/lit/ - Literature

This one is pretty good.

>>19914786
It's by Ernest John Eitel

>>19914774
“ Why I Am Not a Buddhist”

>>19914802
I'm guessing this is from Monsiuer Hume?

>>19914774
we need a Tom Wolfe equivalent for religious criticism

>>19914907
Agreed desu

>>19915011
well he made fun of art academia for acting like medieval scholastics
so the obvius move would just be flip the script and make fun of the cults for being like academia

Start with the greeks

>>19915045
How do they oppose Buddhism anon? Unless you're just trolling me

>>19914774
>Any books with genuine arguments that refute or try to disprove Buddhism?
The following books contain arguments against Buddhism or are secondary sources covering medieval thinkers who did argue that way. Thompsons book is moreso a critique of Buddhist modernism or western Buddhism. Darling's book covers some of the arguments against Buddhism by medieval Hindu Vedanta philosophers like Shankara, Ramanuja etc, and Taber's book covers the arguments of Kumarila Bhatta.

An Evaluation of the Vedantic Critique of Buddhism - Gregory Darling
A Hindu Critique of Buddhist Epistemology - John Taber
Buddhist Illogic - Avi Sion
Why I Am Not A Buddhist - Evan Thompson
Emptiness Appraised - David Burton
Relation as Real : A Critique of Dharmakirti - Raghunath Ghosh
Bulssi Japbyeon (Buddha's Nonsense) - Jeong Dojeon

>>19914786
based, many amusing quotes are to be found in that book.

It relies on humans having generally good nature.
A mendicant can't live long without any alms.
So, a western argument is pessimism, and nihilism

>>19915051
he is probably trolling, but hedonism

There's a book, "The Great Debate" (you can google it to get the .pdf) about the first major Christian vs Buddhist debate in Sri Lanka. The Brits had already conquered Sri Lanka, destroyed a bunch of hospitals, schools, etc, and were only concerned with officially Christianizing the island in a Westphalian sense rather than actually changing public opinion, so this is basically the first attempt at really getting people to interact with the religion. It's divided in half, between a monk debating with a Western preacher, and then with the same monk debating with an Indian (mainlander) convert.

If you want a tl;dr the monk absolutely blows the fuck out of the Western preacher and then dabs on the convert. See, the monk had read the Bible, but the preacher had only the faintest idea of what Buddhism was actually about, and the convert is mostly concerned with setting up systems of opportunism to grift off of the British and isn't really concerned with theological or philosophical coherence. To be fair to the Westerner, it's pretty clear that he was in no position to really argue for Christianity, and the monk is pretty clearly one of the intellectual elite of Sri Lanka at this time.

Also you can check out Guenonfag's list (>>19915089) but honestly the only thing in it that's really interesting is the Bulssi Japbyeon because it's the only one of them to actually engage with Buddhism at a holistic level. Everything else just amounts to "I can't jerk off if I'm meditating :(" or autistic scholastic quibbling about minutiae that just comes down to "my revealed holy text requires certain things to be true in order for it to not be completely absurd therefore Buddha has to be wrong".

>>19915195
based guenonfag humbler

>>19915195
>"my revealed holy text requires certain things to be true in order for it to not be completely absurd therefore Buddha has to be wrong"
Why can't you just do this with Buddhism?

>>19914774
>You're a peasant because you were cringe in a past life. I am a noble because I was totally based and poggers in the past life. Sorry peasant boy, that's how it works.
>You should also temper shallow worldly senses like hunger and accept these wage cuts

>>19915195
>Everything else just amounts to "I can't jerk off if I'm meditating :(" or autistic scholastic quibbling about minutiae that just comes down to "my revealed holy text requires certain things to be true in order for it to not be completely absurd therefore Buddha has to be wrong".
That's flat-out wrong, the Vedantins critiqued and pointed to contradictions in buddhist theory of mind and metaphysics, Taber's book covers Kumarila's detailed critique on of Dharmakirit's Epistemology, Sion's and Burton's books both dissect and examine the contradictions in Nagarjuna's logic, and Ghosh's book critiques Dharmakirti's metaphysics. The only one that's not heavily rooted in logic and epistemology is the early-modern one by the Korean guy.

>>19915220
Strictly speaking Buddhism does not have the concept of "revelation" because all of its claims are empirically and rationally verifiable and you personally are capable of proving all of this. In practice, however, the religion as practiced is reliant on beings significantly more spiritually advanced than either you or I saying that and then immediately saying that they're just going to drop a wisdom bomb to make this process easier. This means that it just turns the entire thing into
>well MY revealed holy text says that THIS is true therefore it is so HAH!
which makes for really boring reading. Why bother writing up huge walltexts if it all just boils down to that? Snoozefest. You can't ever be proven wrong because you've defined yourself as right. There has to be stakes to make it fun.

Which is ultimately what Jeong Gihwa is doing in the Bulssi Jabyeon; he's arguing against Buddhism in a manner that opens up to the possibility of it being right, and demonstrating that it is by its own views incorrect. For example, one point he brings up is that Buddhism's views on karma and compassion are incompatible with the huge government bureaucracy that punished people for jacking off.

>>19915234
You haven't read any of the books on that list so your opinion doesn't really matter.

>>19915238
To add to this because character limits: you'll notice that this does give the Buddhist an out ("well fine Buddhists just leave government"). That's intentional here as Jeong, being an actually philosophically minded man, isn't interested in arbitrary doctrinal disputes, he wants to be right. This means that he has to allow the Buddhist an out by which the Buddhist can then come to him. But it's a two way street: if Jeong is wrong, he must relent and kneel to his opponent.

This text is rather unique in that regard in that Jeong doesn't actually have a revealed text that he can rely on as a crutch.

>The difference between the awareness of one moment and another (that is posited by Buddhists) cannot thus either be logically proved, or realized in experience, which always testifies to the unity of awareness through all moments of its appearance. It may be held that the appearance of unity is erroneous, and that, as such, it presumes that the awarenesses are similar; for without such a similarity there could not have been the erroneous appearance of unity. But, unless the difference of the awarenesses and their similarity be previously proved, there is nothing which can even suggest that the appearance of unity is erroneous. It cannot be urged that, if the existence of difference and similarity between the awarenesses of two different moments can be proved to be false, then only can the appearance of unity be proved to be true; for the appearance of unity is primary and directly proved by experience. Its evidence can be challenged only if the existence of difference between the awarenesses and their similarity be otherwise proved. The unity of awareness is a recognition of the identity of the awarenesses (pratyabhijñā), which is self-evident.

Guenonfag is now going to quote spam. Right on time.

>>19914774
You the OP from the "books to convince myself that romantic love isn't important" thread?

>>19915292
Naw

>>19915051
>>19915177
actually the Greeks who did live in South Asia were predominantly Buddhist, and may have had a large influence on Mahayana Buddhism, so no, they did not critique it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

>>19914774

>>19915177
hedonism wasn't their philosophy just a product in Grecian culture. The word itself is derived from a Greek word that's about it.
>>19915311
The cynics were essentially Buddhist

>>19915195
>the monk absolutely blows the fuck out of the Western preacher and then dabs on the convert
Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian Augustus all did the same thing for Hellenism vs Christianity and the best response christers had was to eventually outlaw their books and destroy any copies of them.

For arguments against arguments against Buddhism, see the Tattvasangraha of Shantarakshita and its commentary by Kamalashila. It's very long and boring. But it refutes literally everything.

