As you know, organised religion has corrupted, divided, and damaged a lot of the world. Our principle of religious tolerance can only go so far - for religions dont share this trait.

We follow the Yasa, a code of ethics without the 'we will go to hell if we dont follow' mentality. We can see the genuinity of principles of other codes as well in religion (bible, koran, etc) - but we should not be pawns of the organisations' will.

Spiritual islam or spiritual christianity is much different to the religion that the majority of these people practise, and we should continue to be tolerant of them - but when it comes to the institutionalised and hateful aspects of them we should make sure we are vigilant against their influence.

Sometimes we are completely alien in our thinking when others around the world have these very interesting yet pathetic mentalities; 'I'm black, you're white' (racial colour thinking), 'You are going to hell' (religious thinking), 'men are superior to women' (chauvanistic thinking), which goes against our principles of racial equality, religious tolerance and respect of women and their own freedom.

No other nation in the world held nations in 3 continents in a contigous land empire with autonomy of foreign cultures within our borders - that is why we're different, when it was said that a woman could walk from one end of the empire to the other with a pot of gold and not be robbed during our prime. In foreign standards we are a 'mixed' race, but we see ourselves as Mongolian - they dont understand our ways.

In the end our culture itself transcends the principles of organised religion tenfold - but be warned - they will use many aspects of yourself to try and convert you, these are:
1) Guilt of past crimes
2) Fear of the unknown
3) Promise of a better life
4) Promise of the afterlife
5) Compassion and charity
6) Greed and materialism
7) Religious elitism
8) Division from your family

So if you must walk into a church or mosque - keep both eyes open and look out for those 8 - plus other ways (they are very sneaky people) that they will use to try and convert you. It is the very sad mentality of the world's major religions. For me, I remain Mongol and if anything - I will continue to follow the lord of the eternal blue sky, Tengri.

Yeah mate...people take religion too seriously. Religion divides two tribes, two families and even two brothers. I've seen this happen to people that I love. Believing in God is something personal, you don't need to show that you believe in Allah, Buddha or Jesus. In my country Qataghan (Northern Afghanistan now) I've seen Naiman killing Orta Balaaq...brother killing brother, for religion, ones shia and the otherz sunni. I don't know how it works, but religious people know how to brain wash.

Lets put it this way, religion can't solve the problems societies have.

Exactly - and the last thing I want is this senseless division to continue. Sometimes you can be just too nice and people take advantage of you, not just Islamics should be evicted from Mongolia. But those bloody Korean missionaries - they're flooding in Mongolia - just convert their women and them and send the rest back home to build their european churches.

Can always do what the Afghans did.

lol Subo^^

but mate, the problem is that some societies are so into religion that they are not ready to liston to you. thats how religion creates barriers between openions and produces closed-minded and intolerant human beings. the world is getting more and more complicated and everythings moving forward, religion is usless unless you do something about your people's situation and future.

I understand - there are just a few key religious leaders in power and the rest pawns of their will. The pawns are innocent of all this and though deluded we can't hate them; just like that Christian mate of yours who was crying right in front of you and when you asked him why he was crying he said "because you're such a good person I don't want you to go to hell"
Oh such an innocent heart but at the same time such stupidity lol

Islamics and Fundamentalists produce violent pawns however - what are we to do? We kill one he becomes a martyr, we can't reach the top of their leadership either by constantly targeting the pawns. Perhaps we should keep our eyes focused on those who are really to blame - their leaders.

In the meantime - we should make sure Islam or Christianity doesn't infiltrate our motherland. But if we truly wish to have the standard of religious tolerance - our people should be educated about their ways as much as possible.

But Tibetan Buddhaism have changed Mongolia from roof to root! Since Manchurian forced us to accept it, our wolf nature and tough character vanished graudually, nowadays, we are abosolutly a crowd of lambs. We are bullied, killed and raped by bloody enemies, our land was distributed by two super power.
What benefits have we won through Tibetan Budhism,? There are five answers.
Nature of Warrior was left behind
General character lost
Vast Empire lost
Breakdown of brotherhood(for example, there is no people at least one, to organise an amy to asist Hazara brothers).
Self-reliance!

