I was at the Hare Krishna Festival of the Chariots at Venice Beach today and missed news of

[coalition_unwilling]

the Oak Creek Sikh Temple mass shooting. I only found out about it just now when I got home.

Not sure what commonalities if any Sikhs have with Hare Krishna believers, but I can tell you that the Krishna folks my wife and I met today were a uniformly beautiful people. The chariots were absolutely beautiful and the women's dresses and makeup were absolutely breathtaking. The Krishnas had a kitchen set up at Windward Circle providing free meals to anyone who wanted one, no questions asked and no proselytizing whatsoever (other than a genially offered 'Hare Krishna').

I"ll do a separate post about the Festival later (complete with some of my wife's awesome photos), but I really don't understand how or why anyone would do such a hateful thing to such a self-effacing group of people. I'm really starting to get sick of America and my fellow Americans. This country has very few redeeming virtues left, imo.

[JI7]

1. religion is different but many culturual similtaries because they all tend to be indian

stuff like clothing, food, music would be same.

[coalition_unwilling]

5. Once I leave Protestant-Catholic theology, I have a hard time keeping various

doctrinal differences straight. About the only thing I can say for sure is that Hare Krishna does not consider itself Buddhist. This I garnered from speaking with a Krishna follower from Orange County. He assured me that Krishna viewed Buddha as 'enlightened' but took great pains to say Krishna was not Buddhist. I suppose I inferred from that some sort of commonality between Krishna and Hinduism. But I'm a perfect walking illustration of Pope's aphorism that "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing"

[JI7]

7. there are more similarities with buddhism and hinduism than with Sikhs in terms of the religion

itself. but culturally sikhs and hindus would be more similar.

but yeah, buddhism and hinduism are different religions.

i actually grew up in Hindu family. but we were not raised in a religious way. so i don't really know much about the specifics about the religion. i am atheist and only attend "religious" functions if family wants me to. and even then it's more about a celebration with food, music , dancing etc rather than discussion of the religion. and that stuff is usually similar to sikhs.

also another difference is meat eating. for hindus they would never serve meat at a temple. but sikhs do. sikhs are also less likely to be vegetarian. many hindus are not vegetarian but they don't serve meat at temple .

but even the above isn't consistent. i think the Sikh Prime minister of India is a vegetarian even though most sikhs aren't. this came up during the state dinner obama held where they served vegetarian food with the sikh pm.

[CherokeeDem]

2. I agree with your comment....

"I'm really starting to get sick of America and my fellow Americans. This country has very few redeeming virtues left, imo."

Almost my exact words when talking to friends. I am ashamed of the behavior of some Americans and the tolerance that America as a nation seems to have with these events.

We lament and empathize with the victims, yet do nothing to stop these senseless shootings from happening.

[RKP5637]

4. We've become a nation of professional mourners with few solutions and

MSM milks it for all the profit they can.

[JI7]

6. well, you have to also look at all the people who reached out to this community, the cop who risked

their lives to prevent more people from getting shot . there are a lot of good people.

but the right wing hate just seems to be given a louder voice than they deserve. the media is at fault here also . this type of stuff should be condemned. all the stuff about Obama not being born here and the idiots who claim that just being thought of as "one side of the issue". it's a matter of fact.

all this chick fila crap. people coming out waiting in long lines to show their support for hate ????

people like Bachmann and the muslim brotherhood crap. accusing people of that. no condemnation from Mitt ROmney on that. what a fucking loser.

in 2008 you at least had a republican presidential candidate who did not allow that type of crap. we don't have that this time.

[freshwest]

9. +1

[RKP5637]

3. In my lifetime I've watched America become a country full of hatred. True, there

was always some of that, and true, other countries are far worse, but we could be far better. Much of America in my lifetime has fallen in love with hatred and violence or threats there of. It has just become a totally different place, and not for the better IMO.

[ellisonz]

8. Hari Bol!

I don't understand how people can do such awful things. I think we all just need to work hard on love and nonviolence.