>>19915234
>the Vedantins critiqued and pointed to contradictions in buddhist theory of mind and metaphysics,
not really, the vedantins created a strawman and criticised said strawman, or even worst indulge in a petitiio fallacy a dn created metaphysical "necessities" that arent really necessary, like an "uncaused first cause" to argue buddhism fall into a inifnite regression icnonsitensy, which isn't really true, sinc ein buddhism consistency is giving by the becoming of each cause and effect
not ot mention the unproven vedantin axiom that awarness can be a thing on itself outside phenomena

>>19915384
buddha never said that conciousness is an illusion
also appearance is not part of conciousness, is a whole different skanda
so the whole thing just don't work as a critique to buddhism

>>19915273
>which always testifies to the unity of awareness through all moments of its appearance
that's not true, we're not aware of awarness all the time, our awarness fluctuates between tons of states, this text confuses awarness on itself, that is awarness as a fact of experience with awarness as an idea, that is teh idea i made on my mind of awarness, which then present itself as something that can't change, which is what deifnes all ideas, uchanging symbols in my mind that allow language to happen, but awarness in itself liek any other aspect of reality is always changing, that's necessesary in order for awraness to be fucntional in a ever changing world, it needs to change itself all the time
>The difference between the awareness of one moment and another (that is posited by Buddhists) cannot thus either be logically proved, or realized in experience
yes it can, eac moment of awarness depends on the prior moment, just like any karmic action has a identity on itself but also depend on the previous karmic action to exist

>>19915238
>because all of its claims are empirically and rationally verifiable and you personally are capable of proving all of this
someone already did

>>19914774
It's idiotic to try and "disprove" a religion, but it IS worth reminding people that's what Buddhism is, and as such is just as made up and biased as any other. Pic related is a wonderful example of how to ground a reasoned response to the reddit-type modern converts, all in good faith, by a guy that's an expert on the matter and won't try to convert you to any other religion (unlike, say, Paul Williams, who while being an authority on Buddhism and Nagarjuna became a very devout Catholic and actively proselytizes when he can.)

If you want more autistic criticism, try these:

http://jayarava.blogspot.com/ (for a clinical dissection of the absurdity of things like karma, rebirth and a dispassionate study on how some sacred texts are very likely forgeries, all this while arguing we should preserve the positive aspects of the Buddhist project)

https://vividness.live/after-buddhist-ethics (for a thorough takedown that argues for a kind of secular tantra that's closer to Jungian integration therapy)

They're both run by guys who were deep into traditional Buddhism and found it wanting, inconsistent, etc. and decided to call a spade a spade.

Buddhism's strongest selling point is how its psychology and taxonomy of mind states seem unassailable, but that's not true either, it's just that most people lack the knowledge and philosophical tools to do so. There's a great compilation book called "Self, No-Self? Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions". that presents a very tough challenge to traditional and modern Buddhist pictures of the mind. Mind (lol) you, this thing isn't accessible to the layman at all and I'd unironically recommend you start with the Greeks or a basic phenomenology book before you tackle this, as it's geared for academics and people that already know a lot of technical terms. But once you get what the controversy is, you'll never be able to take anatman uncritically.

Finally, Donald Lopez's historical and anthropological works are magnificent, and while he's a practicing Buddhist himself, he's not afraid of showing things as they are and will do just as good a job at making anyone question their beliefs. I recommend Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West, you'll discover some amazing things.

>>19916304
Insightful post.
>secular tantra that's closer to Jungian integration therapy
Like the kind Christopher Wallis writes about?
Don't you think Theravada practices are useful on their own though? I don't see how you couldn't get a net benefit from practicing satipatthana and metta, and stream entry seems to be a real thing.
Regarding anatman, I think it's always been "not self" rather than "no self" even though most people now interpret it to be the latter. The Thai forest tradition seems to believe in the former interpretation.

>>19916304
I can't believe I forgot to mention Stephen Batchelor. Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist isn't exactly an anti-Buddhist book, but is a good example of someone coming to terms with the fact it's not a science, truth with a T, or perfect in any way. Full disclosure, this is the book that made me start questioning if the beliefs I was relying on so much were really worth it. He describes an experience that's extremely similar to something that happened to me, and that both our teachers' systems were completely unable to and uninterested in properly accounting for, as they were focused on getting to the point where sensory experience stops, because they assumed that was synonym with the world disappearing. I realize I might sound just like acid heads or meditation junkies by typing this last part, but it's not really something that's easy to put into words, but that if you experience it vividly, simply cannot be ignored and just crawling back under any kind of dogma will become unacceptable.

>>19916383
>an experience that's extremely similar to something that happened to me
Would you be comfortable getting into more detail? Was this experience not covered by the usual theravadin dismissal of non-jhanic experiences as mere distractions on the path?
May I ask what your current beliefs are?

>>19915238
>bulssi japbyeon
as someone interested in neo-confucianism this looks really interesting, thanks

>>19916304
>Recapitulation of an argument by physicist Sean Carroll invoking the second law of thermodynamics to show that an afterlife is not possible under the laws of physics.
That sounds incredibly stupid, anon. I'd rather not.

>>19914774
I can't stand Buddhist larpers bros

>>19916444
At least they mostly don't shit up other threads, they're less obnoxious than most other religious larpers

>>19916397
I'm sure it can be covered by the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow or would be met with the noble silence, but those quite simply weren't enough for me. I was walking one day and out of the blue it struck me how strange, how terrifyingly wonderful it is that something exists at all, that there are monks, children, Buddha images, a not-self asking itself those questions, how it is that I could feel sadness, happiness, the unskillful attachment to my parents, my dog's impure, raw attachment to me, the smell of grass with suffering beings in it, the smell of the food that per the suttas, I'm supposed to imagine already digested when I'm chewing, the beating of my heart and body, pumping blood, piss, bile and the rest around, how amazing it is that I can be aware of all this, how absurd, how beyond words that there are others who experience it as well and we all live in the same strange world, that was here before us and will be here after us, rebirth or not, with laws, whatever those may be, governing it, with the sun in the sky and the ground under our feet. This might not sound shocking at all, but it hit me like a truck, with a vividness and directness that I had never known, even during meditation, I felt like laughing, crying, like crawling under a table and going out to live because saying a human birth is precious like in that one turtle analogy doesn't come close to actually realizing how strange it is to even have a thing like existence that you can refer to. The attitude from my teachers went from dismissive to plain puzzled, but I knew something changed on that day and my shraddha eroded pretty fast. I could never again regard meditative experiences as intrinsically more insightful or preferable to normal ones. I know the party line is that this is just the point and that once you can walk around and meditate at the same time you're making progress, but even the notion of meditation became suspect to me as it started to appear laden with a very unhelpful conceptual system where you were already told what you'd find and anything else was what you'd call a sin in any other religion.

My current beliefs are simply to not be a dick to others and that there might or might not be an universal truth, but no one has discovered it and any attempts to do so are doomed to fail. The Jain concept of anekantavada is very useful.

>>19916452
cringe, you just went crazy. I have cried while laughing before.
ur not special

>>19916452
Up to that point what did your practice consist of and how advanced were you?
That's an interesting testimony and I understand what you mean by "how strange and wonderful that anything exists", it seems like a platitude when said like that but I think I have felt what you're talking about, less intensely perhaps. It felt like it made preconceived notions of truth lose their meaning and everything became purely experiential, Tathata I suppose.
>unhelpful conceptual system
What about Zen meditation?
Also, have you looked into UG Krishnamurti?
>anekantavada
I'm familiar with that. But I feel reluctant to dismiss all meditative practices and go "this just is, go with the flow" because I worry there might be something to attain nonetheless, that perhaps there is some work to do. I was drawn to Theravadin practices because of their apparent simplicity and "quietist" stance on some metaphysical questions but you are right that a lot of dogma remains attached nonetheless.

>>19916347
I actually didn't know about Wallis and had to look him up. Interesting stuff, Chapman does seemsto be going for a similar approach. I think any kind of meditation or religious practice can have value, but it depends almost entirely on the individual. I've come to suspect it depends on how much you want to believe it'll work and that's why bodhicitta is so emphasized as the bedrock.
>stream entry seems to be a real thing
There's a range of experiences some call stream entry but they seem to be different from what other traditions call their initial enlightenment experience (kensho, etc.). Again, the problem, for me, is that we seem dead set on putting into the same box what are, if we're honest, different things.
>>19916408
The guy certainly has some stinkers among his articles, but his karma stuff is pretty insightful. Sure, there are texts and formulations that cover his kind of critique, mostly based on the development of Alaya-vijnana, but his point still stands. The fact that karma doctrine had to be patched and rebuilt so many times by monastics themselves is pretty telling that, by their own logic, it didn't work out of the box and they found this troubling.

