on a serious note, is there a reason why most koreans are angry at other koreans who say they are other religions besides christian?

my buddy's mom told him that he was a christian even though he converted to buddhism. he even told her that there were korean buddhist and korea used to be mainly buddhist but now that christinity entered, everything changed.

but his mom kept telling him to shut up and that he IS christian so they would argue back and forth how he would explain to her there are korean buddhists and his mom would say " yea prove it" or "i dont care"

so korean christians hate korean buddhists for some reason?

btw, mc sniper is also a buddhist.

Many Koreans are buddhist. I know many Christians that switched to Buddhism and vice versa.

... I'm Buddhist. =)

Buddhism > christianity

My opinion is godly, none can oppose it.

My family on my mother's side use to be buddhist, then they turned christian. I'm not sure about my dad's side.

protestant christianity especially the korean version fits better with korean mentality and culture than budhism imo.

Ditto. Dunno wut u mean by Korean version of Christianity though.

Do they use the "Since you don't believe in God, you're going to Hell, while I'm going to Heaven" line on the young'ns?

I recalled around 1990's, when Korean christians and buddhists clashed, Korean christians besieged Buddhist temple and burned it down. Chinese and Japanese (low number of Christians in both countries) were shocked. I think it's ridiculous.

wow, thats what I call americanized....

I think 46% of S Koreans are atheists.

Ameriacanized??? dont make me laugh. it's more like 'koreanized'. The christianity in korea is worshipped in somewhat different fashing ... that may even shock americans. I'd call it 'korean christianity'. many of korean chritians (i wouldn't call all korean christians) are fanatics who would attack anyone who defies god and their beliefs. (by 'attack', i don't mean physical attack, but rather verbal attack)

That is without a doubt the most ignorant thing I've ever read.


I've seen numbers like 35%, that seems more correct to me.

According to the CIA world factbook, here is the religious breakdown in SK:



Source: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ks.html

I never heard of that before. I never saw any violence between Korean Christians and Korean Buddhists. And I didn't see any verbal violence between them (at least not on front of each other). There might've been one that I wasn't aware of, but I can assure you from living there that there is no religious violence going on. (Yes, I was born in the US, Morgon) Usually, Koreans try not to argue about religion. Korea is diverse on religion, and Korea is tolerant of them.

Unfortunately, I have seen a dispute between Christians and Buddhists, although it was many, many years ago (it must have been at least a dozen years). At that time, I was teaching in a Buddhist-foundation university; they had between 25-33% Christian students. The students tried having a private worship meeting in an empty classroom when a group of Buddhist students violently broke it up. The Christian students came to me, as they knew I was a Christian, but there was little I could do for them, apart from advising them to tread lightly.

Today, I teach in a Christian university and there are a number of non-Christian students. Fortunately, I have not seen any conflicts between the two groups.

I do seem to recall the incident mentioned, but only vaguely.

that's so freaken true. christianity is the most prevalent religion, but atheism is far more prevalent.

Well I think we all know what the CIA also thought was true so I wouldn't take that for the gospel
Doesn't SK have census data on this?

I had to look for the information on burning down the temple, but I found another source:
http://www.buddhapia.com/eng/tedesco/2.html

Very true. I was able to find some other numbers that are fairly different. Not sure about the org this came from.

http://www.krim.org/ow/asia/southkorea.htm

Well thank God for Babel Fish (even though it does a horrid job translating eg "Letter evil ratio 92%"), my Koreans not even nearly good enough to read that.

yeah, those numbers are pretty different from the CIA. And there are other numbers even further off than those. I've seen numbers like 50% Christian, which seems impossible. Apparently they got to 50% because they double counted some protestants (got that conclusion from Wiki so who knows). And what about the Koreans leaving Korea? Perhaps they are mainly Christians? Judging from the number of K churches I've seen in Toronto alone I'd say there must be a good number of Christian Koreans overseas. So that would cause some changes in the demographics? Very confusing figuring out what the numbers really are.

As for the violence, Christianity is mellowing out in SK isn't it? Seems like many kids might not accept their parents religion, just like over here, so maybe that'll cause a large shift in the %s.

hate in general, i think no. but are there some tards who do extreme things, of course. my family was all buddhist at one point. when i became christian, my family thought i was going the wrong path and made fun of me for it. =X well. i don't think buddhists are haters either.


yeah. some of my family members turned christian. im also not sure about my dad's side.




maybe in that range. i did meet a lot of koreans that are agnostic or atheist.

"Buddhist leaders protest the timing of the event as "disrespectful" and "in bad taste" because the Korean and Roman Catholic Churches schedule the mass beatification ceremonies to take place during Buddha's Birthday celebrations, a day sacred to Buddhists and a national holiday."
What a bunch of cry babies. Maybe they shouldn't have scheduled the Buddha's b-day when the Pope was visiting.

Another problem being, there are many cults in Korea that call themselves Christian but are anything but that. Unfortunately, they also tend to get added into the numbers.

Isn't one of the main ones called the Unification Church? It's funny how weird offshoots of Christianity started in East Asia... Like Jesus' younger brother in China Maybe it's because Western Christians were largely kept out and in some cases killed when Christianity started gaining a little ground there?

The UC ("Moonies") has been in Korea for many, many years. When I first lived in Korea twenty-three years ago, there was one of their "churches" located a couple blocks from my house. There are many Christian cults, just as strange and some stranger, that have taken root in the past several years.

As for early Christianity in Korea, timing is everything. When the first protestant missionaries came to Korea, at the end of the 19th C., Korea was in transition from a failing monarchy to a colonized society. Those Western missionaries came as doctors, engineers, teachers, etc. and provided needed services. In the beginning, proselytizing was forbidden, but as King Kojong's private physician and other advisors were missionaries, the rules were somewhat unenforced. Christianity took off and, with the exception of some slow down due to wars and such, really hasn't stopped since.

In my experience, when Koreans take hold of some idea, it becomes assimilated into the culture and is soon uniquely Korean. Religion and philosophy are good examples of that.

@bluelake
Do you know where the UC stands on Buddhism? I mean are they particularly anti-Buddhist? I wonder if there are any UC members on here
Do you know the names of any of the "stranger" cults you mentioned?

Didn't Koreans do kind of the same thing with Confucianism? From what I've read they took it to a whole new level. i.e. the most strictly Confucian society around. Maybe that's not right but it's what I read in a text book

Sorry didn't mean to ask 20 qs but religion in Korea is pretty interesting to me and it seems you have a bit of first hand knowledge so...

Hmmm... Actually, I know very little about the UC. Once, seventeen years ago, my wife and I had a girl from that church knock on our door; she was from Brazil. We invited her in and gave her some refreshments; we just wanted to hear what she had to say--I remember little about it, except that she was quite brainwashed.

Yes, Korean Confucianism (commonly in English referred to as neo-Confucianism) was certainly a very strict form. They were against any other school of thought, so Buddhism and Christianity took quite a beating from them, especially during the Yi Choson dynasty.

What is buddhism really? i never got the chance to really learn about it?! it's so rare in my country to here buddhism

The central tenet of Buddhism is that desire is the cause of suffering. There's a whole belief system that backs that central tenet.

i'm not buddhist but that sounds true!

That figures. I guess it'd be kinda similar to talking to a Mormon or J. Witness.

totally agree

or maybe the buddha's birthday is predetermined for thousands of year

I was kidding. I thought it was pretty obvious. Of course you don't schedule b-days.