From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Fri May 01 1998 - 17:57:45 MDT
>First of all, the so-called
Izagani/Izamnami 'religion' is not a
world
>religion. It is specific to Japan, and
very likely to only a specific
>locality in Japan. I beg forgiveness
for not being specific. Any
>'religion' of less than a million I
reserve 'cult' for (nowadays). In
>a populous country like Japan, you can
quadruple this number. At the
>time of the spread of these religions,
what was the number of their
>respective followers?
All religions begin as cults. If all you
care about are the numbers of adherents,
then follow the dictum, "Fifty million
horse flies can't be wrong, so eat
dung."
>This is the same reason I do not
consider the followers of "Reverend
>Jim Jones" a religion. He had
followers also.
Yeah, well, when J.C. had as many years
of practice as Jim Jones had, the total
number of his disciples came to twelve.
The difference (besides the fact that
Jones had drug-mush for brains and no
real message to impart) in the number of
disciples has no bearing on the verity
of the teaching. Likewise, just because
only a handful of people understand the
Special Theory of Relativity doesn't
make it true or false. Hundreds of
millions followed the nonsense spouted
by Karl Marx, but that didn't make it
any less nonsensical.
>
>Second of all, I may have forgotten to
mention there are only three
>'religions' that promotes murder of
others, and they all come from the
>middle-east: Judaism, Christianity,
and Shiite Musliminism.
The other three major relgious
traditions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism,
and Taoism, also come from the
Middle-East. For this reason, people who
speak of "Eastern religions" find it
difficult to name any "Western
religions." They all come from the East
or the Middle-East."
Cheers,
J R
\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\
///\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\///\\\///
"I haven't committed a crime. What I did
was fail to comply with the law."
--David Dinkins, New York City Mayor,
answering accusations that he failed to
pay his taxes
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:01 MST