are all unique in the sense that no one is identical to any other. Most make some pretty big claims; “there is a God” vs. “there is no god” and so on. Regarding such claims, they can’t both be true at once. It is not a subjective truth issue. Truth is truth. There is no ‘your truth, my truth’ sort of thing here. Some things are subjective, such as favorite ice cream flavors. But this is not one of them. Either it is one way or it is the other. Truth does not contradict itself. On that note, they can’t all be true. Either God exists or He doesn’t, either He is in nature or He is not, or whatever, but not all simultaneously. So at best, only one can be true. Thus there are not many ‘paths’ to God, but only one. Being ‘sincere’ and trying hard is not enough. It can’t be your way, it must be God’s way.
2. I happen to know that the one and only true religion is Christianity. Aside from my personal experiences that prove it to me, there’s more. The only ‘holy book’ is the Bible. God authored the Bible through the Holy Spirit. He proved that to us as if He put His own signature on it. This is how He did it. The Bible is written over thousands of years by over 40 different authors such as Moses, compiling 66 ‘books’ of the Bible. They span since the time Moses wrote the first books during the time the Jews were enslaved in Egypt until the New Testament was complete around 96 A.D. with Revelation. Yet the message throughout the Bible is consistent and always involves repenting and redemption by God saving us. The entire account of Exodus, when Israel left Egypt for the Promised Land, is a blueprint of the outline of salvation. (Passover Lamb=Jesus’ sacrificial death and atonement for sin, leaving Egypt=leaving sin and the world, wandering in the wilderness until only the next generation remained and would enter the land=regeneration aka being born again, the glory of God’s Spirit filling the tabernacle=indwelling and baptism of the Holy Spirit, circumcision of the flesh=circumcision of the heart, crossing over the Jordan=water baptism, entering the land of Israel=entering the victorious Christian life on earth, and so much more). And all of that before the Gospel was even written in the New Testament. Then you have the hundreds of types of Jesus that appear all throughout the Old Testament, like Joseph, Moses, David, and dozens more. Then you have the over 360 Messianic prophesies that were fulfilled by Jesus, proving not only that the Bible is true, and this is the way, but that there could be no other Messiah, since it is too late for anyone to fulfill all of them! Daniel gave the time of the Messiah’s birth, and folks, that ship has sailed… the only one born at that time was… JESUS! You guessed it! Then, we have all the other prophesies that have been fulfilled, and historical evidence of Biblical accounts, with archeological evidence included! Now it would have been impossible for the New Testament writers to go back and tamper with the Old Testament to make sure the Gospel was in there, or vice versa! One was not aware of what the other was doing at the time! This was God’s way of authenticating that the Bible is His Word. Not only that, but the reliability is proven too. The concept of replication proves it. The Bible has been copied countless times by Jews and Christians over the centuries and millennia. It has been buried and preserved and uncovered hundreds of years later and translated and in each case, the results are almost identical! This was done by non Christians as well, so no collusion can be a possible culprit here. Even the meanings of the names from Adam to Noah have the gospel message hidden in it! There are so many other proofs like that! If anyone wants to get bent out of shape over the simplicity of the creation account, let me assure you, God did not have the time to include every scientific detail of how it was done, nor was that the purpose of the Bible. It was supposed to be a simple account. But, true scientific discovery actually supports Creation and NOT evolution! The evidence is out there for the inquiring minds. God did create it all, and the fact that anything is here is in itself: a miracle! But the evidence is there; Christianity is God’s religion, the one and only true religion.
3. Since Christianity is God’s religion (see #2 above), and the other religions contradict it, they by default cannot be true. They do not offer valid paths to God. Jesus offers the one and only way of salvation and reconciliation to God because the issue of sin is dealt with, which separates us from God. Not only that, but that makes other paths that claim to be ways to God; false and deceptive and thus dangerous. The whole religions are deceptive and dangerous and even endorse things that are bad. Thus they cannot be ‘basically good.’ We all know islam promotes terrorism and thus is not ‘peaceful.’ But Hinduism also has the caste system which is very brutal and oppressive and women are not even second class citizens. They have temples with prostitutes and the offspring are left as orphans. There are many other sins promoted by that religion. Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism and holds to many of the same concepts. Most Eastern religions hold to some form of pantheism (god in nature) or personal divinity or it’s realization (point of yoga, rooted in Hinduism) and all of that goes back to the lie of the devil in the garden of Eden that ‘you too… can be like God!’ But NO, you CAN’T! The source of these lies are demonic and the devil himself. Nothing good in that! And God is not ‘in nature,’ (pantheism) because in Romans 1 we are told not to worship nature, but God. Off course I should not need to preach on the evils of witchcraft or satanism or primitive religions that practiced cannibalism… or anything like that, as those are obviously evil. So the other religions are not even ‘good’ at all!
