Thoughts on Buddhism

[Angrboda]

Carnavon:

All that a large number of people coming to the same interpretation proves is that the group likely shares the same assumptions about hermeneutics and the text itself. Given that Christianity in a systematic way indoctrinates people with a common set of beliefs and assumptions, it's unremarkable when a bunch of Christians agree on a particular interpretation. The "truth" of a text or a history is no more legitimate because of the assumptions of a large group than those of a lone individual. Truth, as such, is not based on argumentum ad populum, regardless whether it's a scientific hypothesis or the interpretation of a text. (Except in a special sense, which is part of my own theory of truth. The most common assumption about truth among lay people is the correspondence theory of truth. And that theory doesn't admit of evidence by numbers.)


"We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said. It would be an inadmissible abstraction to contend that we must first have achieved a contemporaneousness with the author or the original reader by means of a reconstruction of his historical horizon before we could begin to grasp the meaning of what is said. A kind of anticipation of meaning guides the effort to understand from the very beginning."

Hans-Georg Gadamer

Gadamer's philosophical project, as explained in Truth and Method, was to elaborate on the concept of "philosophical hermeneutics", which Heidegger initiated but never dealt with at length. Gadamer's goal was to uncover the nature of human understanding. In the book Gadamer argued that "truth" and "method" were at odds with one another. He was critical of two approaches to the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). On the one hand, he was critical of modern approaches to humanities that modelled themselves on the natural sciences (and thus on rigorous scientific methods). On the other hand, he took issue with the traditional German approach to the humanities, represented for instance by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey, which believed that correctly interpreting a text meant recovering the original intention of the author who wrote it.

In contrast to both of these positions, Gadamer argued that people have a 'historically effected consciousness' (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewußtsein) and that they are embedded in the particular history and culture that shaped them. Thus interpreting a text involves a fusion of horizons where the scholar finds the ways that the text's history articulates with their own background. Truth and Method is not meant to be a programmatic statement about a new 'hermeneutic' method of interpreting texts. Gadamer intended Truth and Method to be a description of what we always do when we interpret things (even if we do not know it): "My real concern was and is philosophic: not what we do or what we ought to do, but what happens to us over and above our wanting and doing".

"il n'y a pas de hors-texte." — Translation: There is nothing outside the text (alternatively, and possibly more accurately, translated as 'there is no outside to the text')

Jacques Derrida

---

Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets. (Derrida)

s/monster/God/?

[Carnavon]

@ Carn I initially responded to you point by point and posted it, but then I realized that your argument doesn't deserve it, so I went back and cut it down to the following-

"The bible says alot of things, and if I sift through this massive laundry list of claims, and interpret them just so, and then attach very generous dates to those claims, and then interpret history and current events in a way that might generally be said to fit those claims, and then ignore the specifics, and then igore anytime these claims turn out to be horrendously incorrect, and then claim that these things are facts by sheer weight of all of the fuzziness above....and as long as I'm not forced to even begin to demonstrate any mechanism by which all of this can be achieved beyond the blisteringly obvious contortions I've gone through to get to this point...prophecy exists"

I remain unconvinced. Perhaps you should try harder? IOW, less claiming more demonstrating. You've attached dates as though they are established facts, well, not unless you can actually establish them, that will be the stumbling block of most of your claims to prophesy. You made claims to fulfillment without establishing that anything at all has been fulfilled, I shouldn't even have to point out that you're going to have to work harder on that one. Your presentation lacks any demonstration of a mechanism by which any of this is even possible (and by "any of this", I mean simple fortune telling, because that's what we're talking about, even though you insist on giving it a grandiose name to separate it from that which your own scriptures otherwise condemn), and that's the truly damning bit. Perhaps you've simply accepted that such a mechanism exists a priori, but that doesn't really touch on anything except your own gullibility and willingness to believe.

(If all you have is "prove me wrong" you're being entirely disingenuous, you actually mean "prove us wrong again, and again, and again" and this is a bare expression of shifting the burden of proof, you're not even trying to hide it....I guess you hope to wear down the enemies of christ through repetition? Well, mission accomplished, I'm entirely uninterested.)

Maybe one or two replies with verifiable facts will not be too much trouble?

[The Grand Nudger]

So you understand the concept then? Hop to it. Here, I'll help.

Step 1-Lay out the specifics of the prediction in no uncertain terms.

Step-2-Gauge the relative level of difficulty in such a prediction. IE no "The forecast for this evening will be dark, ending with light at dawn".

Step 3-Establish a date for the prediction.

Step 4-Establish which parts (if any or all) of the given prediction have returned a positive result.

Step 5-(this only applies if you get passed all the rest) Weigh which specifics of the prediction have returned postive results against those which have not, or which predictions in general have returned positive results against those that have not. We might even assign a metric for counting hits and misses at this stage.

Step 6-Demonstrate (or at least suggest) a mechanism by which these predictions where possible, this is heavily influenced by the results of each step before it.

