But have you read anything from the primary Buddhist text, the Pali Canon? — baker

Yes, but only excerpts in textbooks and such. I want find find detailed arguments about philosophy from Buddhists, but maybe they are hard to come by, as the following indicates:

It doesn't seem to, as the analogy with the handful of leaves illustrates.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_31.html — baker

Btw, High Noon cool

The Prime Mover argument says that whether we extend the past to infinity by days, or by fractions in the way Zeno would divide his segment, the infinity needs a completion, unless it is a "spurious infinity" (one that cannot resolve itself, find it's center, and stay coherent). It would be like saying 4+5=blank, with no completion. If we say that the world is a mystical reality, the place where Forms really do exist, the infinities of reality can resolve themselves. It's not just an argument for God, but can be an argument for mysticism without God. There is something that makes us go "huh?" if we say the series of motions are just eternal, or if we say time and motion start at the Big Bang by an emergence of all the forces in a prior eternal state. If it wasn't for a pesty reality of a "beginning" materialism would seem perfectly consistent.

Some Hindus speak of nirguna Brahman, who has only sat (existence), chit (consciousness), and ananda (bliss). Some even speak of the saguna of Brahman, the God of many infinite attributes. Buddhism seem to me to say there is really nothing except suffering and ananda (bliss). This seems to be there doctrine on an abstract level, but I'm told they are far more about practice than abstract truths

"If first there is nothing", notice that this is not saying anything. It's saying what is not (already coming from our knowledge of something). Don't use a mental image in place of the concept of nothing, because nothing as an idea has validity only when there is something as well. Is there is nothing at all, then this is outside of something and is worthless unless it does something to something.

My 2 cents

The last book I read on Buddhism was Thoughts without a Thinker by Mark Epstein. I read articles too

My general concern here is how Buddhist reject substance all together. Rejecting ego is understandable. But why is rejecting substance in general important? Are they saying simply that there is nothing that deserves attachment? That's a very hard doctrine to follow especially while someone rejects ego. And if complete detachment is impossible, then so seems Nirvana

Yes. And since he thinks God can do contradictions, maybe his God has made you and I right in these discussions and given him no truth. He would have no way to know. Not only is he a relativist, but he has an all powerful enforcer of contradictions behind everything. So I don't know why he bothers to even get on this forum

Yes. And since he thinks God can do contradictions, maybe his God has made you and I right in these discussions and given him no truth. He would have no way to know. Not only is he a relativist, but he has an all powerful enforcer of contradictions behind everything. So I don't know why he bothers to even get on this forum

yet it also cannot be identified with any form of God-idea, as it is neither the origin nor the immanent ground or essence of the world. — Nyanoponika Thera, Buddhism and the God Idea

The world is appearance just as the ego is, however. Phenomenology has much to say about our being in the world

I might just as well achieve "bliss" through the regular use of heroin, no? In that case, I would not have to lose that essential aspect of my "self" which proceeds from my consciousness, namely my will, in order to achieve bliss (though indeed, other things are sacrificed thereby). — Michael Zwingli

Non-dualist philosophy does say we lose ego, but we don't know what the absence of ego really means until it happens. Discussing how we do this is useful though. Whether we go to another body or our own body may or may not be relevant to that pursuit. Eastern thinkers seem to think the body is not important, but a Western version of Eastern philosophy might resurrect, so to speak, the ancient doctrine of Nirvana but insist that a consciousness, without ego, must be inside a body even though consciousness is without substance and a type of nothingness without ego

A necessary being can do anything except kill himself or go against his nature. Those "actions" are not real possibilities. A rock God cannot pick up doesn't mean anything.

Nirvana is the exact opposite from a divine being, blessed with an absolute omnipotence, omnisapiency, and omnimorality. It's an absolute state of omni-absency, total absolute nothingness.

Nirvana is an endless dreamless sleep — GraveItty

The opposite of our contingent state might seem like absolute nothingness from our perspective in this life, but once there it might be the fullness of reality

An omnipotent being is free to do anything, including cease to exist or ceasing to be omnipotent. Obviously. — Bartricks

False. That doesn't logically follow.

I got more quotes from Descartes:

"When we attend to immense power of this being, we shall be unable to think of its existence as possible without also recognizing that it can exist by its own power; and we shall infer from this that this being does really exist and has existed from eternity, since it is quite evident by the natural light that what can exist by its own power always exists. So we shall come to understand that necessary existence is contained in the idea of a supremely perfect being"

"For what is more manifest than the fact that the supreme being exists, or that God, to whose essence alone existence belongs, exists?"