>>19916491
I practiced vipassana and devotion for some time, first by myself and then on a few retreats, and then moved on to serious Vajrayana for like 4 years (I even took samaya).
>Tathata I suppose
Hell yes.
>What about Zen meditation?
I have to say, I did find Zen more helpful to make sense of my experience. It's a great tradition, but once again you eventually run into a wall where you're supposed to arrive at certain answers that are non-negotiable. Also, it's so different from the rest that you kinda get to see why it's not held in high regard by Tibetan or Theravada traditions. Tibetans even have a semi-legendary account of Kamalashila defeating and humiliating a Chan monk so thoroughly in a debate that he was banished from the country and all his sect's texts burned.
>Also, have you looked into UG Krishnamurti?
Yes, I read quite a bit about him. He had some interesting ideas, but I don't fully buy his being a zombie like he said or his idea of the Mind with an M for philosophical reasons. If you want an "evil twin" version of what happened to him check out Collision with the Infinite, by Suzanne Segal. It's intriguing that she died of a brain tumor after all that happened to her.
>because I worry there might be something to attain nonetheless
There is nothing to attain, there is no Buddhism. This of course, only if you go by the Mahayana-Zen angle.

>>19916514
>similar approach
I'm not sure to what extent this kind of secular Buddhism is a good thing though. It's easy to drift into physicalist interpretations at that point, no?
>how much you want to believe
The idea of stream entry is that it shows you the truth without doubt, do you think it's self-delusion of some kind? I have read really powerful testimonies from people, even anons, who attained truly blissful states with samatha or metta. Then again you'll hear similar testimonies from any other religion.
>they seem to be different
Kind of hard to assess qualitatively, no? As far as I know stream entry is just getting a glimpse of Nibbana. What that means is up for debate.
>>19916563
>vipassana and devotion
Is there a reason why you didn't do samatha and metta meditation? Do you know the book "Path to Nibbana" by David Johnson?
Vajrayana seems to be one of the more liturgical, ritualistic sects which assumes you need to have faith in specific deities and so on (even though it's all empty in the end) so I can understand feeling detached from that dogma eventually. How far did you get in Vajrayana, did you practice Mahamudra or Dzogchen?
>Hell yes
Wouldn't the Zen people call it Satori? It's a bit muddled what exactly Tathata means in terms of "realization" on the path.
>you're supposed to arrive at certain answers
Even in Zen? I was under the impression it was the most anti-dogmatic sect there is, even anti-intellectual at times.
Maybe the disdain also comes from the fact that Zen was so easily westernized and diluted to become McMindfulness.
>Collision with the Infinite
Thanks, I'll take a look at that. I take UG with a grain of salt too but his take on there being nothing to be attained, and the idea of enlightenment being a lie, seemed similar to your own experience.
>There is nothing to attain, there is no Buddhism
But surely you would agree that this can easily lead to dispassion, and even hedonism and nihilism?
I like Mahayana metaphysics but this is also why I stuck to Theravada so far, it seemed like the deeper you go into the Mahayana rabbit hole, the more things start to lose their meaning, and soon Buddhism itself just becomes nothing.

>>19916608
Secular Buddhism is neither good nor bad, imo. Religions change over time, even the definition of physicalism is shaky, you could argue there are physicalist Buddhisms because some sects regard dharmas as ultimately real. Theravada was basically reconstructed from the ground up in the 19th century, even the meditation techniques, as a response to colonialism, and with Western help at that, look up Henry Steel Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala. I remain skeptical of a single truth being revealed by anything, as any experience, even selfless states are ultimately interpreted by the person after the fact, once they're back to their normal state, and that interpretation will be compounded by a million factors, cultural, religious, etc. It doesn't help that they'll likely go to a teacher firmly steeped into a particular vision to get the definitive explanation.

>Is there a reason why you didn't do samatha and metta meditation?
I did both as well, but I wasn't honestly getting as much out of them as vipassana, metta particularly struck me as a textbook example of fake it till you make it and that just won't work too well unless you accept the full package of every being having being your mother, blind old and burdened. I haven't read that specific book, but I'm familiar with the Theravadin approach of there being a single path and the suttas being a precise instruction manual (interestingly my very first book was "Arahant" Daniel Ingraham's). I continued some of that work during my Vajrayana years, because while they're not central, the tradition regards samatha and metta as preliminary but necessary practices and it just says they're not the big guns. I'm not out to defend the approach, specially because it lends itself so well to abuse by unethical gurus that you wonder if that's now hot it started in the first place, but while some people get stuck into ritual and almost fanatical worship, you're told over and over that no matter what you see, hear or even do, it's not meant to be taken at face value. I practiced Dzogchen, and ironically I picked it up because it has a reputation of being somewhat controversial, with some Gelukpa hardliners being vehemently opposed to it.

Regarding Zen, it's not held in high regard because it does away with what most Buddhists consider Buddhism. There used to be plenty of tension in Japan itself with the Shingon and Tendai sects, themselves basically Vajrayana. My problems with Zen come mostly from the emphasis on the mind-body duality that you're supposed to uncover and that its enlightenment seems to be something completely different than what the other branches promise. If you want an interesting exposition of the Zen position, try reading the Kyoto School of philosophers, they actually tried to systematize the core of the view.

>>19916608
> it seemed like the deeper you go into the Mahayana rabbit hole, the more things start to lose their meaning, and soon Buddhism itself just becomes nothing
The metaphysics are fascinating, look up Indra's net sometimes. The entire goal of Mahayana is to let go of concepts and realize that the thusness isn't something you can encapsulate in words, that even unbinding and cessation don't make it justice. In all honesty, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhisms are different religions and the only reason they're tolerant of each other is because they've been historically segregated into their different corners of Asia and didn't really interact until very recently, you might as well say Catholics and Mormons are the same just because they both recognize Jesus as the son of God.

>But surely you would agree that this can easily lead to dispassion, and even hedonism and nihilism?
Do we really need a Dharma, the threat of avicii or in my case vajra hell for breaking samaya to live moral lives? Maybe some do, but others can only do so if they believe this is our one life. I don't mean to disparage Theravada, it's a beautiful tradition on its own right, and anyone can get a ton of benefit from it, I particularly like Ajahn Buddhadasa's work. Still, the reason I originally left it was precisely because all that focus on attainments and specific instructions seemed like what they call, and I hate it was fucking Chogyam Trungpa of all people who coined this very useful term, spiritual materialism. I can't tell you if dispassion and renunciation are the way to live a worthy life, because I'm sure they *are* for some, but not for others, and that alone tells me there are as many truths as there are human beings.

>>19916741
I'm aware Theravada saw a revival not too long ago, but the Pali canon remains the same nonetheless (as well as the Visuddhimagga and so on) right? One could just as well disregard theravadin institutions and "become a rhinoceros".
You're right that mystical experiences are heavily influenced by several contexts. However I'm not a perennialist, but it's impossible to look at accounts of various mystical experiences from around the world and not notice commonalities, elements that resurface consistently.
>fake it till you make it
Really? I guess there are superstitions to accept and metaphysical assumptions to be made, but I personally think it's more barebones than, say, Tummo for example. Bhante Vimalaramsi's explanation, with the 6R's, could easily be stripped down to a secular approach without losing much.
>Daniel Ingraham's
Mastering the Core Teachings? Did you find it bad? The Mind Illuminated is probably more exhaustive.
>fanatical worship
I'm reminded of this passage from a book (was it Chogyam Trungpa's?) saying that guru worship was just the recognition of Sunyata, that the guru was supposed to be a placeholder for the luminous mind or something like that, is that accurate? I get your point anyway.
>some Gelukpa hardliners being vehemently opposed to it.
What is the source of that opposition?
I've always been intrigued by Vajrayana, but the heavy ritualism and more importantly the Bodhisattva vow put me off (as well as the practical limitations of having no gurus near me, which makes learning Vajrayana in the first place literally impossible.)
Right now, regarding your Vajrayana practice, have you completely stopped engaging with it considering the change in your beliefs that you mentioned above? Do you feel like Vajrayana was a dead end for you or that it has been useful nonetheless? I hope you don't mind me asking personal questions, if so do tell me.
>it does away with what most Buddhists consider Buddhism
The Taoist influence plays a part, but Vajrayana itself is steeped in Bön, is that syncretism ever pointed out by other schools? Seems hypocritical to call out Zen for doing something all of Mahayana has done. Japanese Vajrayana itself incorporated Shinto elements (although I wasn't aware Tendai was Vajrayana).
>its enlightenment seems to be something completely different
Is it qualitatively different from the rest of Mahayana? I know enlightenment is not Nibbana, but Zen never struck me as having a clearly different goal, just different methods.
>metaphysics
I'm aware of concepts like Indra's net which I think are very interesting and intellectually stimulating, actually I much prefer reading Mahayana sutras than the Nikayas which are mostly very dry. But as you say, it's pretty much a different religion. My reluctance towards the Bodhisattva path for example comes from the Theravada interpretation making it like a wrong choice, while in Mahayana, the vow to postpone enlightenment is inconsequential because of sunyata.

