Killing the Dalai Lama

What is wrong with people?
I wrote a bit then realized I never summed up what the hell I'm talking about. Go here, Al-Qaeda threatened to kill the Dalai Lama.

I bust on religion pretty hard around here but how could anyone be so upset by the Dalai Lama that they would kill themselves to try to kill him? First off its a bad plan from the fact that he is believed to be the reincarnation of the original Lama, meaning if you kill him he's only going to be replaced by someone else. Then there is the fact that at least by my limited knowledge Buddhism is one of the better religions, I mean its all about finding "god" in yourself. I know there are some issues with Karma, namely that if a baby is born with problems it is assumed they were a bad person in their last life and therefore should not be pitied. But all and all their pretty good folks. And of them religious leaders the Dalai Lama is about the only one I would actually care to meet. He is not afraid of science, he realizes that the world has changed in the thousands of years since his holy texts were written, new information is available. He says that it is wrong to hold on to out dated dogmas in the face of new evidence. Of course the fact that they don't believe in an omnipotent god makes this view far easier to accept than it would be in other religions. Which leads me to this lovely quote.

in a recent document, Osama bin Laden denounced "pagan Buddhism" as part of his general attack on anything not Islamic.

(most) Buddhists don't believe in a single "god" how the fuck can they be Pagan you twit!?! Now I'm obviously no fan of Bin Laden, but before I always at least considered him mildly intelligent. He's a pretty impressive guerilla fighter, I mean he's now had Russia trying to kill him when they were a superpower, then he pissed of the US and yet the bastards still alive, he can't be stupid. If you want to hate them for not being Muslim thats one thing but at least have a better excuse than calling them pagans. If he was talking about Hindu it would be more understandable, but I'm not going to let myself get side tracked onto explaining why Hinduism is NOT polytheistic. Seriously folks Buddhists aren't threatening, at least in recent times you don't here much about fundamentalist Buddhists, it just doesn't work. They don't kill others for having the "wrong" beliefs. So back off. Of course if your dealing with a suicide bomber appealing to reason might not be the best route and so they are going with more security, makes sense. I haven't read enough by the Lama to know but I have been told that he's not accepting of gays, but all things considered thats not surprising. Given his track record of open-mindedness (at least by religious leader standards) he, or one of his successors, will probably change this someday.

Silly terrorists.