| March 7, 2006 | - A farmer in Germany said that he got the idea of feeding a friend's corpse to pigs from a lecture about Buddhism.
| Source:
MSNBC
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| May 31, 2005 | - Five Buddhist monks in Nong Khai, Thailand, were defrocked for brawling with other monks from a rival temple. “When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign he will be mad; so am I,” said monk Boonlert Boonpan.
| Source:
Reuters
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| October 24, 2004 | - Six Buddhist monks from Ratchaburi, Thailand, were arrested and defrocked for holding wild drug and alcohol parties.
| Source: New York Times
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| December 17, 2003 | -
Saudi Arabia banned the importation of stuffed animals, female dolls, crucifixes, and statues of the Buddha.
| Source: San Francisco Chronicle
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| September 17, 2002 | -
Thousands of pilgrims in Thailand were visiting a water puddle in the shape of the Buddha's footprint; the puddle is guarded by a frog, and the frog was said to be dying because people keep rubbing talcum powder on its skin hoping to see lottery numbers.
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| May 15, 2001 | - The Buddha turned 2,545.
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| March 20, 2001 | -
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban sacrificed 100 cows to atone for being so slow to destroy ancient stone statues of the Buddha.
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| March 6, 2001 | - Important clerics in Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran pointed out that the Mullah's interpretation of the Koran was incorrect. Mawlawi Qudratullah Jamal, the Taliban's minister of information and culture, replied that it was “not a big issue,” that the statues were “objects only made of mud or stone.” After announcing that the destruction of the Buddhas had begun, Jamal noted that “it is easier to destroy than to build.”
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