>>19916790
So yeah, that's the thing. Mahayana metaphysics in themselves provide a satisfactory answer to everything, reading something like the Diamond sutra makes me feel like I've arrived at the end of metaphysical inquiry, I cannot disagree with these conclusions on a theoretical level. But at the same time, Theravada is more grounding, I felt more drawn to it because it forces me to act, to actually do something, and thus calms this existential fear of something needing to be attained. I'm aware it's self-contradictory.
>spiritual materialism
I understand. Since Theravada is not eager to use Sunyata as the basis for everything, including teachings themselves, it remains grounded in dualistic assumptions: there is something to be attained, there is unbinding and dukkha, there is the conditioned and the unconditioned. And to these truths they attach practices, dogmas and sometimes rituals that can be considered arbitrary.
>there are as many truths as there are human beings
I guess the usual objection to your arguments concerning dogmatism and truth would be that many spiritually accomplished men have lived before us, and they all believed in some manner of transcendence made possible by a specific tradition; why would we modern skeptics be the ones to have found the truth? I'm saying this because it's something I often think about when I think of abandoning all dogmatic assertions.

>>19916452
Do you still meditate? Did it have any ultimate effects for you or change your life in any way? Clearly based on >>19916452 it did. How do you meditate now, how did you meditate then?

>>19914774
The best people can do to refute Buddhism is basically just the same blanket arguments they use against all religion.
Even Nietzsche liked Buddhism.

>>19916913
>Mahayana metaphysics in themselves provide a satisfactory answer to eve-

And this reasoning has the peculiar consequence that, if one came to know and perceive that all entities are in fact without svabhava, i.e. are conceptual constructs, then the false belief and perception which enables one to participate in an (apparently) public world would be destroyed. The enlightened Madhyamika would see not only that all objects of the supposedly public world are conceptual constructs but also that the very people with whom he might share the publicly accessible world are themselves his own conceptual constructs. There are in fact no other people who have similar karmavipaka to oneself and with whom one might therefore participate in a commonly acknowledged conceptually constructed world! The enlightened Madhyamika must surely be a solipsist (which seems to me to be a peculiar sort of enlightenment).

It is difficult to see how, in this condition, the bodhisattva ideal - which is a fundamental pillar of Mahayana (and hence Madhyamaka) spirituality - could be enacted. It does, after all, seem to be a real paradox (and by this. I mean a non-sensical statement, a contradiction) that the bodhisattva saves all sentient beings yet there are no sentient beings to be saved (for they are all the bodhisattva's own conceptual constructs). The realization of emptiness - i.e. of the conceptually constructed nature of everything, including all sentient beings - would seem to be incompatible with the ideal of compassion. The bodhisattva who holds together knowledge of emptiness and compassion is not so much extraordinary as deeply puzzling.

>But one might go further and ask the Nihilist why he does not feel thoroughly ashamed to go on recognizing himself as the agent in every successive cognition right up to his dying breath, and to remember all his past cognitions from birth on as having had himself as agent, while continuing to adhere to his doctrine that everything goes to destruction the moment it arises? He might perhaps rejoin that all this comes about through similarity. One might then reply to him that the notion ‘this is like that’ shows that similarity involves two entities. But as the Nihilist cannot admit that there is a single perceiver who could perceive the two similar things, his claim that recognition is based on similarity is just babble. If, on the other hand, there were really a single perceiver able to perceive the similarity of two moments, then there would be one person persisting during two moments, which would contradict the principle of universal momentariness.
buddhabros....

>>19917715
>>19917722
wrong

You can also watch the ghibli movie The Tale of Princess Kaguya. The two guys in charge of most ghibli movies are shintoists, and this movie explicitly critiques buddhist values

>>19915311
unironically you're eurocentric

>>19915311
>South Asia
Central Asia*
They were around Gandhara, Kushan empire, Balkh, and Bactria.
It was more than just Greek influence. There was also significant Persian influence and of course Indian.
Development of Mahayana was unironically "multicultural" in some sense.

>>19916741
This is completely subjective, but I generally get a more authentic and genuine vibe from Theravada monks doing dhamma talks than I do from Zen or Tibetan ones.

>>19916906
The Pali canon was written centuries after the Buddha, and while I don't doubt it's been painstankingly preserved ever since, we have no idea how well the oral tradition held, and it's telling that it was all written down when it was felt the teachings were about to be lost. So, it was human hands that decided what was and wasn't buddhavacana, what things to add, fix, etc. It doesn't take any less faith to trust them as the direct word of an enlightened being than belief in the Bible as the word of God. We really know almost nothing about pre-sectarian Buddhism, there's even some hints the historical Buddha's words might have actually been much closer to Upanishadic thought than what eventually got to us.

Regarding mystical experiences, stream entry and the rest, I suspect it has to do with all of us having the same brains and senses. Alcohol and sleep deprivation reliably affect all of us the same, and we don't claim that it show us some supramundane truth. I found William James' classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, very illustrative. I don't deny the possibility that we might be seeing something that's beyond the world, but again, trying to squeeze it into a Nibbana, Gnosis or Moksha shaped box strikes me as useless. Something I read once and that's stuck is that mystics are just as naive about perceiving reality as the rest of us, they just choose to reify different perceptions and experiences than most people.

>Mastering the Core Teachings?
I found it very useful once you get past his pedantic style, in some ways more so than The Mind Illuminated. While that one does teach a more comprehensive and friendly approach, I know it was derided by some traditionalists because of Culadasa's more or less eclectic approach, I wish I could have seen their faces when he actually pulled out the I Am That.

>What is the source of that opposition?
The short version is that it's not a Geluk practice and that even Bon uses it. Dzogchen makes a distinction between mind and awareness and that can lend itself to some deep doctrinal problems. The Rime movement has done a lot to dampen the sometimes even violent sectarianism among Tibetans, though, specially after the Dorje Shugden debacle. Your interpretation of guru yoga is roughly right, yes, the entire point of the vehicle is to go beyond reading and reciting and realizing that samsara is nirvana just like how a kiss can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on the situation and person, except it's still a kiss, except there's not a thing you can call a kiss, just lips and skin touching, except there's not skin, just cells, and so on. Except the kiss still happens.

> is that syncretism ever pointed out by other schools?
All schools claim to have the direct word of the Buddha as it was actually taught, nevermind that even Theravada is mixed to hell and back with other traditions.

1/2

>>19915273
>The unity of awareness is a recognition of the identity of the awarenesses
Read Kant's First Critique, he spends a good deal slaughtering this retarded doctrine once and for all.

>>19916906
Vajrayana was a mixed bag for me. I'm sorry if I sound cynical, but it didn't really teach anything you can't discover as an edgy teenager (like maaaan, like money doesn't exist, it's just paper we trade, same with society), it was my faith in the teachings, the crazy controlled trips you get during things like deity yoga and the sheer peer pressure of being in a sangha and having taken vows that kept me there. I had a lot of fun, made a few friends, but I think that's something that's firmly behind me now. A lot of people are there because the teachers seem just so certain of what they say they don't dare doubt a word about the approach. Vajrayana is just like any other school or religion, it can be incredible valuable, save lives, turn you into a saint or a psychopath, but what it does is entirely up to you.
>Is it qualitatively different from the rest of Mahayana?
In as much as they both start from the same base, and include an event of sensory cessation as the goal, no. In practice they're completely apart and their theory about sudden enlightenment, the buddhanature, etc. is very different. Simply put, Theravada doesn't hold the pajnaparamita literature, on which all Mahayana is based in any high regard.
>My reluctance towards the Bodhisattva path for example comes from the Theravada interpretation making it like a wrong choice, while in Mahayana, the vow to postpone enlightenment is inconsequential because of sunyata
It boils down to who you choose to believe, doesn't it? On the other end of that spectrum, there are Mahayana texts that even pity the arhats because they've missed out on the real deal by checking out early and will never attain perfect Buddhahood. I agree, the Nikayas are pretty uninspiring. I suspect Mahayana partly developed as a response to that dryness and focus on suffering and renunciation with next to no participation of the laypeople except for giving dana to the monks, and that's why it eventually became so much flashier and mystical. Arguably, Theravada's greatest difference is that Nibbana is an actual existent (more inline with the Vedic and Jain conventions of the time), while in Mahayana it's just the realization of emptiness.
>and they all believed in some manner of transcendence made possible by a specific tradition
First noble truth, my man. We all suffer, we all wish to do something about it. Religion is a natural part of being human and they all promise a surefire way out of pain. I wouldn't put much stock on ancient ascetics being enlightened, first because they were only considered so by their followers but not by their rivals, who had devout groups of their own. Besides, something I've learned after a period of researching cults and finally coming to terms with all the skeletons Vajrayana has in its closet, is that a charismatic guru that seems enlightened is just as likely to just be insane. What would we really think of the monks and saints we read about so much if we had met them?

