Officials Combat Road Accidents By Monk Prayers

[zakk9]

This is so typical Thai....

This is so typical religion...

[attrayant]

300 monks went to Washington DC and prayed for crime to be reduced. The crime rate went down 20%.

As a 20+ year resident of Washington, D.C., I'd like to see a link to that report. I've never heard of it.

A group of heart patients were prayed for, double blind study style. The group that was prayed for showed real, significant improvement beyond the control group--and the prayers came from Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists.

I'd like to see this research paper also. I've had a google alert set up for for the past few years for the 'healing power of prayer' and haven't seen any positive results. I can show you some studies where the reverse happened (patients got worse when being prayed at).

[ginjag]

Well its not working So what should we try next

All those that have died here will NOT believe in the topic.

[realfunster]

And in other news, overnight a bus crashed into a ditch in Chumpon province , 18 injured.

[HuaHinHim]

I can't see Thailand getting it's act together for generations to come, maybe never, on this or most other issues they face. They seem to feel they are owed something, much like Australian Aborigines, Black South Africans and a host of others. Sometimes I think I care about Thailand more than Thais do

[takkatan in the land]

And people ask me why I didn't marry a Thai.

what I am not able to understand is why there are still men willing to do it.

About this spiritual practice to combat road accidents, is one more nonsense. Spiritual yes but nonsense.

Thai thinking, or absent of thinking could you call it.

What I am worry about is, as someone commented before, that this could be a increment of lack of prevention and responsibility of most of them.

Will be really dangerous for everybody if they may feel themselves protected against accidents and then they dismiss other more important accident preventions, like don't drink or don't drive non-stop whole night long until province or respect the circulation laws.

Otherwise, the bad shape of the most of the thai roads will not help at all to the monks pray.

[SunsetT]

300 monks went to Washington DC and prayed for crime to be reduced. The crime rate went down 20%. Do not be so quick to judge...consciousness shapes reality in many ways, and it has nothing to do with religion. This universe we enjoy is stranger than it seems, and prayer is no solution for stupidity, but prayer has a real aspect and has shown empirical results. A group of heart patients were prayed for, double blind study style. The group that was prayed for showed real, significant improvement beyond the control group--and the prayers came from Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists. Thought and intention can change reality, and do every day. It seems the universe does not care about sects, but cares about compassion and responds to it, or reponds to our desire to be compassionate. We are only beginning to understand how thought influences our environment, just look up how a photon can be treated mathematically as a particle or wave, but not both simultaneously, and when the observer decides how to view the photon it acquires characteristics. It's not magic, it is perfectly natural.

It is is not mystical at all. It is our participation in this place we call our universe.

Happy New Year! Peace, and good things for all of you!

Im sorry Fangferang, but like most idealistic, well meaning, but nieve and gullible to the extreme, so-called 'spiritual' people, you believe any ' fairy stories' like this that you are told or read somewhere in some 'Alternative' publication. But if you wish to claim they are true and expect others to believe them on a public forum like this you really should be responsible enough to quote your sources. In fact I think the Moderators should insist on it.

[takkatan in the land]

While I find prayers by monks useless to reduce traffic accidents, it's fair to mention that there are millions of people in the western world who believe in some magic guy in heaven and who flock to churches every now and then to show him respect. Same same, but different.

Have you read the headline?

Officials Combat Road Accidents By Monk Prayers

I am agree with you that there are people in the whole world who may believe that god is going to protect them from having an accident.

But what's unbelievable here is that police officials are agree and support that.

That's the problem.

There are none so blind than those who are not willing to see.

Can you tell me just one name of some other country where its police officials could think that is this a good prevention method?

[laobali]

Stories like this are great fodder for TV Thai bashers. Any guesses how many pages this will run to? Mine is 6 at least.

So not to be a Thai basher, posters must think that the fodder thrown at us if it is Thai related should be NORMAL, ACCEPTED, TOLERATED, TOOK SERIOUSLY.

In future if some topics are ridiculous, say NO WAY we go along with that..........

No one forces you to take the bait and reply. 9 pages now ... I underestimated at 6!

Edited December 30, 2013 by laobali

[laobali]

I recently helped build a small road network in the UK. Only about 1.5km of single carriage highway and a roundabout along with widening an existing A-Road.

Now these roads were for a new commercial and retail development and were to be adopted by the local council. I dealt with the local authority highways inspector (who was an absolutely fantastic chap, very knowledgeable and helpful).

I'll cut to the chase here. The design and risk assessment for safety on British roads goes into some pretty extreme detail. Road layout, driver visibility, road camber, drainage and surface texture, signage and lighting, turning radius and kerbs, toucan crossings, verges . . . .I've written whole reports on it. They want it right before adoption and even before they'll grant a 'Part 1' which says the public can use the road even it's still privately owned.

