Buddhism is in essence a peaceful religion which advocates detachment from the material world in order to achieve nirvana and stop the cycle of rebirth. There is no deity per se. However, many concepts of demons and deities were added such as Bodhisattvas, saints and praising large Buddha statues and statues of dead lamas. As well as the addition to local deities from the countries that adopted Buddhism
Buddha himself did not proclaim himself to be a deity. There is a saying...Buddha (who was once a very rich prince with a wife and son) said "In order to gain everything, you must first loose everything", from this concept he was (as legend says) able to defeat the demon of illusion Maya and his own ego...leading him to become the enlightened one. Buddhists aim to live a peaceful life in the hopes that every rebirth is better so that they can at some point reach Nirvana themselves. Accomplished though the "middle way" and following the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path.
Truly, Buddhism is one of the most fascinating religions I ever had the pleasure to study in my wold religion class a few years back. As interesting as the Hindu religion which I learned a lot about as well.
Yes there is Buddhist extremism. Those monks and nuns who self immolate (burn themselves alive) as protests for Tibet being illegally conquered by China.
Jewish terrorists? Yes there is such a thing, it's called Peace Now- because siding with terrorists that kill your brethren makes them terrorists themselves.
Chritian terrorists...well there are the super freaks like the Westborough hate church that aims to terrorize people's minds. But there are the conservative ones who bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors. Not that abortion clinics are great but to bomb them is stooping to a terrorist level.
Hindu extremism, also yes. From the sati burning rituals to local terror against chrristian preachers in India.
Jainism- is just absolutely peaceful, Sikhism pride themselves as warriors and many of their leaders were martyred by moslims. But there is a level of militarism and attacks (such as the assassination of Indira Gandhi etc).
Yup no religion is without bloodshed.
However...
None of these groups, ever proclaim a holy war, kidnap and behead people while filming it, kidnap christian girls and force them to convert and marry them, pass fatwas against people, commit suicide murder, plot to do mass killings and shed blood in order to conquer the world. None of these people vow to kill innocent civilians over drawing cartoons over mohammad. Two earopeans draw the cartoon and they declare all european blood to shed for it. That is actually quite demonic
I love world religions by the way- (except for Islami). Nowadays I only study Judaism but in college I tool as many world religion classes as possible because it's just fascinating.