2/2

>>19917652
This is a complicated question, but I'm glad you asked. I don't meditate anymore, to be honest. I see little point since I lost my faith in the practice revealing things as they are instead of being a particular way of inducing pre-catalogued states of mind, and there's plenty more things you can do to relax and enjoy introspective moments, my personal favorite being running or working out while listening to music. As you surely know, any activity can be meditative, and Zen takes this to the extreme by making even things like martial arts, that would be seen as hindrances by other branches, into "do"s, ways to practice. Since I'm getting most of the benefits without any of the downsides, like the extra anxiety of escaping a house on fire, or having to deal with the ironically self-absorbed people you find at most sanghas, I see no reason to go back.

I honestly do not know if my experience would have happened without my years of practice, all I know is that it was of a completely different import and didn't rely on any of the particular teachings that I was receiving at the time, indeed, it ran counter to them. This is why I found it so disquieting, because after years of getting answers, it seemed like I had been asking the wrong questions all along. Please don't take this as a claim that meditation is useless or without value, I wouldn't discourage anyone from practicing it, it can certainly teach you a lot about attention control and how to look more critically at the content in your head, to not let emotions or stress overwhelm you, and how to trace back and re-examine the origin of what you think are your true beliefs. Meditation is a wonderful aid for this, except it's not the only way, and I've actually found philosophy, both Eastern and Western, to be more helpful in my personal case, though I'm sure it's the opposite for many, I know people who were only finally able to overcome depression and suicidal thoughts via their practice.


>>19919002
I don't think authenticity is a useful criteria regarding religion, but I agree they seem to have extra confidence and authority when speaking. I think it's partly because they use the oldest literature and Theravada as a whole is in a position of power in many Asian countries, where Buddhism is sometimes even the state religion, so unlike for example, the Tibetans, they don't really have to rely on upaya and somewhat dishonest pandering to western sensibilities to keep the donations for their temples and sometimes, communities, coming. They fully believe what they preach and pull no punches when talking about things like samvega. I seem to recall a talk by Thanissaro or Ajahn Brahma

these guys would have answers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pearce_(transhumanist)

https://magnusvinding.com/

>>19917652
This is a complicated question, but I'm glad you asked. I don't meditate anymore, to be honest. I see little point since I lost my faith in the practice revealing things as they are instead of being a particular way of inducing pre-catalogued states of mind, and there's plenty more things you can do to relax and enjoy introspective moments, my personal favorite being running or working out while listening to music. As you surely know, any activity can be meditative, and Zen takes this to the extreme by making even things like martial arts, that would be seen as hindrances by other branches, into "do"s, ways to practice. Since I'm getting most of the benefits without any of the downsides, like the extra anxiety of escaping a house on fire, or having to deal with the ironically self-absorbed people you find at most sanghas, I see no reason to go back.

I honestly do not know if my experience would have happened without my years of practice, all I know is that it was of a completely different import and didn't rely on any of the particular teachings that I was receiving at the time, indeed, it ran counter to them. This is why I found it so disquieting, because after years of getting answers, it seemed like I had been asking the wrong questions all along. Please don't take this as a claim that meditation is useless or without value, I wouldn't discourage anyone from practicing it, it can certainly teach you a lot about attention control and how to look more critically at the content in your head, to not let emotions or stress overwhelm you, and how to trace back and re-examine the origin of what you think are your true beliefs. Meditation is a wonderful aid for this, except it's not the only way, and I've actually found philosophy, both Eastern and Western, to be more helpful in my personal case, though I'm sure it's the opposite for many, I know people who were only finally able to overcome depression and suicidal thoughts via their practice.


>>19919002
I don't think authenticity is a useful criteria regarding religion, but I agree they seem to have extra confidence and authority when speaking. I think it's partly because they use the oldest literature and Theravada as a whole is in a position of power in many Asian countries, where Buddhism is sometimes even the state religion, so unlike for example, the Tibetans, they don't really have to rely on upaya and somewhat dishonest pandering to western sensibilities to keep the donations for their temples and sometimes, communities, coming. They fully believe what they preach and pull no punches when talking about things like samvega. I seem to recall a talk by Ajahn Brahm where he stops just short of calling depression a blessing because it'll force you to see the reality of suffering and if you're lucky, push into Buddhism to escape.

It can't account for knowledge since its another form of Monism/Platonism

Buddhists claim that Nagarjuna “demolishes” all views. Frankly I’m not impressed. Everything follows from dogmatic assumptions, which are unproven, and the arguments fall apart if you don’t accept them (Western philosophy figured this out long ago, but apparently internet Buddhists haven’t). The arguments are also extremely terse and truncated (although perhaps this is a translation issue).

>>19919763
No, he doesn’t, the doctrine is in fact irrefutable

>>19916120
Really? Does it prove reincarnation? Modernist "Buddhism" is incredibly easy to prove true, because that is what it was designed to do, but that does nothing for Buddhist ethics, metaphysics, etc.

>>19916450
You've never had somebody wander into your thread and tell you that your real problem isn't x, it's desiring y, and you should just let go?

>>19917710
>Even Nietzsche liked Buddhism.
Their philosophies are both nihilist, Nietzsche isn't some kind of objective religion critic.

>>19915876
>that's not true, we're not aware of awarness all the time, our awarness fluctuates between tons of states,
In each identifiable state that you can cite as belonging to the fluctuation of states, there is the first-hand experiential awareness of that state or "K" and then the particular content that forms the characteristics which give that state its unique features and which distinguishes it from other states and which is revealed by K. When each state is constituted by these two things the succession of them takes place as Ka, Kb, Kc, Kd, Ke etc; in this situation there is no empirical or logical basis for the claim that awareness is actually fluctuating, because the states that constitute the fluctuating states are all identified by the "not-K" that gives them unique feature distinguishing them from other states, so there is nothing different between the awareness in one state and the awareness of another state, but the only things differing that you are citing as having fluctuated is something besides awareness (i.e. the not-K), but this fails to prove a change or fluctuation in awareness (K) itself.

>but awarness in itself liek any other aspect of reality is always changing, that's necessesary in order for awraness to be fucntional in a ever changing world, it needs to change itself all the time
Incorrect, it can simply remain as the unchanging witness while the mind and body handle the duties of thought and all practical functioning. The mind is capable of changing and switching from thought to another while being illuminated by an unchanging and effortless luminous presence, and this is all that's needed.

>yes it can, eac moment of awarness depends on the prior moment
There is no epistemic or logical basis to posit this, when the awareness found in one moment lacks any difference from the awareness in any other, and when we never have empirical confirmation of an absence of our own awareness in any situation ever. Awareness never being absent, there is no basis to say that it "arises", it's instead primordially spontaneously present.

>>19915876
>yes it can, eac moment of awarness depends on the prior moment
I'm not the guy you're arguing with, but wouldn't general anesthesia pretty much disprove this, or that the complete cessation of mental activity leads to enlightenment?
>that's not true, we're not aware of awarness all the time
This is not true, perception might be discrete, but reflexive awareness is continous as far as we can tell.

