Fact: There is no consensus among Buddhists re: gays and lesbians.
Fact: There is no consensus among Buddhists re: abortion.
You can whine all you like about liberal Buddhists. Doesn't change the facts.
Again, the scriptures that bound Buddhism say otherwise:
So now you not only get to define xianity, you get to define Buddhism too?
There are differing interpretations of Buddhist texts, just as there are differing interpretations of xian texts.
Heh..... From your own source
The title of the page:
Two negative behaviors by Hindus:
The caste system & denigration of women
Translation for Juggs: Two SEPARATE negative behaviors by Hindus.
Caste has
nothing whatosever to do with the way women are treated in a Hindu society.
The bias against females in India is related to the fact that "Sons are called upon to provide the income; they are the ones who do most of the work in the fields. In this way sons are looked to as a type of insurance. With this perspective, it becomes clearer that the high value given to males decreases the value given to females." (Marina Porras, "Female Infanticide and Foeticide".)
The problem is also intimately tied to the institution of dowry, in which the family of a prospective bride must pay enormous sums of money to the family in which the woman will live after marriage. Though formally outlawed, the institution is still pervasive.
http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html
Neither has to do with caste.
You are referring to this quote, I am assuming:
"In India, for example, because of Hindu beliefs and the rigid caste system, young girls were murdered as a matter of course. When demographic statistics were first collected in the nineteenth century, it was discovered that in "some villages, no girl babies were found at all; in a total of thirty others, there were 343 boys to 54 girls. ... (I)n Bombay, the number of girls alive in 1834 was 603."
Here is the full quote:
In many cultures, government permitted, if not encouraged, the killing of handicapped or female infants or otherwise unwanted children. In the Greece of 200 B.C., for example, the murder of female infants was so common that among 6,000 families living in Delphi no more than 1 percent had two daughters. Among 79 families, nearly as many had one child as two. Among all there were only 28 daughters to 118 sons. ... But classical Greece was not unusual. In eighty-four societies spanning the Renaissance to our time, "defective" children have been killed in one-third of them. In India, for example, because of Hindu beliefs and the rigid caste system, young girls were murdered as a matter of course.
It is from a book,
Death by Government, by R.J. Rummel.
As you can see from the full quote, female infanticide is an ancient, cross-cultural practice. 85 societies! And only one, India, has a caste system.
So I'm not sure why Rummel chose to ascribe female infanticide to "Hindu beliefs and the rigid caste system", since it is clear from his evidence that some other factors are at work.
Furthermore, I can find no other source for this bizarre idea.
On the contrary:
What does Hinduism teach about the roles of women?
In the Vedas there is no separate or discriminatory role for women. But almost all societies in the past have been male dominated and Hindu societies have been no exception.
In the Smriti texts, particularly Manu Smriti, the role of women is often described as one of running the household, serving the husband and bearing his children, especially sons.
In order to enforce this it was often projected as having divine sanction. The best thing that may be said about such thinking is that it may have been socially relevant at the time it was promulgated.
Today most Hindus do not believe that such a role has been ordained by God and women today are moving towards equality, though perhaps not as fast as those in the west. Unfortunately some of the more conservative Hindus including women do believe that these roles have divine sanction.
Can women be spiritual teachers?
This was looked down upon, maybe even prohibited at one time. But the prohibition was a result of male domination and
not scriptural edict. Today there are quite a few women spiritual teachers.
http://www.hinduism.suite101.com/...iptures__women_and_caste
From the point of view of contemporary popularity three specific texts are regarded as the holiest of the holy. These are the Bhagavata Purana, the Bhagwad Gita (which a part of the Mahabharata) and Ram Charit Manas (which is a version of the Ramayana written by Tulsidas Goswami in the sixteenth century).
None of which mention a subservient role for women.
On the contrary:
Women's Issues:
It seems from the above that the ancient society was quite considerate and respectful to those (both men and women) engaged in various vocations, and people were free to make choices or changes in their careers or skills if the opportunity existed.
Vedic prayers also indicate that the women had considerable say in selecting their marriage partners, and were espoused to live in monogamous relationships while enjoying same rights as their husbands.
Furthermore, in the Vedas there is little evidence of child marriages, dowry system and the practice of suttee or sati (self-immolation of a woman upon her husband's death).
Similarly, there is no indication of any stigma relating to widowhood or the remarriage of a widow.
Note also that the well-educated, scholarly and charismatic women of yore, who also participated in many philosophical debates with men, included Gargi (the daughter of Vachaknu - from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) and Vidyottama (wife of the famed poet and writer, Kaalidasa, who started his life as a humble and menial worker in the woods). It is clear that the women or the lowly and humble in the society were neither ignored nor abandoned.
http://www.geocities.com/lamberdar/_caste.html
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