What Are Hinduism Pacifist Teachings

war is a Holy War. When people fight a Holy War they believe that they

While some religions, like Christianity and Islam, may have defended war in time of defense, other such as Buddhism condemned war

Throughout history different religious groups had varying opinions of war. Some religions, such as Confucianism and Hinduism, supported war and respected men that served in their military. Whereas, other religions, like, Christianity and Buddhism, condemned war totally. After reading these religion-based documents three different groups emerged; those who supported war, those who tolerated war, and those who opposed war.

Injustice can be found everywhere in the world. It is in every household, every school, and every workplace. Examples of beliefs changing during adversity are shown in, The Nuremberg Trials, Gang Rape by Stephanie Chen, Perils of obedience by Stanley Milgram, Pearl Harbor Echoes In Seattle by Monica Sone, and the book Night by Elie Wiesel. In all these articles, Most of the time, it is people who cause injustice on others. But some choose to take a stand while others choose to participate. Participating can be a product of pressure and fear from others. Injustice on people can easily be prevented or eliminated as long as society has the courage to stand up for what is right and that people do not rely on other people to act first.

St. Augustine provided comments on morality of war from the Christian point of view (railing against the love of violence that war can engender) as did several critics in the intellectual flourishing from the 9th to 12th centuries. Just war theorists remind warriors and politicians alike that the principles of justice following war should be universalizable and morally ordered and that winning should not provide a license for imposing unduly harsh or punitive measures or that state or commercial interests should not dictate the form of new peace. “The attraction for jus post bellum thinkers is to return to the initial justice of the war”. This means that war is considered as self-defense.

Islam is not the only religion that use violence for instance, the Christian use violence to destroy Islam. In the article crusades the idea of violence was demonstrated when pope urban II send innumerable amount of solder to “Rise in a spirit of cruelty against the jewish people scattered through the cities and slaughtered ’the women, also, and with their swords pierced tender children of whatever gender and sex.” The soldier did not stop there they also “Destroy the houses, synagogue of the jews and divided among themselves a very, large, amount of money [that once belonged to the jews].” Christians were influenced by Pope Urban II to assassinate million of people. It is estimated that about 1.7 million of people died during the crusades.

There are, however, various categories of ‘pacifist’. A ‘total pacifist’ is someone who completely avoids violence and believes it can never be justified, not even in self-defence or to protect others – this they see as the only morally correct view of war. A relative pacifist is someone who may use violence in certain situations but who supports disarmament. They are discriminating about WW1 but agree that WW2 had to be fought. Nuclear pacifists believe that conventional weapons are acceptable as a last resort if war is inevitable, as it is, but nuclear

As explained by William Hawk in his essay “Pacifism: Reclaiming the Moral Presumption”, the pacifist is a person that refuses to participate in war for in any circumstance for two reasons; the grounding belief that war is wrong, and the belief that human life is sacred and invaluable. Many pacifist

Verses 2:190-194 and 216-218 of the Quran reflect what Muslims believe constitutes a just war. A part of verse 191 says, “And kill them wherever you overtake them, and expel them from where they had expelled you.” The Quran even supports a just war in sacred places and sacred times of the year. Another part of verse 191 says, “But do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque, unless they fight you there.” The first part of verse 194 mentions fighting during a sacred time when, “The sacred month for the sacred month; and sacrilege calls for retaliation.” It also addresses how it is a necessity for a Muslim to fight if there is persecution by verse 216 saying, “Fighting is ordained for you, even though you dislike it.” The rest of verse 216 says that the person who finds fighting unappealing must still fight. These people who do not like fighting do not know what is best for themselves, but God does according to verse 216.

A Buddhist practitioner can go to war. The justification for hurting an individual who has crossed one’s path or boundary is to imagine that they are not human. It requires a conceptual imagination that suggests that the practice of Buddhism is valid or invalid depending on the given circumstance. Jarod Whitaker (2012) takes a look at the study of Warfare in Buddism and finds out that there are scenarios when Buddhist scriptures can be tailored to fit a clear-cut situation. For example, if one needs to terminate someone absolutely because they are in the face of adversity with no other option than to kill, the troubled being internally has to make a decision with regards to the reason they are terminating that victim. The Buddhist soldier at War trains in such a way that they do not have to justify their violent actions. Sri Lanka specifically trains its Buddhist soldiers with an understanding that they need to focus on reducing negative energy. The negative energy arises from negative forces of Karma that

“If I were asked to define the Hindu creed, I should simply say: Search after truth through non-violent means. A man may not believe in God and still call himself a Hindu. Hinduism is a relentless pursuit after truth... Hinduism is the religion of truth. Truth is God.”

During the 20th century America has been involved in many conflicts that have led to war or the taking up of arms against other humans and nations. Although the vast majority of Americans have blindly accepted these actions throughout the century, more and more people are seeing war as morally wrong. Reasons for this epiphany are based off of a variety of things and encompass many other aspects related to war and killing examples include: due to moral and ethical principles, objection to war due to strong religious beliefs, the objection to violence due to the same ideals above, objection to the government's use of force, and the objection to the use of weapons of mass destruction. Being a conscientious objector is fairly uncommon in the United States military but there are those who have served have identified as one.

Another interesting example of injustice against a group of people is the Cambodian genocide. The hardships and the pains that the Cambodian people went through during the mass genocide of the people of Cambodia were horrible and was largely overlooked by the rest of the world. The heart wrenching story of how over 20 percent of the entire nation’s population was wiped out in a blink of the eye by Pol Pot. His rule over the country influenced a horrid regime of terrible tragedies and it was only noticed and talked about more than ten years after the fact. The biggest relation of this piece of terrible tragedy to injustice had to do with how the media didn’t even acknowledge the event until ten years after it had happened and that the UN still has not officially recognized the event as genocide. As a result other events around the world have not been called genocide and don’t get the support they need.

Hindus have to be patient in their religion to achieve their peacefulness. Hindus are also known to be very friendly. Having such characteristics would greatly empower our whole society no matter what religion someone is from.

From the lavish beginnings in a wealthy kingdom nestled within the Himalayan foothills of Nepal, Siddhartha Gautama’s transformation into the Buddha and the start of Buddhism was based off of and due to confronting constant human suffering in everyday life. Abandoning his regal life in pursuit of spiritual insight, Siddhartha sought to understand the problem of human suffering and propose remedies, if any, to such a condition. Verses, lectures, and sutras transcribed in scriptures by Buddha’s followers offer an other worldly perspective to endure the hardships and how to conduct oneself harmoniously in society especially with the concept of Inner Peace. The truth goal of Buddhism is to attain peace within oneself, detaching oneself from worldly suffering, attaining enlightenment, and eventually reaching a state of escaping the cycle of suffering, the state of Nirvana. Even though there are many sects of the Buddhist faith, this essay focuses on the shared peace practices and beliefs Buddhism promotes, especially the concept of inner peace through reflection. Buddhism is known widely as a religion of peace and non-violence, though there are outlying examples contrary to the point such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and etc., the concept of achieving inner peace and living harmoniously no matter what views one has can promote a positive society.