>>19917710
Nigger, Nietzsche is just a hyprocritical classical liberal. If you want actual good atheist with good arguments against religion, try David Hume

>>19915456
>cynics
Didn't they publically have sex and masterbate?

>>19915564

The problem is that while they may have refuted Christianity, they never managed to successfully defend paganism. And what good is refuting Christianity if their beliefs are just as absurd and indefensible?

>>19921307
After reading David Hume, I am convinced that Nietzsche copied him.

>>19921489
Yep, you can see it in his writing. and his hatred to Calvinism which his Mother raised him but he committed a Quantifier shift fallacy when He mushed down calvinism and the denomitions of christianity into one when critiquing it

>>19915089
>bussy champion
you cant make this shit up

>>19920278
That doesn't happen

>>19914774
You basically have eternalist arguments that think the self is completely alienated from the body, muh science arguments that don’t actually believe in a self but still posit an identity with the body or matter, and nihilists that will usually attack the moral and ethical positions of Buddhism.

>>19920295
I hope this is bait and you're not actually that retarded

>>19916790
>there are as many truths as there are human beings.
That's a slippery slope towards postmodernism, trannyism and other such things

>>19918072
message apart this movie was aesthetically amazing

>>19918072
Miyazaki is the one that's more inline with shinto ideas and critical of Buddhism. Isao Takahata, the other guy has a very Buddhist view of things and you can clearly see this in the movies he directed. Video related.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV_4-bDcqQI

>>19915234
Why do you quote Sion when most of his criticisms also apply to Vedanta which violates almost as many logical principles, including the principle of non-contradiction?

>>19915195
It's funny I know the exact opposite story, a Jesuit priest who went to Tibet and dismantled the Buddhist metaphysics and showed how it did not allow to escape the necessity of God as First Cause
Cf. the works of Ippolito Desideri

>>19922215
>the necessity of God as First Cause
Yawn

>>19922217
Seethe
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1151&context=masters

>>19922224
>kalam cosmological argument
kek

>>19922226
Is this the level of buddhists?

>>19922227
Not a buddhist
Cope harder

>>19922215
>>19922224
>the universe needs to have a beginning because... it just does, ok??!
There are no compelling "proofs" for the existence of God. It all rests on faith.

>>19922229
Go back to r*ddit

>>19922233
Read the arguments you dumbfuck. No faith involved.

>>19922240
>read 65 pages of bullshit
No, present an argument on your own without appealing to authority. What's wrong, too much a brainlet to do it yourself because you don't understand what you posted?
>No faith involved
I just told you why it was wrong and it went over your head. You really aren't too smart.
>r-r-reddit
Is this the level of Christians? Take your primitive desert cult elsewhere, people are discussing serious metaphysics.

>there can't be an infinite regress, everything has to be caused!
>except god, god doesn't have to be caused
Do theists really?

>>19915089
>Jeong Dojeon
Bro... do you know who he is and what Buddhism is in Korea at that time

>>19922241
>Linking a peer-reviewed philosophical article is an appeal to authority
You're really stupid, you retard. I hope you never cite scientific studies with this logic

>i'm a retard please spoonfed me and hold my hand
No
Either you are honest (which I doubt) and get your hands dirty and really study the most solid theistic arguments
Or you continue to criticize what you don't know like the big retard that you are

But people with more than 100 IQ will see right away that you have never opened a single book of theistic philosophy as soon as you say something stupid like

>your arguments are based on faith, there is no logic, you just say that we need a first cause "just because bro"

Fortunately the serious atheists are not as stupid as you

You are the stupid and ignorant mass that does not follow reason but the times, a few centuries ago you would have been religious

Let the serious people debate

>>19922256
>no argument, just seething tantrums
That's okay. I accept your concession.

>>19915195
>>19922244
I can say a lot on that Korean Jeong Dojeon guy.
He was doing the criticism on Buddhism based on the science called Neo-Confucianism. It is more speculative and metaphysical than a confucianism. They thought they can explain the theory of everything with the two words, 이(理) and 기(氣).
The problem, obviously, is that that two words is so vague and ambiguous that they have a debate lasts 100 years on very small concept (think like this. Western have some similar example like Problem of universals, but consider that kind of debate is just coming from one sentence of philosophical text).
When Chinese diplomat came to Korea, he was shocked by the useless debate is still on and used in most of policies, whereas China abandoned Neo-Confucianism hundreds of years ago.

>>19915575
> But it refutes literally everything.
Nope, it fails to refute Upanishadic non-dualism. This is clearly evident to anyone who knows the least thing about Advaita, and there are even recently published articles in Buddhist journals confirming that Kamalasila and Shantaraksita failed to refute Advaita because their main argument attacks some incorrect strawman version whereby consciousness is identical with thoughts and perceptions whereas in reality Advaita holds they are non-identical

>In this article we assess Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s critique of the Advaita Vedānta theory of self. We provide a translation of the verses 328-335 of the commentary titled Tattvasaṃgrahapañjikā, which was composed by Kamalaśīla on Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha. We present Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s views of a self and also explain the Advaita Vedānta theory based on the texts of Śaṅkara. It is concluded in the article that Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla failed to consider the most likely Advaitin replies to their objections, especially the reply that cognitions of objects are illusory rather than real modifications, since the critique assumed that they were real modifications.

https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/iijbs/vol21/iss1/3/?fr=operanews

>>19922603
>my view of the self is slightly different from the others so it isn't actually refuted
Yes the Brahmins are very slippery and the text already goes through like half a dozen atmans. I'm not surprised there is one that elluded the Buddhists. But no other text is as thorough about going through all the different Indian schools from a Buddhist perspective. Now if we are saying Advaitans believe cognitions are also illusions and not modes, that is hardly different from the Yogacara view anyway, which does not uphold the atman. So if the atman can be upheld using the Buddhist's axioms that would be quite the feat. But of course, Shankara was a crypto-Buddhist anyway so that was something of his entire purpose!

>>19915089
>Vedantic Critique of Buddhism
Unequivocally based. The searing light of Brahma’s wisdom annihilates every shadow of nastika darkness.

>>19922628
Vedanta seems so spiritually shallow and mundane to me compared to Buddhism. No wonder it's used as a model for new agers.

>>19922628
Brahma isn't Brahman according to those same Vedantists.

>>19922233
>It all rests on faith.
As does all knowledge in general. If you read Hume, you'd know that.

>>19919743
>hints the historical Buddha's words might have actually been much closer to Upanishadic thought
I've heard this a couple times but where does this assertion come from?
>they just choose to reify different perceptions and experiences than most people.
Maybe there is no inherent meaning to any of these experiences. Perhaps there is no glimpsing the supramundane at all, and all of these mystical experiences are merely variations of conventional experience that, although they seem transcendental in appearance, remain immanent to the world. I would like to believe it is possible to somehow awaken to the true nature of reality, though.
>Bon uses it
From my very limited knowledge it seems that the most substantial divergence between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism is the purported origin of the teachings.
Either way, Dzogchen positions itself above both sutras and tantras, my only real exposure to it are a few books, most recently Tenzin Wangyal's, which makes it sound like the essence of Dzogchen is simply Rigpa. What is this "distinction between mind and awareness", does it have to do with the rangtong-shentong debate?
>>19919886
>it didn't really teach anything you can't discover as an edgy teenager
It didn't modify your basic outlook on reality? Tibetan authors usually stress how the practices end up fundamentally changing the way you relate to the world, that they are supposed to eventually make you abide in the Ground of being at all times and in all Bardos. Did this not happen to you, or was it mostly inconsequential perhaps?
>crazy controlled trips
Kind of a dumb question I guess but how do these states relate to substance-induced psychedelic or dissociative states?
From what I'm gathering from your post, Vajrayana just didn't resonate with you as much as with other people, pretty much.
Out of curiosity: are there things you've learned with gurus that are not available anywhere in literature (i.e., truly esoteric teachings)? I'm wondering how much I'm missing in terms of knowledge by just reading books on the subject.
>It boils down to who you choose to believe
Yes, it's difficult to make a definitive "choice" for the reasons stated earlier. Perhaps the best way is not to compare literature, but to seek an actual experience.
>they were only considered so by their followers but not by their rivals
I was arguing with a more perennialist perspective. Whether it be alleged arhats in India or alleged saints in Europe, these people all had one thing in common which was their reported attainment of some kind of transcendental state or object. Were they all mistaken? Was it all meaningless? As we talked about above, were all of them tricked by a mere phenomenological shift of no real importance — while we, on the other hand, realize that their interpretations were all wrong?
>researching cults
Do you mean cult mentality and behavior, or actual, specific organizations?

