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Im not buddhist but to my understanding paintball would still be violence much like karate. So I dont beleive it would be acceptable. Both seem to be training or preparing for violence even though both are not personal.
As for being critized for your beleifs I think a buddhist is suposed to be passive. Im not sure if you are suposed to correct them either because to my understanding you are not suposed to preach your beleifs unless it is asked for.
As for gay people I dont think its a problem. I have not seen anything against it..

Someone please correct me if im wrong about any of this.

Karate, though violence, is a martial art that is meant not only for defense, but for meditation and achieving enlightenment.

Well, of course, you have to use it that way for it to work that way.

It really depends on what kind of class it is - a self-defense class, or a traditional class.

Buddhism can be a pretty flexible Religion in many instances, maybe less in Theravada code but they're still not absolutist in the precepts.

The precepts are there because they tend to cause bad karma, not just because. Karma's rooted in thought. If you enact violence and harm against an individual, both you and most likely the other person as well are gonna develop and reinforce some negative thinking unless you're exceedingly mindful of what you're doing, and even then you'll probably not come out of it squeeky clean.

But more importantly, this stuff has gradients and a whole lot of grey in between black and white. (Notice how the Tao yin-yang symbol has a dot of black in the white and a dot of white in the black, and how they swirl into each other? This is a mutual expression of this concept in Taoism)

They're not commandments from God, they're observations made by the Buddha about hinderances to spiritual development.

So paintballing isn't equal to slowly gutting a toddler with a blunt, rusty butcher knife. The difference in spiritual health between the two is like the difference in bodily health between eating a cookie and swallowing a cyanide pill.

blacktallon on the monks in WW2 - Debatable. Some say it's a a sin to kill in self-defense, some say it's perfectly acceptable. The Dalai Llama himself supports killing in self-defense and, as we're on the subject of Tibet, you'll find no Tibetan vegetarians. If they couldn't break the precept, they'd all die of starvation. There are sutras that talk of "Compassionate Killing" (And this doesn't include euthanasia) and the use of violence to protect the Dharma.

Violence, warfare and such can be a difficult conversation in Buddhism, considering their numerous brushes with Communism in particular in places like Tibet, Indochina, Burma, and Thailand. China and Japan have a rich history of Buddhist influence and involvement in warfare as well. And in Sri Lanka at around 100 B.C. there was the single instance of what might be called Buddhist "Holy War" against the Tamils as chronicled in the Maha-vamsa.

Thanks for the info smile

but you dont have to have sex in order to be gay?

a few more q's though

if all beings can achive enlightenment can beasts such as a lion (who must survive on meat alone) become enlightened?

This is just my personal interpretation of what Buddhism teaches, but it seems to me that the only time violence is acceptable is when you are defending yourself, or another person who is unable to defend themself for one reason or another. Of course, as, I believe Akanishi has already said, this involves the ability to properly judge the force necessary to neutralise the situation, and not kill when it isn't necessary.