2026-05-08
My views on Buddhism
Disclaimer
- Quick Note
- Contains politically sensitive info. Contains criticism of the CCP.
Main
- It seems a little bit unfair that I am criticising Buddhism here, but not also writing criticisms of Hinduism and Islam. Unfortunately, I live in India and criticising Hinduism or Islam carries actual safety risks. Hence I avoid doing it too directly. Buddhism feels relatively safe to criticise.
- I think my strongest criticism of Buddhism is that for any political group to be successful, it needs to use violence with its borders against criminals, and it needs to use violence against foreign enemies.
- Examples
- I think Ashoka converting to Buddhism eventually led to the fall of the Mauryan empire, and made life worse for the citizens. If he had instead just not done much of significance, and did the boring thing - maintained law and order, defended against foreign enemies, collected taxes and so on - then people there would have been happier.
- I think Tibet being Buddhist made it easier for the CCP to colonise them. (I don't know if they would have been colonised if they were not buddhist, that is not a straightforward thought experiment to define or run.)
- Buddhism being this unwilling to use violence to defend their political power, means they actually end up with almost no political power. This is evident if you look at the world map and see who actually has power today.
- I think a standard Buddhist counter to this argument would be that even state violence has longterm consequences, and Buddhism hasn't yet lost the fight for power either since the ideas still exist in culture. And yes, this is true.
- As a second but more minor criticism, I also think Buddhism using a lot of secrecy in their monasteries allows them to hide high rates of abuse (just like catholic priests hiding sexual abuse).
- I strongly prefer if ideological communities of all types across the world used less secrecy and did things more publicly. Trust the marketplace of ideas, trust your ability to defend against enemies, be less afraid of mean people posting comments on the internet. (This comment is not just for buddhists, but all sorts of well-intentioned communities who think secrecy is the way.)
Subscribe
Enter email or phone number to subscribe. You will receive atmost one update per month
Comment
Enter comment