>There are retards here advocating for infinite regress
Someone skip the first year of philosophy
If infinite regress is true, knowledge is impossible due to infinite loops of "why" or "how do you know that?"
You just killed epistomology with this and if you can't have any epistemic certitude then there's no knowledge

>>19922698
>this nigger doesn't know about the munchhausen trilemma
>this nigger didn't read the skeptics
>this nigger didn't just skip first year of philosophy, he just skept philosophy

>>19920045
>of a completely different import and didn't rely on any of the particular teachings that I was receiving at the time, indeed, it ran counter to them.
This is weird because you'd expect any decent Buddhist teacher to be able to not only productively address but also integrate the experience of the "suchness" of things into their teachings, it's one of the fundamental bases of Buddhist metaphysics after all.

>>19922698
>If infinite regress is true, knowledge is impossible due to infinite loops of "why" or "how do you know that?"
And?

>>19922727
And? You see, I can ask this to you and vice versa and will be stuck in an infinite loop and we wouldn't know
ergo no knowledge

>>19922131
That might be true, it might be more on Miyazaki's end. But in the tale of Princess Kaguya which is directed by Takahata it is very clearly critical of buddhist ideas of heaven and solution to suffering

>>19922623
>Now if we are saying Advaitans believe cognitions are also illusions and not modes, that is hardly different from the Yogacara view anyway, which does not uphold the atman.
Retroactively refuted by Shankara himself in his Brahma Sutra Bhasya when his Yogachara interlocutor accuses Shankara of accepting the Yogachara position implicitly or by another means, which Shankara refutes by pointing out that the Yogachara position of Dharmakirti etc involves accepting mental objects like thoughts as momentary and self-revealing to themselves, being known to themselves amidst their own arising and falling but without these being known by a separate presence or knower; while on the other hand the Advaita position of Shankara holds that mental-cognitions or mental-objects are not self-revealing but they are instead revealed by a separate presence that is unchanging reflexive awareness (the Self). The standard Yogachara model denies that awareness is unchanging and denies that thoughts are known by something different from them, the Advaita position doesn’t deny this but it affirms both of these tenets to be true, so it cannot be considered the same as the Yogachara one because it is fundamentally opposed to such an understanding of consciousness.

>>19922663
In English translations of Hindu works, ‘Brahma’ without the diacritical mark over the a (ā) signifies the highest metaphysical principle Brahman, while writing it with the diacritical mark as Brahmā signifies the lesser contingent being that is equivalent to Prajapati. The Upanishads use Brahma to refer to Brahman and they use Brahmā to refer to the lesser entity.

>>19923047
You can't demonstrate your permanent external perceiver anyway so it is a pointless assertion. Effectively, you are saying "no I'm definitely not a Buddhist because I affirm dogmas from the Vedas; I just happen to sound enough like one that Buddhists think I almost am one, as do other Hindu schools critical of Advaita, but I'm not really because I said atman brahman atman brahman atman brahman at the end of my argument"

>>19917710
What are you talking about? Nietzche was highly critical of buddhism. He thought that it denied the Will to Life and was nihilistic. That it was against "this-worldness" that celebrated earthly existence. He positioned his idea of the ubermensch as essentially an "anti-buddha" that did not run away from the phenomenal world but delighted in it.

>“You confused Buddhists”, he might say “you still wish for a reality different from ours!” “Do you not realize that we must, out of necessity, see the world in normative terms? Do you not realize that I can only experience the world as divided, that you, despite all your claims to letting go, still feel, see, experience, with colours and pleasures and pains? To decide to let go of normativity, but you do so by denying the fact of the matter! You claim to love reality as it is, but you deny reality as it is to you!”

>>19922765
yes

>>19915238
>Strictly speaking Buddhism does not have the concept of "revelation" because all of its claims are empirically and rationally verifiable and you personally are capable of proving all of this.
>logic, reasons, the one supreme monad, self, being, etc. are metaphysical ergo not material
>empirically and rationally verifiable and you personally are capable of proving all of this.
Idk if this is special pleading or other else but How did Buddha know all of this? why is his view of self is not universally accepted if its empirically and rationally verifiable and you personally are capable of proving all of this?
The early christians and enlightenment philosophers like David Hume already destroyed this argument of self evident truths since reality
doesn't have a common ground of any what of metaphysical/physical world is. This just foundationalism in totality that you're saying.

>>19923091
Not him but Nietzsche largely uses Buddhism as a character in the drama of his own philosophy, one with some but not exact correspondence to the actual religion. His Buddhism only comes into play to beat up Christianity, and he considers it beyond good and evil and free of ressentiment, unlike the more moralizing Christianity. But he also considers both to be nihilism. No Buddhist or Christian has ever argued their beliefs are nihilism, but if we follow Nietzsche in centering the definition of nihilism on world- or life-denial, the Christian who wants to escape to heaven and be with God is a nihilist while the Buddhist who believes nirvana is in samsara is not.

>>19923111
appealing to arbitrary/will to power doesn't prove your position.

>>19923121
and the funny thing is in Christianity. Matter and the Externals (God, logic, reason, being, etc.) are both good and they coexist each other and it is stated literally at the first book of it. Calvanism did rot Nietzsche's mind about Christianity ergo >>19921556 is correct.

>>19923111
So you can't deny God since you know nothing

>>19922765
Yes, and?

>>19915195
>Everything else just amounts to "I can't jerk off if I'm meditating :("
Evan Thompson's book? Are you fucking brain dead?

>>19923072
> You can't demonstrate your permanent external perceiver anyway so it is a pointless assertion.
That’s besides the point that Shantaraksita and Kamalasila attempted but completely failed to refute the Advaita Atman and that I was merely pointing this out in response to another poster saying they refuted everything. There are loads of things in Buddhism which are asserted but never proven.

>>19923441
An atman's an atman. Are you saying it's not a permanent unchanging substance distinct from our experience?

>>19923500
What about one who achieved Nibbana? Is there an eternal yet changing "anything" that once enlightened stays that way? What prevents it from being stuck in a bigger Samsara?

>>19924151
According to Mahayana so-called “Buddhism” (fan fic) there is no exit from Samsara. It’s just a change of perspective bro!
Nirvana = Samsara + cope.

>>19924225
Holy life-affirmation

Does Shakyamuni ever laugh in the Nikayas? Or is he equanimous all the time?

>>19924240
Apparently the fuzzy feeling of virtue signaling as “compassionate” is enough and an end in itself. Of course that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Dhamma as per the Pali Canon.

buddhism is literally durr hurr weedbro shit

>>19924255
>seething hyperprotestant with no coompassion

>>19924294
kek absolutely seething
Show us on the avalokitesvara statue where the bhikku touched you anon

>>19924302
Not him but what's wrong with focusing on Theravada? I find Mahayana metaphysics interesting but as far as practice goes, Theravada is much more engaging for me. I think Buddhism is about practice first and foremost.

>>19924314
You are a beta male.

>>19924346
Cope brainlet

>as per the pali canon
This is the part that I would like to point out. Theravada does not mean "sola scriptura," it means "way of the elders." There is this protestantized notion that religion is strict textual obedience which is obvious nonsense in a Buddhist context and should not be imported. The teaching is what is important and what can be expressed in a variety of ways in accordance with the listeners capacity and condition. There is nothing wrong witj studying texts, and in fact in Asia it was and still is considered meritous to reproduce them by hand, to five them as gifts, etc. But this is not to say the text is the entire foundation of Buddhism, which was always about instruction and experience first and foremost.

>>19924352
Yes, I know and I agree, my favorite Buddhist text is the Diamond sutra and I enjoy reading things like the Blue Cliff record, but as far as actual praxis goes I just don't think there's anything wrong with disregarding the way of the Bodhisattva and aim for arahantship using satipatthana instead.

>>19924354
Betas don't usually know they're betas, they try to cover it by pretending to be moralfags or "buddhists". But at the end of the day you're a beta male, you get picked last.