"Possible or contingent existence is contained in the concept of a limited thing, whereas necessary and perfect existence is contained in the concept of a supremely perfect being"

At least have the humility of admitting when you are proven wrong. As for God, I don't think you've yet understood what the word means. God is not a super alien

Again, you've put your interpretation of omnipotence in the mouth of Jesus and Descartes. Descartes arguments for God only make sense with a necessary being who "cannot deceive", as he says

Death is the ultimate mystery for humans. I think it's possible that when we die our consciousness enters another body and we can call this reincarnation or the ressurection of the body (if we get the same body back). The thing for me is that it seems we are bodies and brains so we seem to die on our death beds for good but Buddhism offers the possibility that consciousness is substance less such that it can go somewhere else when the body dies. You're right though that this is all completely speculative and it's something we can't figure out. It's nice however to have a belief in an afterlife

You say God is contingent. Descartes says he is necessary. You say God can change. Descartes says he is changeless and always exists (not "always existed"). You don't seem to have ever had a concept of God where he can do all things but not things against his nature. You go on about how God, if he is all powerful, can do a contradiction and kill himself, but nobody seems to think this is very insightful. It's like you have an itch in the brain over omnipotency. It's not as easy as you make it out to be

I think this discussion is helpful: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/the-origin-and-creation-of-the-universe-a-response-to-adolf-gruenbaum

And there you have stepped outside of the uses of "nothing" that we understand and set off up the garden path. Have fun. — Banno

Ok, but if there is first nothing then there would be no action and so no beginning. I believe time starts with the first motion and so there is nothing before the big bang but by "nothing" I don't express a real thought. There is no beginning to universe, just a first motion. See the work of Adolf Grünbaum

"So we shall come to understand that necessary existence is contained in the idea of a supremely perfect being" Descartes

Yeah, it does. It's what's in my pocket. — Banno

That's only within the universe. With regard to cosmology nothing refers to no thing

In the Third medication Descartes says God has "omnipotence, omniscience," but also "immutability, eternality". So if God is perfect, unchanged, and eternal, he can't become less

Do we? I've not seen a good argument to that end. — Banno

The idea of nothing doesn't refer to anything. So it can't produce anything. It's just a word

So I forgot there were 6? So. I don't read Descartes anymore. But you forget that Descartes says God cannot lie because he is perfect. His God is much closer to Aquinas's than yours.

that energy must be shown to have been purposeful, rather than arbitrary, which it has not displayed. — Michael Zwingli

Do you expect a monkey to come out of your computer right now? You don't because the world is understood by you to be rational

We need PSR to conclude this? — Banno

We know existence can't come from non-existence without a power or some kind of action happening and nothingness cannot act. Nothingness is an empty category in our minds and is not anything at all. So the world either always existed or we can adopt Hawking's hypothesis (or something similar). But once we no longer believe in "something from nothing" the material world no longer makes any sense as a sole reality.

The PSR is implied in the above

If you had even read the Meditations you would know that he says God cannot deceive

We'd have to fill that out. We have: "If I drop two balls at the same time and they fall at the same rate and do this again and again"; what is added by including PSR? We have that the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8ms^-1. How does PSR help us here? — Banno

Because the reason for what is happening is in our reach. Our minds are sufficient to sufficiently understand a sufficiently understandable world

Lots of theists believe God can do anything yet don't believe he can commit suicide. Jesus was probably one of them and Descartes certainly was. You're the only one with the mental block about this.

Seems to me that PSR is needed for Rationalists to do science - Spinoza and Leibniz, and presumably Descartes; but that Rationalism is no longer the basis of science. — Banno

Then how do we have laws in science then? If I drop two balls at the same time and they fall at the same rate and do this again and again, the principle of sufficient reason says I now know a law. Does not Hume's problems become our own when you reject PSR in science?

? Please elaborate. — Michael Zwingli

Well to speak from my own experience, thinking my inner life is only brain matter gives me a headache and I no longer associate with truth. The point of the PoSR is that truth, when realized, is in accord with reality. The world makes sense to me but if you are to say that world doesn't make sense and you are only matter, than you yourself would no longer make sense

Like our universe, which has no purpose, but rather just happened. — Michael Zwingli

That's a disconnection from God and truth

False. Jesus did not say God can change.

Also: "But if the mere fact that I can produce from my thought the idea of something entails that everything which I clearly and distinctly perceive to belong to that thing really does belong to it, is not this a possible basis for another argument to prove the existence of God? Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number. And my understanding that it belongs to his nature that he always exists is no less clear and distinct than is the case when I prove of any shape or number that some property belongs to its nature" Descartes

But, that is not to say that every phenomenon is purposeful. — Michael Zwingli

What would a purposeless thing look like?

What? I'm not following that. — Banno

Well when we say that this weighs as much as that we are assuming that math really works in describing reality. Yet, is it really different when it comes to logic? The world has to make logical sense, such that this can weigh more and less than that at one time. The PoSR to me just means that we can makes sense of the world

I am not, just noting that they are on my side. — Bartricks

They aren't. I don't interpret them to mean God can commit suicide at least.

I'm more concerned with working methodologies for examining the phenomenon whether God is necessary to explain existence itself. — Shawn

I agree that logical applies to the world (nothing comes from nothing, everything has a cause), but this doesn't prove an external God imo

If material implication is PSR, — Banno

Wouldn't it be just the same as mathematics working in physics? In math doesn't work in physics then what's the point of physics at that point?

Why are you putting your words in the mouths of Descartes and Jesus though?

Because he said with God all things are possible. — Bartricks

All theists say that

Well, going down that path, many people believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe or that the sun orbited the Earth. Strange and ungrounded beliefs. — Shawn

Look at general relativity. It explains the world as interactions of reference frames. But what connects one consciousness to another is the spiritual side of us, otherwise GR leads to solipsism