Quote Originally Posted by visualAd
I am not really a religious person but I am quite sure that Jesus upset these powerful people because he believed they were doing wrong. He was given the choice to denounce what he believed and chose not to.

Again I am not a religious person but I am quite sure that Buddhists don't subscribe to the belief of a God. I have only met a couple of Buddhists, taking that into account and the literature I read on this guy, I get the impression that the motif was to raise awareness of their plight.



Well it clearly is suicide but I am sure that most people (apart from crptcblade) don't wake up of a morning and think; "lets go and burn myself to death in the middle of an intersection to make people aware of my disgust toward ...."

This can be compared to the stories of Jesus and the many other similar acts of self sacrifice since. I don't think it is as shocking as the kinds of protest demonstrated in the World Trade Centre attacks or the London bombings.
I know this will anger some Christians. But in my opinion, I think Jesus really thought he was the Messiah and expected God to save him on the cross to prove his divinity to the world. That didn't work out. But the Christians spun it as a triumph where it was planned all along by God.