Pffft, I wouldn't call us a crowd of lambs; Sukhbaatar was no lamb. We were surrounded by two powerful nations yet we fought and won our independence. We weren't occupied long enough for our culture and traditions to be fully assimilated. However I can see how it can be worse if we allow religion to subdue us slowly like a disease.

Religion is a DISEASE - and you can see how it has corrupted much of the world. The point of this thread is that our traditional culture, our values and beliefs - that has to stand. We have to educate our people in its ways and the dangers that it brings to our motherland. We have been strong thus far compared to other nations, but if we become lax - we'll start being just another nation in the map, no longer anything unique.

So in the end - fu-k RELIGION, remember who we are deep down at heart!

Shamanism ? haha

So, you fight organized religion, with organized religion? Defeats the purpose.

Tengriism is far from organised

A religion doesn't last without set guidelines rules, ect. And people must have simular beleifs, ect. Thus it's still organized.

It doesn't preach religions intolerance - I DO
For obvious reasons clarified above on first post

As long as our people remain educated, I'm cool.

classic!

You are atheist, that's cool, I prefer us to remain Atheist or Tengriist then anything else.

So what do you believe? And how do you make you tough when set backs forwarding you?

I believe in a higher being; I just call myself tengriist bc I call him Tengri, and that's about it.

Everything I do in life - I do by myself. I dont pray, I dont blame others for my mistakes or Tengri himself, just my belief
I dont look down on other beliefs until they go 'you are going to hell if you dont believe!'
Which christianity and islam does and which it divides our people

I wouldnt call my belief - organised religion. Our core belief is based on the principles of the Yasa, it is time we go back to it .

Exactly!
We like sheer freedom both on spiritual and material things! Nowadays, we live in a world full of invisible burdens. Those burdens are too heavy for us to exert our free feeling and thought!

Then spread the word to all Mongolians worldwide from Asia to Europe to the Middle-East to Africa and re-unite us

Great union of all Mongolian!

One step at a time though - first, we must make sure we are educated, then educate our brothers and sisters with the history and realities of religion, then we can re-unite us

aah rape & pilleaging my fav traditions

I'm reading "Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world" by Jack Weatherford.
Well I've just started. Seems like a nice book. You guys should check it out, too.

Unshtsoon.

The whole world kinda needs to read it

Yep that's true! =]
I like how it says at the beginning
"To the Young Mongols:
Never forget the Mongolian scholars who were willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve your history."

Before you disparage Tibetan Buddhism again, you really need to ask yourself why only your people (Inner Mongolians), among the Mongolic race, has by and large willfully chosen to embrace assimilation of another people's culture.

Because commie china forces us to?

Wrong answer.

We Kalmyks have managed to retain our heritage in spite of severe Communist persecution.

Funny, considering not long ago, there were news reports of china forcing people to stop nomadic life styles.

Big deal. The Russian Commies outlawed pastoral nomadism among Kalmyks, Tuvanians, Buryats and Central Asians in the 1920s. Yet we all are still here.

Still here, but you were just talking about the loss of our culture. I would say that this goes into that category.

My point is Inner Mongolians (not all though) have accepted and have even warmly embraced Sinicization, usually at the expense of their native heritage. And MW cannot and should not blame Tibetan Buddhism for this outcome.

This I agree with.

You talk about how you have retained Mongolian character through Tibetan Buddhism. So you were able to protect your original heritage by dropping your ancestor's pagan beliefs and adopt a foreign religion that hails from Tibet, complete with all the scripts and teachings that are completely non-Mongol in origin. Good show.

Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. Kalmyks synthesized their pagan beliefs with Tibetan Buddhism to form Kalmyk Buddhism 400 years ago. We still observe the traditional pagan holidays, but it's intermixed with Tibetan prayer services.

