{"id":84486,"date":"2018-12-31T10:59:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T17:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=84486"},"modified":"2018-12-31T10:59:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T17:59:26","slug":"sri-lanka-buddhism-the-state-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/12\/31\/sri-lanka-buddhism-the-state-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka &#8211; Buddhism The State Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Prof. Hudson McLean<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As President Donald Trump declared that United States of America may now Celebrate Christmas, as a Christian Nation with Freedom of Worship available to other religious beliefs, Sri Lanka may declare the Island as a Buddhist Nation with similar Democratic &amp; Humane Rights to other religions.<\/p>\n<p>Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim Nation and the Guardian of the Most Holy Sites of Islam, and till recent, did not recognize any other religions. However other Nations like the Philippines, a pre-dominantly Catholic country, Indonesia with a majority of Muslims, Thailand with a majority Buddhists, India, where Lord Buddha originate from, now a Hindu Republic, have allowed the Freedom of Worship to other beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Portuguese, Dutch &amp; British introduced Christianity and converted Sinhala Buddhists to follow the Faith of the Colonial masters, offered education and opportunities to a select few who had converted to Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>As a Christian Catholic, I have the highest respect, regard and honour to the Preachings of Lord Buddha, and have contributed to renovations of a Buddhist Temple near Kelaniya.<\/p>\n<p>I have the highest trust &amp; faith of the Sinhala Buddhist culture of non-violence and respect of life of all creatures, to treat all other Faiths with due compassion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Whist wishing all the Readers of Lanka Web,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A Glorious Prosperous Healthy Peaceful New 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I Hope &amp; Pray that Sri Lanka will overcome the current political turmoils and starts to <strong>Shine as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em><u>Express Your Opinion &#8211; Read What Others Say!<br \/>\nThe Independent Interactive Voice of Sri Lanka on the Internet.<\/p>\n<p>Please visit -: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/\">http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/<\/a><\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prof. Hudson McLean As President Donald Trump declared that United States of America may now Celebrate Christmas, as a Christian Nation with Freedom of Worship available to other religious beliefs, Sri Lanka may declare the Island as a Buddhist Nation with similar Democratic &amp; Humane Rights to other religions. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hudson-mclean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}