While it may seem odd to speak of extremist views for Buddhists, they do exist, and on a number of occasion we have had to deal with them. These situations may be covered by the more general moderation rules, but the moderators and I felt it was worth making an explicit policy to cover extremist views.
Advocating extremist views is banned on this forum.
- Anyone advocating hateful views will be banned without warning.
- Anyone advocating non-hateful extremist views will be warned, and if they persist, banned.
If you see something that you think might violate this policy, please help us out by flagging it. The moderators will attend to your flag and see if any action is required.
What is an extremist view?
Generally it refers to views that blithely reject well-established facts. The views themselves may or may not be hateful, but they are always delusional. Such views seem like an innocuous theory, but they often aim at creating a nationalist, sectarian fundamentalism.
It is not possible to define these with precision, so I will decide on a case by case basis, with consultation if necessary.
We are concerned primarily with Buddhist extremist views, but other forms of anti-reality extremism are included, such as climate change denial.
Examples of hateful views include anti-semitic, homophobic, misogynist, racist, and pro-nazi ideas.
Examples of non-hateful extremist views include:
- The Buddha was born in Sri Lanka.
- Anicca doesnât mean impermanence.
- The original Pali manuscripts at Aluvihara exist.
- Pali fundamentalism (Chinese texts are all Mahayana, etc.).
What gets you banned?
Advocating in favour of such a view, after a warning, will result in a permanent ban. If it is a hateful view, however, there will be no warning.
Asking about or generally discussing such views is a grey area. Someone may innocently want to simply clarify what such a view is about, or what the issue is. So that is fine.
But such questions or suggestions, asked persistently, can be used as a way of trolling while escaping the ban. Experienced trolls will say things like, âI wonder if it could be true that âŚâ âWe canât know for sure that âŚâ.
If anyone persists in raising such issues in this kind of leading manner after being warned, they will be banned.