There've been like alot of topics about people building swastikas and then getting kicked or insulted for being a nazi.

The point is. Its a normal Buddhist swastika.
A nazi swastika is black in a white circle surrounded by a red square.
If so, there is no point prosecuting them or banning them (HOMPY)
Though it's an issue why people even bother building swastika's.

Its just most of the community have limited knowledge of swastikas due their autism and will try to grief your swastika's with a smg (but hitting all players and blocks around it).

But reading this wrom wikipedia:
"Following a brief surge of popularity in Western culture, the swastika was adopted as a symbol of the Nazi Party of Germany in 1920. After Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s, swastika was incorporated to the Nazi party flag, which was made the State Flag of Germany. As a result, the Swastika became strongly associated with Nazism and related ideologies such as Fascism and White Supremacism since the 1930s in the western world and is now largely stigmatized. It has notably been outlawed in Germany if used as a symbol of Nazism. Many modern political extremists and Neo-Nazi groups such as Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and Russian National Unity use stylised swastikas or similar symbols."

"As a result, the Swastika became strongly associated with Nazism and related ideologies such as Fascism and White Supremacism since the 1930s in the western world and is now largely stigmatized. It has notably been outlawed in Germany if used as a symbol of Nazism."

Swastika-builderettes-gentlemen, this is your problem. Germany banned swastikas disregarding it being an buddhist symbol. I am not an supporter of swastika's. And I HIGHLY DOUBT that every swastika-builder is an buddhist since:
almost nobody knows this (autism)
swastika-builders are pulling the buddhist symbol joke to escape kicks (won't help anyway)
39% of the AoS community is a griefer/racist/moron/teamkiller/bad op (HOMPY)

If you are making another topic related to this subject about being banned for building swastikas,
REMEMBER KIDS:
tl;dr
OP IS A FAG (HOMPY)

Quit crying.

Way to post in general btw.

One, I AM a Buddhist.

Two, Germany banned swastikas because they wanted to restore their image and distance themselves from the Nazis as much as possible.

And three, if you're referring to my qualm with Hompy, the swastika incident was something entirely separate. Now, he is a dick, but I'm not sure if he bans for swastikas.

EDIT: Disregard that last point, just read YourMom's topic. Yeah, hompy's a dick.

Probably some people just building it wrong.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/5435264023_65321eed77.jpg

No, that's another symbol, the sauwastika. The right-facing one is the one the Nazis stole, and they turned it on a 45 degree angle.

The problem here, Reuben, is that most of the people building Swastikas are building them to be dicks, not to bring glory to Buddhism. I'm sorry this is causing trouble for you, but if I were you I'd go after the kiddies that are building swastikas to be jew-hating skiddies, rather than after the server hosts for banning them and you. The people who are building swastikas to be dicks are being more disrespectful to Buddhism than the hosts.

I'm more concerned with the self-righteousness of the griefers (and yes, that's all they are, griefers) who think they're above my explanations.

Hitler Up In This Bitch.

Blow it out your ass.

I've got balls of steel.

You people are aware that the swastika wasn't just used by the Buddhists?

It's also a prominent and very holy symbol of Jainism (a Middle Eastern Islamic religion if you didn't know).
Here is a Jain swastika: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Swastik4.svg
American Natives also used the swastika. Most notable were tha Navajo, Kuna and Hopi.
Swastikas have been found in what is now Iran and Armenia

But lets fast forward a little. During the 20th Century the Swastika was a popular good luck charm for WWI aviators. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/MatildeMoisant_detail.jpg).
In Iceland, Ireland and Finland the Swastika is an old folk symbol, not at all associated with the Nazis. The Finnish Airforce, in particular the Training Air Wing, has a widespread use of the swastika. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Training_Air_Wing,_Finnish_Air_Force)
Observe the Swastika with propeller through it.

In most of Asia it's completely OK and has no Nazi connections at all what so ever.
For example, Southern Asia it's used everywhere as a symbol of luck and is prominently used as a symbol of Hinduism.

In China (and Japan) it's used as a symbol of Buddhism and used to denote locations of temples on maps.

Tajikistan has begun to use it as a national symbol. (http://www.payvand.com/news/05/dec/swastika-Tajik-style.jpg)

My point is, the swastika is a world wide thing. Thinking you have to be a buddhist or a Nazi Sympathizer to use it is discriminatory and ignorant.

I find it quite interesting that its only ever swastikas that are built.

I have seen many many swastikas, but never once have I seen a single dharmachakra, an endless knot, triratna, buddhapada - I could go on listing other significant Bhuddist symbols but I hope that I get the point across.

I find it highly unconvincing that 1 single Bhuddisht symbol is drawn repeatedly, whilst I've seen absolutely zero Christian, Islamic, or even Jewish symbolism in-game. Consider also that there are players running around with names referencing the nazis, hitler, the SS, referring to other players as "untermensch" etc and I think its pretty easy to draw a fairly water-tight conclusion here.

If you are Bhuddist and are genuinely honestly drawing these symbols in game, I suggest you think carefully about what you are doing and the context in which you are doing it. WW2 is in living memory, many millions of people died. It is likely that your parents/grand parents/great grand parents were involved and went through unthinkable things. You are putting up iconography that is - for better or worse - associated with the Nazis of WW2 in a game where people are running around shooting each other. Fucking think about what you are doing. For you it might mean peace, for many it is irretrievably associated with the Nazis, others will understand the origin and continued use of the symbol. Have some tact.