The fact that our religion hails from Tibet is irrelevant. Tibetans are also a nomadic people, and we Kalmyks have more in common with them than the Muslim Central Asian people you appear to be infatuated with.

Hi dude!
I never abuse tibetan buddhaism and Tibetan. I just make a list of what we have earned from Tibetan Budahhism! You are a good source of Mongolian history, so you must know what happened to Mongolia after our people accept this religion!

Okay great, so you share affinities with a people who used our country for indoctrination and turned from a warrior, pagan state into a superstitious theocracy. Yeah, real great choice of brethren you got there. At least those Muzzie Central Asians used to share the same exact religious beliefs as ours and fought alongside us as soldiers of Genghis Khan, unlike Tibet, what real connection is there with Mongolia before 500 years ago? Plus, just the fact that the Central Asian countries are independent and Tibet is a pathetic, superstitious province under China makes me give more respect to the Central Asians than them.

I wasn't going to step in but now I will...

Enough of this fu-king division, this is the very $hit I'm talking about. We are all Altaics here - Tibetans, Kalmyks, Central Asians - we are one race. Looking down on inner-Mongolians isn't going to help us, look at Bigmonkey's father for a prime example, he and his son has maintained their heritage to this day and proud of it. There are some chinafied but it's nothing we can't change, Mongol Warrior is already coming around to see the light. Nor is it wise to look down on Tibetans who contributed much to our Mongol culture NOR is it wise to look down on other Altaics in central asian just because they adopted Islam.

I don't see how Tibetans have anything to do with Altaic people since they don't even speak an Altaic language (Sino-Tibetan), they don't have the same common ancestors (not Haplogroup-C3), never shared the same ancient religion (Tengrism), and never fought together with the Altaic nomads. Also, I don't see how their religion did Mongolia any good except turn it from a nomadic warrior, equal society into a pacifistic theocratic, aristocratic society. The Dark Ages of Mongolia of the 1700s-1900s is the same exact period where Tibetan Buddhism was imposed on our people and our government including where we were a part of the Chin Empire. I'm not hating on Tibetans or their right to practice their religion, I just don't find it useful and find it extremely superstitious, dogmatic, and irrational.

It's no more irrational than islam.

Dude, where did I give credence to Islam over Buddhism? I only gave Buddhism $hit because it was the only main religion that had detrimental effects on our country. While Islam is also a false and unscientific, superstitious religion, I am not ready to spend my precious time on it since it really had no impact on Mongolia.

You're forgetting one thing. Temujin, and his line preached religious freedom, weather it's your religion or not, if people willingly follow a religion, you must respect their decision.

@AltaicUnity

They're the cute orange-colored monks of our empire

Tibetan Buddhism doesnt mean that we have to adopt all their beliefs as Buzava already pointed out. It is certainly not as rigid as Christianity or Islam. They still have a nomadic culture, perhaps they dont share our blood but does that really mean they can't be part of our civilisation?

Remember it was the Manchus not the Tibetans that tried to assimilate our culture.



Yes but religious tolerance to a point. I've met both SPIRITUAL christians and muslims who do not follow the doctrines or organised ways of their mainstream religion. The organisation of religion however - I can't say I will ever be tolerant of that.

Yeah, they tried to assimilate our culture by imposing Tibetan Buddhism, and it worked! We effectively became a pacifist people, losing the desire to fight, instead yearn for an inevitable and delusional future of nirvana living in ignorant bliss no matter the fact of having our national pride and independence stripped. And yes, Buddhism is more liberal than Christianity and Islam, but it also doesn't help that Lamaism was the most dogmatic sect of the Buddhism either.

I don't see any religion stripping my pride if I indeed followed a religion.

He said that to quell the religious bickering caused in the first place because of religious intolerance among the religious people! It took a pagan warrior to mandate tolerance to stop these civilized societies from waging war against each other over fairy tales and false illusions.

And how is shamanism not superstitious?