4. Why would anyone want to claim that deceptive paths that don’t lead to God at all are ‘good’? Or that what they practice is ‘good’? Why, when the beliefs and practices are bad? And if it is false, then it is bad. It is no small matter that only one door leads to heaven and the rest do not, but only advertise that they do, or that you don’t need to worry about it … when you do! There may be a few ‘good’ sayings in each one scattered around, such as ‘don’t steal,’ or ‘be patient,’ etc. But that does not make the religion as a whole ‘good’! Even criminals can do these things from time to time. But if a religion tells you nice things, and that it’s all about you, and just be nice, and you don’t have to worry about the afterlife, etc. it’s still deception and you will pay for believing it! It’s still false and wrong and dangerous! We can’t call it ‘good’! Either a religion is true, or it is not true. And it’s a really big deal if it is not true since religion deals with our soul and result in where we will spend eternity. Either there is a God, or not, either Jesus is the Son of God, or not. Either we have to repent of our sin and turn to Jesus to save us, or not. Christianity says one thing, atheism another, and islam yet another. And they can’t all be true! But Christianity is.
5. You can’t define what ‘is’ or ‘is not’ a religion. Someone can take a rock in the woods and claim it is ‘god,’ and set up a whole belief system around it. In fact, that happens all the time. You can’t say that it’s not a ‘religion.’ But you can say that it is a false religion! Or that something is an evil religion. Only Christianity is the one true religion and thus the only good religion and the only valid religion as the only path leading to God, leading to salvation from sin, fellowship with God, and heaven. It is the one and only ‘religion’ of God!
peter says
That is your belief . Christians believe that God came to earth only in the form of Jesus .Hindus believe that God came to earth and wil continue to come to earth in many forms including Rama,Krishna ,Buddha and even in the form of animals . We should respect all living souls and not arrogate ourselves to rule either human kingdom or animal kingdom or plant kingdom in the belief,that we are the only owners of the eternal truth and every body else in the world is wrong . Christianity is much closer to Hinduism in the sense that Christians believe that God came to earth in the form of a human being,Muslims completely discard any such notion . The concept that God is one and may manifest himself in many forms testifies to His omniprescense and omnipotence. If you give up your personal ego and look at what Jesus says in Bible and Krishna says in Bhagvat Gita there is a lot of parallel when Krishna ,says in Bhagvat Gita giving up all desires surrender on to me ,it echoes what Christ says in Bible .To say that there is only one path to realization of God is utter ignorance .
Kepha says
The Dalai Lama described himself as “a simple Buddhist monk”–and I think we should emphasize the “simple”.
Carolyne says
I think this religious nut is not aware of the reason for partitioning India and creating Pakistan and Bangladesh. It didn’t work, of course, Muslims being Muslims. They are still encroaching on India. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back or is it eat a cow and you will have eaten a human soul, perhaps your mother. Don’t forget that fine gentleman, the monkey god.
Carolyne says
Yes, I know the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism.
Sunil Chaurasia says
Seen the main article & so many comments.Christians say “Christianity is God’s religion (see #2 above), and the other religions contradict it, they by default cannot be true. They do not offer valid paths to God. Jesus offers the one and only way of salvation and reconciliation to God because the issue of sin is dealt with, which separates us from God. Not only that, but that makes other paths that claim to be ways to God; false and deceptive and thus dangerous. Hindus say:Only their religion preaches to have direct path to god’s kingdom. Muslims have gone a step ahead. According to them there is no place of any other religion in the world and those who don’t embarrass to Islam shall cease right to live. Of-course it is not said in words but by deeds and actions.Bur where is that idiot god for which fools are fighting like dogs and donkeys. It HE is really there: live — living spirit, creator, super intellectual etc. etc. Please awake to the reality. The god is a total myth and a non-extinct concept. No religion says anybody to rob, loot, murder and rape. But sadly all religions have done this heinous crime & that so called GOD never interfered. The earth is burning due to so many contradictory religious concepts but the god is not seen anywhere to show the real path. Hell with such an idiot GOD for the simple reason that if it can not manage a tiny earth ???? how can he menage the infinite universe.Please renounce religion and live in peace. The mankind can survive only in the GOD less world.
Carolyne says
I would not be so harsh in speaking of various religions, but I agree with you in principle,
Carolyne says
It’s very difficult to “Dialog” if one doesn’t have a head.