If I was admining a server, any overt religious symbolism (from any religion) would be fair game to be removed, and if persistent banned for. Lets keep it outside the game.

@Thunderstorm: I'm well aware, and I'm perfectly comfortable with other beliefs using it. But other people refuse to believe that it's anything other than a Nazi symbol.

I decided to do some research on how bad the intolerance was myself. I changed my name to Deuce (I ended up being Deuce15, on Unatural Hallway just now) and logged into a server. I then built a Sauwastika (NOT a swastika) exactly as it showed up in that picture, and waited for griefing to happen. As a note to those of you who are unfamiliar with the Sauwastika, it resembles a mirrored swastika.

It didn't take very long. About half of my team attempted to grief it, and of those offenders I was only able to get half of them votekicked. Despite explaining that the symbol very clearly WASN'T a swastika of any sort, had never been used by the Nazis, and was a 100% religious symbol, I still had my hands full protecting the thing. When I left the server half an hour later it was still intact (although I had probably replaced every block in it by then), but I have no idea how long that will last.

I did manage to avoid getting votekicked myself, but I think the experiment pretty clearly demonstrated that people on both sides of this debate are blowing things out of proportion and overreacting.

Oh, and as another note, one of the people that was griefing it was named "Fett316". Was that really you, Fett?

I would have done it too if its between me and the other team's intel.

I don't care what it is, its being done to troll the server.

It wasn't blocking the intel in any way. It was a simple, on-the-ground one-block-thick "mosaic" that showed up on the map but didn't restrict movement or provide decent cover on the ground.

Additionally, when I started votekicks against the griefers they said things along the lines of "no its a nazi simbol!!1!1!!11!!" I think that demonstrates their motives pretty well.

I'm still against swastikas being spammed (Although I may be tolerant of Rueben, at least, since he has claimed to be a Buddhist and actually building them because of that [not entirely sure that's true, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt]), but when something that ISN'T a swastika is griefed because of this issue, it's going a bit too far IMHO.

I find it refreshing that people are prepared to stand up for what they believe in and try and remove this stuff. Good on them.

I said this in Mr McHawk's thread, but it is burried a few pages in. Here it is again.

"You know what would be a real good idea?

Not making swastikas.

First of all, if you want to express your Buddhism, do it elsewhere. You don't see me preaching in the chat window, or making giant signs saying yay or nay about one god or another.

Second, the swastika is very much a nazi symbol. You can't go around calling people fags, and then saying they acting like bundles of sticks. Words and images grow to mean different things.

I am sorry your religion was hurt (buddhism is not a race) but really, making swastikas in AoS is pointless, stupid, and something trolls do.

Even if you are totally serious about the buddhist symbol thing, people are gonna think you are being an ass, and they may just be justified."

You make the symbols because you know people react to them in a negative way, if you want to make a religious symbol make one without such a negative background and don't make the other forms of swastikas either. ta-ta

@someonesomewhere: I destroy actual Swastikas myself. The point I was trying to make was that several members of the anti-swastika group are taking things a little too far and using the issue as an excuse to break other stuff as well.

There is no "wrong" buddhist swastika, it's just a matter of where you look at it from.
Try drawing one on a window... Then look at it from the other side of that window.

As a note, on that same server I saw someone build a black swastika on a white field with a red border. I shot it up a bit and let someone else make the kill with a pickaxe, and I feel that in that situation it was pretty clear that it was a Nazi swastika, not a Buddhist one.

@AxleTheNinja
There are plenty of other people building useless structures and symbols as well. I've seen flags and crosses and whatnot.
The swastika being used by Nazis doesn't make it a Nazi symbol. The Finnish air force uses it TO THIS DAY. And most of Asia as well. Refer to my earlier post.

@Alexus
People grief 'reverse' swastikas or Sauwastikas. Which have no connections to Nazi's in anyway what so ever. What religion has no negative history? Care to name one? Christianity has a notorious history of killing Jews since the times of Jesus Christ*. Killing Jews is in the Holy Bible (Deuteronomy, Chapter 17:2-3,5).

*assuming he existed.

1337101 why would you waste your time on breaking some blocks that won't be here anyways after a map reset?

Fine. Its not a Nazi symbol.

Still, don't make it.

No matter why it means, it has no place in the game. Making one and then defending it based on the fact that it means something else just makes you look like a troll.

@Devas: Because every moment the damn thing exists it's disrespectful to millions of Jews and other Holocaust victims and their families?

We're talking about SYMBOLISM here, for Pete's sake. There's meaning behind this stuff.

@1337101: If you can break my stuff, I can break yours. That's how I see it. Swastika or not, griefing is still griefing.

I doubt most of these people are sincerely offended by the swastikas in the first place. It's not like the reaction is any different from when they see a creeper face or a rainbow on the ground anyways. "I'm offended by swastikas." "I hate gays lawl" "This isn't minecraft."

The majority is just saying "I'm gonna break this now, deal with it."

As a side note almost all the swastikas I've seen are Nazi related with... The black and white and red and stuff. It's a war game, I'm not surprised WWII comes to mind.

2 wrongs don't make a right.

@Axle: Never said it did. All I'm trying to say is that griefing is wrong, there's no gray area. Griefing swastikas is just as bad as griefing structures.

@Sue: My swastikas weren't like that.