deff said:

loving everyone includes loving oneself... which would imply taking actions to ensure one's own level of happiness is maintained in addition to others'

non-violence is not the same as absolute pacifism, I think sometimes there's rationale behind opposing injustice without becoming unjust yourself - take gandhi for example

also - the people who are into abusing others are often their own worst enemies - as their abuse and the related worldview that justifies it acts like a prison for them. let the example of your own positive mindset and actions spread to others - it's the only way to rid the world of non-virtue

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Nunbuh_Chrubble said:

Many world religions tell us to have love and compassion towards our abusers. This is an awfully convenient attitude for an abuser, and in fact favors the abuser and allows them to continue at it.

Discuss.

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Nunbuh_Chrubble said:

Yeah, that's nice. But Ghandi was actually kind of a douchebag, and pakistan and india are still on the brink of annihilating each other.

I guess I'm talking more from an institutional perspective in the sense that the church is always used by the state to pacify the population.

The kind of attitude I'm suggesting needs to be examined is that the victim should feel compassion for the abuser, rather than attend to their own healing first and foremost (and if you ask people who have been abused, they will tell you that this is the kind of advice they were given from their close ones).

The dynamic of an abusive household revolves around keeping the abuser appeased, keeping them comfortable. When somebody is recovering from abuse, is it beneficial to tell them that this was simply a purification of their karma? That they need to see things from the abuser's perspective and have compassion for their suffering? Or is there another, more dignified way for a victim to feel free from the guilt and shame and self loathing and ANGER that they have? Because these are the lasting scars of abuse. And the victim goes about their daily life, never feeling safe while knowing that the abuser is living an undisturbed life.

"But the ultimate consequences in the afterlife..." you start to say. Yeah yeah yeah. I do have faith in an afterlife, but I'm not going to let some paternalistic fairly tale shackle the minds of good spiritual people and allow them to defer justice to some intangible realm.

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Quote:

In 1984, after the Indian invasion of the Sikh Golden Temple and slaughter of several thousand Sikhs, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (no relation to M.K. Gandhi) appealed to Gandhism as a justification for her authorization of the military action, saying, “Mahatma Gandhi, in his time, accepted that necessity.” She was right. Gandhi supported achieving political ends through bloodshed, saying in 1922, “I would have India become free even by violence rather than that she should remain in bondage.” Years after this comment, Gandhi endorsed the Indian military’s annexation of Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Junagarh, states which currently remain in “bondage” to India. In 1961, after seizing Goa, Diu, and Daman, Prime Minister Nehru, a close friend of Gandhi’s till the latter’s death, truthfully commented that the military venture was “entirely in keeping” with Gandhi’s philosophy. These invocations of Gandhism are propaganda clearly used to assuage the Western conscience about India's shadowy massacres of minorities.

http://www.gandhism.net/relevance.php

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Sorry to break it too you, but Gandhi was full of shit, and he was a racist. LOL.

And Gandhi's movement was hardly singly responsible for the defeat of the British. I'm not a huge history buff, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of people died in riots, etc fighting the british occupiers. I don't think the Brits were like "man, you know it's really hurting us every time we have to beat down a bunch of these hippies. All these silent vigils and hunger strikes are making it impossible to keep control. Let's just leave this land, it's not worth it... that darn Gandhi character!"

Quote:

This doesn't mean you sit idlely and take abuse. You stand up for yourself, but you do it in the name of love and compassion, not hatred and anger.

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