There is no "I" in "You"

[quip]

I understand your point, I just believe there is more to the point than you're willing to examine.

What makes you think that I haven't examined it, for decades, from a wide variety of perspectives? I haven't reached my current conclusions out of thin air. And I'll continue to examine it in order to maintain a view that's consistent with the best information available on the subject. However the materially naturalistic perspective that I support is so well evidenced that it would take a particularly impressive piece of evidence to change it.

(BTW I appreciate your courteous objections on the issue.)

Ditto. Bad manners help no-one.

Why ever not?  That very idea's roughly equal to the Buddhist notion of the five skandhas, an idea of which you, likewise, cannot merely dismiss without employing your own "unconscious assumptions about the nature of existence built in to your models."

Why not? Because there's absolutely no robust evidence to support such a position. I don't employ unconscious assumptions, I employ conscious reasons. You could accuse me of bias, rightly but it's a rational and reasonable bias based on the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence.

I'm not asking Atheists to believe as such (that would be entirely pretentious and a bit too much to ask.) but rather raising doubt to their assumed materialistic model of reality.

Until you can provide evidence for me to do so, I simply can't. It's not in my nature. But of course, that's exactly what a material naturalist would say  

Fair enough.

[Gemini]

Your boy Nagarjuna, for example, was a loon.  Again counting hits, ignoring misses.  I get that you find this non-ghostly framework so refreshing.  That it seems like there are ghosts everywhere in western philosophy.  However, like the rise of buddhism...that has more to do with politics and history than philosophy or the relative skepticism of either tradition.  

The fact that you object to my position by pointing out that philosophical traditions were subject to the vicissitudes of politics and history is encouraging. Because that's exactly what I'm claiming. 

It's entirely a result of politics and history that we have these two separate "eastern" and "western" traditions. A consequence of this is that while there is no essential difference between them--they're both populated by humans who either face down ignorance with intelligence and courage, or capitulate to it with sophistry--they are not exactly the same in every respect. Politics and history carved arbitrary paths through them, and as a result we find that the extent to which each tradition was concerned with particular aspects of philosophy differ. More interest in logic in the west, greater tendency toward skepticism in the east.

Finally--you say Nagarjuna was a loon. Deride him as much as you want for all I care, but why not make an effort to substantiate your assertions?

[The Grand Nudger]

greater tendency toward skepticism in the east.

Re-asserting the position which you have failed to establish, or even provide a valid means of inference for determining.  You have instead referred to syncretized, western, re-imaginings of eastern traditions and passed that credibility onto long dead philosphers who were completely in ignorance of that which you have syncretized their positions for.  You have refused to consider any of the mountains of credulous and non skeptical things presented to you both in your lone example of an eastern tradition, and the links describing the wider eastern tradition, already provided to you.  Inexplicably, you've managed to avoid considering those portions of the western tradition which explicitly reference skepticism, and the western tradition of skepticism itself, as though they don't exist to fudge your equally non-existent math.

I have no particular interest in tearing down your favorite buddhist philospher.  There's no need, as I keep reminding you.  You have decided the comparative skepticism of the eastern and western traditions by means of a long running composition fallacy, manufactured itself, by nothing other than selection bias.  We can avoid discussing this misstep, entirely, or for as long as you like by bickering about whether or not your chosen example of a skeptical eastern philospher was a loon - for swallowing magical alternative medicines - for example....or we can address the fundamental mistake made in attempting to even -use- this in order to establish the claim made.

-I- can't use your metrics to establish your conclusion. This is the problem. If it can be decided by reference to a single subset of the larger tradition - and within that subset by reference to a single philospher, and even more microscopicly by reference to some but not all of their positions.... in no small part by needling reference to our re-imaginings of those positions.....then I need only find a skeptic -or someone I can imagine to have been a skeptic- in the western tradition (of which I'm sure we can both agree there are a great many), and any number of people who I consider to be less skeptical than the aforementioned in the eastern traditions (of which I'm sure we can both agree there are a great many)...in order to make precisely the opposite claim as you have by reference to the very same metrics. This should be a hint that somethings gone horribly awry, shouldn't it?

[SofaKingHigh]

Bit late to the party, but:

There may be no "I" in "you," but there's definitely a "U" in "cunt."








I'll get me coat.

[quip]

Bit late to the party, but:

There may be no "I" in "you," but there's definitely a "U" in "cunt."




I'll get me coat.

Can't fault the atheist for grasping the superficial obvious.

[Gemini]

You have refused to consider any of the mountains of credulous and non skeptical things presented to you both in your lone example of an eastern tradition, and the links describing the wider eastern tradition, already provided to you.  

You already know that I deny neither skeptical western philosophers nor non-skeptical eastern philosophers. Perhaps you will find the following links salient to this discussion:

"There is unanimous agreement that Nāgārjuna (ca 150–250 AD) is the most important Buddhist philosopher after the historical Buddha himself ... with the spread of Buddhism to Tibet, China, Japan and other Asian countries the writings of Nāgārjuna became an indispensable point of reference for their own philosophical inquiries." (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/)

"Nagarjuna was considered a skeptic in his own philosophical tradition, both by Brahmanical opponents and Buddhist readers, and this because he called into question the basic categorical presuppositions and criteria of proof assumed by almost everyone in the Indian tradition to be axiomatic." (http://www.iep.utm.edu/nagarjun/)

And I'm assuming I don't need to restate my observation that a philosopher who was notoriously non-skeptical of metaphysics was at least as influential within western philosophy. 

So the question is not whether you can find a western philosopher who was a skeptic in order to make the opposite claim as me "by reference to the very same metrics." The question is whether you can find a western skeptic who had an impact in that tradition comparable to the impact Nagarjuna had on eastern philosophy.

[Whateverist]

Bit late to the party, but:

There may be no "I" in "you," but there's definitely a "U" in "cunt."




I'll get me coat.

Can't fault the atheist for grasping the superficial obvious.

Sounds like you have a preference for the profound over the mundane.  How's that working out for you?  Are you earning lots of enlightenment bonus points.  Good luck.

[quip]

Can't fault the atheist for grasping the superficial obvious.

Sounds like you have a preference for the profound over the mundane.  

Not necessarily so for the predominate percentile of my day-to-day.

How's that working out for you?  Are you earning lots of enlightenment bonus points.  Good luck.

Doing great..thanks for asking.

And you?

[Whateverist]

Sounds like you have a preference for the profound over the mundane.  

Not necessarily so for the predominate percentile of my day-to-day.

How's that working out for you?  Are you earning lots of enlightenment bonus points.  Good luck.

Doing great..thanks for asking.

And you?

Can't complain, thanks.  

So I wonder how you conceptualize the goal of Buddhism.  How different do you think life would look after satori/enlightenment?

[Losty]

Yes.  The non-woo answer is "I don't know. Let's see if we can find out more in the future."

That dodge begs the very question:  Can the future reveal it's secrets?

This is one of my greatest peeves. Saying "I don't know" is not the same as dodging the question.