That's how you go about having an intelligent discussion about fortune-telling. You don't write a bullet point list of your personal religious beliefs. Good luck, have fun.

[Carnavon]

So you understand the concept then? Hop to it.

Your total inability to supply relevant and solid evidence supporting your empty claims is astonishing and have now confirmed my prior assumption - a lot of hot air and nothing to back it up.
But really, I have come to expect that.
Have a great day.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's too heavy a burden for you then? I kind of figured it would be, since it's been too heavy a burden for anyone else in the history of man. Ergo, fortune-telling is garbage. You know what I think just happened? I think you smugly went off to google all the evidence that you were sure was there and drew a big fat blank.
(it's a shame though, because it would have been nice to think that I was in the company of the person who could finally demonstrate mans long-claimed ability to foretell the future.)

[Creed of Heresy]

Buddhism demands surrendering the mind for "spiritual enlightenment." It has a guy supposedly born from a slit in his mother's side and there is a place of eternal bliss peace and understanding in the end called Nirvana. Buddhists have been known to be genocidal to other groups [namely the hindus] and overall are no better than the rest.

It too lacks purity. Therefore it is not something that should be considered a moral paragon even though that's exactly what it holds itself up to be, ergo it's just as stupid as every other religion.

Yes. It's a religion, people. Get over it.

---

It's too heavy a burden for you then? I kind of figured it would be, since it's been too heavy a burden for anyone else in the history of man. Ergo, fortune-telling is garbage. You know what I think just happened? I think you smugly went off to google all the evidence that you were sure was there and drew a big fat blank.
(it's a shame though, because it would have been nice to think that I was in the company of the person who could finally demonstrate mans long-claimed ability to foretell the future.)

Carnavon, you just got schooled, son. You got schooled HARD.

[Bgood]

'Creed of Heresy' pid='261134' dateline='1332743617']
Buddhism demands surrendering the mind for "spiritual enlightenment." It has a guy supposedly born from a slit in his mother's side and there is a place of eternal bliss peace and understanding in the end called Nirvana.
It too lacks purity. Therefore it is not something that should be considered a moral paragon even though that's exactly what it holds itself up to be, ergo it's just as stupid as every other religion.

Yes. It's a religion, people. Get over it.

I agree the Buddhist religion lacks total purity and some corruption exists in it as with any human, social endeavor. Yet it demands surrendering the EGO, not the mind, for spiritual enlightenment (big difference). The manner of birth of Siddhatha may be legendary as well as some aspects of his lifetime as oral traditions carried it on, but the psychological teachings themselves are very sound and methodical. Also Nirvana is not a 'place' of bliss but a state of mind.

Buddhists have been known to be genocidal to other groups [namely the hindus] and overall are no better than the rest.

In comparison to the Abrahamic religions, there is MUCH less violence and war in it's history because they do not proselytize. It is really not fair to lump Buddhism with the overwhelming ghastliness of say Christianity just by the sheer differential in number of deaths commited in it's name.

Search for 'Christian genocides' and you will be confronted with countless historical accounts of them. Do the same for Buddhism and you will be hard pressed to find much that can clearly and distinctly be specifically attributed to this faith throughout history. Most 'Buddhist warfare' was not an imposition of their belief system over others such as Hindus, but rather geo-political disputes over land, resources and such which simply occurred in India for example. Buddhists did not go out of their way to search for 'heathens' or foriegners to convert by force of fear, which is so prevalent in Christian history. Buddhists have been much more the victims of genocide due to Communist/ Socialist dictactors and political reasons rather than perpetrators. Prime example-Pol Pot in Cambodia during the 70's.

It's too heavy a burden for you then? I kind of figured it would be, since it's been too heavy a burden for anyone else in the history of man. Ergo, fortune-telling is garbage. You know what I think just happened? I think you smugly went off to google all the evidence that you were sure was there and drew a big fat blank.
(it's a shame though, because it would have been nice to think that I was in the company of the person who could finally demonstrate mans long-claimed ability to foretell the future.)

Carnavon, you just got schooled, son. You got schooled HARD.

[/quote]

LOL, well I totally agree with that observation!

[genkaus]

Yet it demands surrendering the EGO, not the mind, for spiritual enlightenment (big difference).

Your ego - your concept of self - is the source of all you are and all you have. You cannot surrender the source and hope to somehow retain your mind.

[Bgood]

Yet it demands surrendering the EGO, not the mind, for spiritual enlightenment (big difference).

Your ego - your concept of self - is the source of all you are and all you have. You cannot surrender the source and hope to somehow retain your mind.

Like you said, ego is a CONCEPT of self. God is also a concept. Therefore the ego is not the source, it is a mental construct created through experience and social conditioning. The pure mind is conscious awareness that gets obstructed by egotistic "needs". Ego is not mind, only a troubling phantom of it. This is a difficult teaching of the dharma, yet very important.

[The Grand Nudger]

And also complete gibberish. Again, the cheaply bought wisdom of mystics fails to impress.