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Did Buddhism become a major religion by the quality of its truth? I am doubtful ...
Your doubts are well-founded. Buddhist religious violence is very much a real thing.
Right, but my understanding is that historically Buddhism did not spread through violence. My point was more that religion can spread for reasons that aren't either violence or truth.
And Buddhist violence is mostly a result of British colonialism and the rise of nationalism, rather than something about the religion itself (whereas Christianity more directly encourages violence, especially against heathens, Muslims, etc.).
Your Euro-centric history does not mean nothing happened elsewhere
true, but lack of evidence isn't evidence for something ...
Joseon was at times violently anti-Buddhist
Whether the creation of Joseon was in reaction to Buddhist oppression or the anti-Buddhist movement was to secure legitimacy from Confucians is lost to history (read up to interpretation) but it still occurred
Islam exists because a warlord needed to control his territories, no idea why you would think they got violence from Christianity
Speculation that violence against Buddhists in Korea could imply maybe Buddhists were violent too is not only poor reasoning, but unnecessary when we have actual examples of Buddhist violence we could examine, for example in Sri Lanka or Myanmar. My point about Buddhist violence being a result of colonialism was more about the lack of evidence that Buddhism spread using violence.
I don't see how Joseon provides an example of Buddhism spreading through violence, and even from your statement it doesn't even seem like an example of Buddhist violence at all.
And your statement about Islam seems unrelated to my comments, I never suggested Islam "got violence from Christianity", so overall I'm feeling a lot of confusion from your response.
I disagree with the whole premise of this post as well, but yeah the early history of the spread of Buddhism actually does contain a lot of this. The emperor Ashoka, who ruled most of India at one point, spread Buddhism across his empire by force, which was a major factor early on in its trajectory. Buddhism and Christianity actually have pretty similar early histories, complete with councils to determine doctrine, early spread among lower classes, and eventual adoption as state religions of powerful states. Even today there is still a lot of sectarian violence committed by Buddhists, particularly in the Myanmar/Burma civil war.
A lot of atheists in the west think of Buddhism as being more of a moral philosophy than a religion but that's not really true. Buddhism has gods and demons and heavens and hells, and rules one has to follow. It is often said that Buddhism doesn't believe in "God" but this is kind of misleading because there are definitely beings pretty much everyone would agree are gods even if they are technically mortal or are seen differently, such as the Buddhas.
Ashoka converted to Buddhism because of his experiences with war, and only did so after conflicts ended. I'm not sure this would really count as spreading Buddhism with violence, but I get that it's a bit like violence which resulted in an emperor taking power who later converted to Buddhism, so Buddhism is getting second-hand benefits from the violence that was committed before (though not to spread Buddhism directly, the way colonialism spread Christianity through violence directly).
And yes, I think the contemporary sectarian violence is a good example of Buddhist violence, though I'm not as familiar with historical examples.
And yes again, Westerners have a poor concept of Buddhism, it's a religion like any other - it was a sect of Hinduism, and has its own complicated cosmology and beliefs that are broadly incompatible with science. There are Buddhist modernist apologists (see: What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula) who argue that the historical Buddha did teach a belief system that is compatible with contemporary Western beliefs, but this relies on cherry-picking and ignoring the majority of what Buddhism actually is in the world, i.e. it fabricates a new kind of Buddhism from a narrow selection of scripture. It's mostly a response to colonialism and a form of assimilation that tries to take the upper hand, and a rather successful one in that it has played a role in Buddhism being uncritically adopted in the West, especially by psychologists, scientists, and industry (like Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which claims to be secular while promoting Buddhist soteriological goals).
Can you imagine if a "secularized" version of Christian prayer was being promoted to treat insomnia, depression, stress, etc., that is essentially what's going on currently.
If anyone is interested in learning more:
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism by David McMahan
- Why I Am Not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson
- The Birth of Insight by Erik Braun