Although the driving here is bad and there's still debate whether there is actually a test, I think a lot of the accidents here have to do with the design and construction of roads which, like the UK before, were not designed for such large and fast moving vehicles.

Absolutely true, 4example the more south you go in Europe the less these design and risk assessments are applied and because of this the more south you go in Europe the worse the road conditions get (averagely) but this stuff is way beyond the Thai mind.

This depends on the government authority charged with the design and construction. Many of the main roads here are actually pretty well built and these are built by the national governments highways agency. Yet take it to a local governmental level for locals roads and this is where the problems start.

So we're not content with drunken and/or unlicensed drivers with no road (or even common) sense being the main cause of accidents and deaths on the roads, now it could be road design as well! Definitely more praying needed.

[JRSoul]

After 3 days of carnage, will the monks give their money back?

[JRSoul]

300 monks went to Washington DC and prayed for crime to be reduced. The crime rate went down 20%. Do not be so quick to judge...consciousness shapes reality in many ways, and it has nothing to do with religion. This universe we enjoy is stranger than it seems, and prayer is no solution for stupidity, but prayer has a real aspect and has shown empirical results. A group of heart patients were prayed for, double blind study style. The group that was prayed for showed real, significant improvement beyond the control group--and the prayers came from Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists. Thought and intention can change reality, and do every day. It seems the universe does not care about sects, but cares about compassion and responds to it, or reponds to our desire to be compassionate. We are only beginning to understand how thought influences our environment, just look up how a photon can be treated mathematically as a particle or wave, but not both simultaneously, and when the observer decides how to view the photon it acquires characteristics. It's not magic, it is perfectly natural.

It is is not mystical at all. It is our participation in this place we call our universe.

Happy New Year! Peace, and good things for all of you!

Lies, damn lies and statistics, brought to you by the people that held science back for centuries. Groups of the same people refuse life-saving blood transfusions and inoculations, keeping diseases alive that could possibly be eradicated. Another cup of hemlock Socrates?

[kimamey]

According to the officials, the eviction of bad spirits will prevent future accident and help boost the morale of motorists.

This is a very risky approach that could easily back-fire.

What if the number of deaths rises significantly compared with other years?

What will these officials say then?

I think if they were to follow Buddhist teaching as I understand it they would do something different. From what I've read Buddha taught that you shouldn't just do something because that's what you have always done. If it doesn't work you should learn from it and do things differently. However these people being Thais and having seen the way they follow Buddhism I suspect they'll just decide that they need more of the same. Maybe more monks and give them more money.

[kimamey]

Again a topic that attack the Thai religion. Pure hypocrisy if you ask me how is this any more dumb then believing that a guy that was nailed to a cross was the son of god and died for our sins and then came back to life. Sounds just as crazy as this. It always amazes me how religious people can attack an other religion for being crazy as they are all as crazy and there is no proof for any of them.

Saying that this is any more stupid as going to church and praying for world peace or that winning lottery ticket is just crazy.

There is no doubt in my mind this won't work as none of the religions have proven to work (except for keeping the poor and uneducated down)

So please let people believe what they want and if you believe something else your the last to pass judgement as your religion is just as unproven.

You're falling into the trap of assuming that all those who post on this thread have a religion. I don't but I respect others right to have one.

My own view which I feel should also be respected is that based on the practices in my own country and others is that even taking into account that there will be more fatalities in a country with more motorcycles the road safety measures in those countries have saved more lives than the practices in Thailand. It is also my view that preventing the needless taking of innocent life is far more important than worrying about people who as far as I can see are just pretending to be Buddhists.

I know many monks are good people and do good things but if I were asked to say what my impression of Buddhism was based on what I see on a day to day basis it's of organised begging. I have read about Theravada Buddhism but I gave up when I realised that what I was reading bore no relationship to what I was seeing.

As an example go to any market and see all the dead meat. Then look at all the live fish, turtles, lizards, geckos, frogs and insects ect. Assuming these aren't being bought as pets they are all being killed which is something Buddhists shouldn't do. Next see how many monks you see explaining this one precept and it's importance and compare it with the number of monks you see who are just waiting for you to give money and food.

Thailand also has the death penalty which I know hasn't been used for a while but there was I believe a war on drugs a while back that relied on killing to achieve it's aims and there was very recently a deputy prime minister who wanted executions speeded up.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/533615-chalerm-seeks-speedy-killing-of-drug-convicts/

Maybe I'm wrong but this all looks like an insult to my intelligence rather than an insult to Thais and their 'religion'.

[laobali]

DocN,

I have suffered many years of this place, sadly.

And you have my sincere commiserations, MJP. I would worry a lot more about living in this part of the world if I had my kids' future to think about.

Edited December 31, 2013 by laobali