To a Buddhist your paragraph is a muddle of misconceptions. What you call the real world would be unreal. What makes you say it is real? Realism causes nothing but paradoxes and contradictions in metaphysics, which suggest it is false. — FrancisRay
I realise you want to throw philosophy away, but God gave us a brain and we may as well use it. — FrancisRay
Not to take this antidote is to risk believeing all sorts of nonsense. — FrancisRay
I suspect your low view of philosophy — FrancisRay
If you want to take this 'no-thought' route then Zen practice would be just the ticket. But this profoundly simple practice is justified in philosophy by Nagarjuna's not-so-simple logic. — FrancisRay
So thought is important and unimportant, necessary and unnecessary. Lau Tsu tells us 'True words seem paradoxical' and this is what Nagarjuna proves in logic.We-are and are-not, says Heraclitus, and this dual-aspect view is what we need to understand for a grasp of what Buddhism is about. We have to go beyond the binary yes-no, on-off kind of thinking that causes Western metaphysics to be useless, and it's not an easy trick to learn. — FrancisRay
For a practitioner discursive philosophy is not important, but for anyone else it is the only way to work out where the truth lies — FrancisRay
The point was not to critique anyone’s habits but to point out that if the religious were actually motivated by what they claim to be motivated by, some form of salvation, then they would behave accordingly — praxis
This is what Nagarjuna proves — FrancisRay
If the source of binary thinking is thought itself (and not the binary world 'out there') then the source of the world 'out there' is thought. . — FrancisRay
Yes. It is not possible to think without using the categories of thought, which are binary. You're making many good Buddhist arguments — FrancisRay
Yes. Hence Buddhism is rather more than just calming the mind. — FrancisRay
"The Truth" lies just beyond the symbolic realm. It's right there in front of our face at all times. — FrancisRay
On what grounds do you make this claim? — FrancisRay
If the source of 'binary distinctions (the categories of thought) is thought itself, the very nature of thought, then thought is the source of distinctions and divisions in the world. This is mysticism. The idea is that Reality is undivided and free of all distinctions but thought chops it up into subjects and objects, here and there, this and that. — FrancisRay
This chopping-up or symmetry-breaking would create the words of life and death. Buddhism would be a way to re-unify life and death by revealing the underlying state common to both. — FrancisRay
I think you're proving that all that is required for Buddhist philosophy is clear thinking, or enlightened common sense. — FrancisRay
He is saying the metaphysics does not endorse a positive result, which is a fact well-known to most philosophers. It is just that most cannot make sense of this fact. Mysticism allows us to make sense of it and thus understand philosophy. — FrancisRay
When Lao Tsu is asked how he knows the truth about origins and creation he replies, 'I look inside myself and see'. He says nothing about looking 'out there' in the world — FrancisRay
I see no attempt by you to understand the issues. I cannot see the point of your approach and clearly it prevents you from learning anything. I will not respond to you from now on. — FrancisRay
I see no attempt by you to understand the issues. — FrancisRay
I cannot see the point of your approach — FrancisRay
clearly it prevents you from learning anything — FrancisRay
That is the core of the topic, after all — praxis
Whinny ad hominem attacks — praxis
Elegant arguments from highly informed members revealing the limitations of the title have since been presented at great length. — Hippyhead
Whinny ad hominem attacks
— praxis
Don't see any. — Hippyhead
The point was not to critique anyone’s habits but to point out that if the religious were actually motivated by what they claim to be motivated by, some form of salvation, then they would behave accordingly
— praxis
And if you were actually motivated by what you claim to be motivated by, reason, you would surgically identify whatever aspects of religion (which you are clearly very interested in) you can make constructive use of, and then throw the rest in the trash bin. It's entirely possible to do this without in anyway whatsoever becoming religious.
Every day you go to thread after thread on forum after forum to toss all the things you don't like about religion in the dumpster, which is rational. But then you jump in the dumpster and endlessly roll around in all the discarded trash which you have already identified as being of no use to you, which is NOT rational.
If it should be true that there is absolutely nothing about religion which you can make constructive use of, ok, fair enough. Lots of people feel that way. I have no complaint, to each their own. Should this be the case, then what is rational about spending every day for years in religion threads???
The thing is praxis, you want to lecture everyone about reason, but you don't actually believe in it yourself. That's why everyone finds you so tiresome. You're a heretic. To your own position.
Here's what reason looks like. Shit or get off the pot. Find something in religion you can make constructive use of and focus on that, or let religion go, and redirect your time and intelligence at more promising targets.
And, if I actually believed in reason, I would be taking all the good advice I've been getting to walk away from you and leave you to your fate. But, I'm as nutzo as you are, so no worries, it's safe, the circus merry-go-round can go on, endlessly round and round and round, to nowhere. — Hippyhead
Cute caricature that shows how your mind works. The crazy thing is that the only thing I’d doing in this topic is committing the cardinal sin of arguing that Buddhism is a religion — praxis
So show where I demonstrate a lack understanding. — praxis
If only you could be so frugal with what bounces around in your head. But please, you were going to show there I demonstrate a lack of understanding. — praxis
I suspect your low view pf philosophy comes from surveying the state of Western academic or university philosophy. If I didn't know more than academics usually know about the subject I'd also believe philosophy is a waste of time. But anyone who understands Nagarjuna's logical argument knows more than most professors.
The idea of meditation would be lead one from the symbolic or 'conventional' world to the real or 'ultimate' world. Sensory observation would have the opposite effect. To escape from what you call the real world would be the cessation of suffering. To be stuck in it would the definition of suffering. . — FrancisRay
Or, to chant this in Hippiehead dogma, what if the problem we are trying to address arises not from thought content, but from the medium of thought? — Hippyhead
I'd rather say that if we take a scientific approach we will not be led astray. Most people view the world pre-analytically, adopting a folk-psychological realism whereby kicking a rock is enough to prove its reality. The value of philosophy is that it debunks this naive idea. Once the idea is debunked perhaps analysis can be abandoned, but to abandon it while holding on to logically-absurd and indefensible ideas would be to seriously shoot oneself in the foot. — FrancisRay
So thought is important and unimportant, necessary and unnecessary. Lau Tsu tells us 'True words seem paradoxical' and this is what Nagarjuna proves in logic.We-are and are-not, says Heraclitus, and this dual-aspect view is what we need to understand for a grasp of what Buddhism is about. We have to go beyond the binary yes-no, on-off kind of thinking that causes Western metaphysics to be useless, and it's not an easy trick to learn. . , . — FrancisRay
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