[mburbank]

I'm not sure I condone it either. I'm just trying to remove the western gloss a little.

And there is a belief in a 'higher power' inherent. It's just that being motivated by goodies a higher power might bestow is beside the point. I think a lot of Christians get that wrong, too. I have to be good so I go to heaven and not hell. I think the idea is to be good because it's what God wants of you, it makes life on earth better by one persons worth, and it's what you can do. offers of heavenly ponies and threats of hellish proddings and burnings strike me as a very childish spirituality.

I'm not sure how justice figures into the idea, beyond the hope that one will ultimately influence the other. There's a famous bhuddist story about an assasin who is paid to come and kill Bhudda. Big B is so unmoved by his mortal danger and so willing to let the assasin kill him if that's what he feels he has to do, the assasin becomes enlightened.

I don't know if anything like that would ever happen to a single thug or soldier, and it's guaranteed there would be a whole lot of dying first.

I don't mind folks thinking radical pacifism is nutso. I pretty much think so to. But violence and the team version, war, are prettty much accepted as unpleasant but unavoidable aspects of life, and they're pretty fucking nuts too. I think people like Jesus and Ghandi were trying to see if their might be any other way for people to relate to each other. Radical pacifism requires some seriously huge stones. I know I don't have them that big.