>>19915238
>because all of its claims are empirically and rationally verifiable
how do you verify karma and reincarnation?

>>19924360
I'm not particularly sectarian myself. I don't consider a decision terribly important unless you are going to be formally attached to one of the Asian schools. But if you are a western layperson there is not much of a reason to limit yourself to studying one interpretation to the exclusion of the others, given that their texts are increasingly available

>>19924370
Ok nietzschevirgin
What does your mom think of you affirming life by calling people betas on an anime website?

>>19923116
False. All of Mahayana is built on revelation.

>>19915195

The fact that it was Christians taking over and trampling over Buddhist Sri Lanka instead of the other way around tells me which religion is more useful in practicality. To me that’s all that matters.

>>19923500
>An atman's an atman.
That’s an extreme simplification that overlooks immense diversity in how the 6 Hindu darshanas formulate their explanation of what Atman means, they often give totally different explanations of the details of how the Atman relates to knowledge, thoughts, experience etc. Within Mimansa and Vedanta alone there are various subsects that teach versions of Atman that are as different from each other as the Atmans of one darshana vs another darshana. The shared similarity of being eternal doesn’t erase or render insignificant this great diversity of Atman doctrines. There is a reason that Buddhists tried to refute the Atman of each darshana individually and that reason is because of this great diversity. Similarly, in Buddhism, Theravada Yogachara and Madhyamaka interpret liberation to mean different things and the different Tibetan schools interpret Madhyamaka differently and even attack how the other Tibetan schools formulate it as being outright harmful for being misleading. Just because a group of things share the same name and one or two features doesn’t render them all the same.

>Are you saying it's not a permanent unchanging substance distinct from our experience?
That depends on how you understand the meanings of ‘substance’ and ‘experience’. I think ‘spirit’ is more appropriate for the Atman than substance. If you would like to give a detailed explanation of exactly what you mean by substance then I can tell you if it’s applicable to the Advaita Atman, how exactly do you define substance? If you mean something comprised of matter that’s locatable within time and space, then it’s not substance. If by substance you mean something truly existing than it is one.

Similarly, how do you define ‘experience’, do you include our awareness of our own experiences as being itself a part of our experience? Our awareness of our own thoughts and sense-perceptions is not something that we know through the sense-organs or through thoughts, it’s instead immediately revealed to us in all moments. When the mind sees a tree or thinks about eating, its immediately self evident to us that we are aware of that tree or thought of eating, it doesn’t require another 2nd thought a moment later in order to cognize this awareness of the content of the 1st moment in order for us to know that first thing, but the first thought/perception is immediately revealed to us (awareness). If you include this awareness which thoughts are revealed to as being included within experience, than the Atman is included within or is a part of experience. Its not known to us through sense-perceptions or thoughts but its known nonetheless (because its self-revealing). When we remember past experiences, our memory of our awareness being aware of them is a part of that memory, we remember them being experiences *for us* or *for our awareness*, what it was like for us to be aware of them.

>>19924439
I think "revelation" needs to be qualified a bit in this context. There is a difference between, say, "this is the absolute inerrant word of god which was handed down in such and such a year and is entirely complete and can never be expanded" and "i was meditating when this astral bodhisattva appeared and gave me this sutra, which I have put to writing for the benefit of all." One of these is used by a priestly religion to uphold the same set of doctrines until the demise of the religion and the other is a pragmatic means of attributing a higher authorship to one's own composition so long as it is more or less in accordance with other teachings and conventions. Buddhism could be practiced by anyone willing to apply the methods of sutra while the "revealed" religions have entire creeds of dogma that one needs to affirm before even doing anything 'spiritual'

>>19924485
Mayor of London is a South Asian Muslim. South Asians are also vastly overrepresented in the governing party's administration. What now Mr. Mightisright?

>>19924499
>the first thought/perception is immediately revealed to us (awareness)
In dependence on what is revealed, sure. But you don't view awareness as dependent on anything and baselessly consider it to be eternal and unchanging (the Vedas say so!). So how could we ever be aware of anything at all?

>>19924371
Are the you that made this post and the you now the same person?

>>19923317
>theism
>>>/mlp/

>>19922198
> Why do you quote Sion when most of his criticisms also apply to Vedanta which violates almost as many logical principles, including the principle of non-contradiction?
Because OP asked for books criticizing Buddhism and what Sion thinks about Hinduism is a different subject than his criticisms of Buddhism, which are the reason I brought his book to OP’s attention because it was directly relevant to what OP asked about. In any case, nothing Advaita Vedanta violates any logical principles including the law of non-contradiction. According to Sion himself he agrees with the logic Advaita uses and he generally finds Hinduism to be logically sound, whereas on the other hand he considers Nagarjuna a sophist who fails at using logic correctly.

> Reaching such conclusion, I realize that my thinking on this subject is closer to ‘high’ Hindu philosophy (such as Advaita Vedanta) than to Buddhism. I can never accept the “avatar” idea, so pervasive in Hinduism (as in Christianity), the idea that God can and does incarnate in human or other forms. For me, as a rational philosopher, this is a logically untenable notion; the whole cannot become a part. But many ideas in Hindu philosophy are indeed profound and reasonable.
- Avi Sion

http://thelogician.net/LOGICAL-and-SPIRITUAL-REFLECTIONS/More-Meditations/Behold-The-Soul-D10.htm

>>19924520
Typical LARPagan, too dumb to understand that might only makes right when my specific niche version of Christianity does it.

>>19924814
Based and pilpulled

>>19923116
>How did Buddha know all of this?
A long, long, long process of karmic cultivation in previous lives lead the birth of Siddhartha Gautama. The right karmic buildup lead to a man who could achieve Buddhahood alone. You too could to do this, but you probably won't live long enough and don't have the built up karmic background to do so. There have been many people throughout the eons who have done what Siddhartha did, and there will be many more to come who will also do it. tl;dr
>born in a palace
>realizes hedonism doesn't work
>becomes a jain
>well fuck that sucks too
>sits under the bodhi tree and thinks things through
>gets defended from demons by Hercules
>Buddahood
That's where he got it from. He knows that this stuff is empirically verifiable and rationally concluded because that's how he arrived at it: empiricism and reason.

>why is his view of self is not universally accepted if its empirically and rationally verifiable and you personally are capable of proving all of this?
Ignorance. More precisely, most Buddhist sects argue that it actually is. Normal people do not have well thought out metaphysical and epistemological schemas. They're just ignorant, and never think to question it. People who dig their heels in and say that ACKTHYUALLY they get to live forever because peepeepoopoo muh atman are really rare. You might point out afterlives, but remember that a soul and an atman are not the same thing. You can have an atman and lack a soul. Most Western Christians would, unthinkingly, readily agree with the idea that the soul has parts (and is thus not an atman).

>how can you have truths if you can argue against them?
Go ram your toe into a rock and then not experience pain. Does it hurt? There you go. We're part of an immanent reality, and no amount of pilpul will get you out of it.

>>19914774
The holy bible.

>>19924530
> In dependence on what is revealed, sure.
The information communicated to awareness is dependent on the object and the means of knowing like hearing, but there is no basis for saying that the awareness to which these things are revealed itself as foundational awareness depends on anything. We have no epistemic confirmation of that being the case, for we only find awareness to continuously be of the same nature, never arising but rather constantly present.
>So how could we ever be aware of anything at all?
For what reason would awareness being eternal and unchanging prevent us from knowing anything? There isn’t any reason why

>>19924843
You're giving me answers that are metaphysical while you're grand metaphysical claims are emperical on nature like this
>He knows that this stuff is empirically verifiable and rationally concluded because that's how he arrived at it: empiricism and reason.
>Go ram your toe into a rock and then not experience pain.
See, If this is the TRUTH that can be oberservable, why isn't it that all of the people on the world have same thing? Your worldview has
the problem of undetermination of data and epistimec certituted. All of you have said are claims.
>A long, long, long process of karmic cultivation in previous lives lead the birth of Siddhartha Gautama.
You want incarnation while Buddhism as a world view doesn't support this ergo you have no Divine Revelation ergo You have know way of knowing this and just spewing grand metaphysical claims while doing epistemic bootstrapping

>>19924915
*You have no way of knowing

>>19924901
>we only find awareness to continuously be of the same nature, never arising but rather constantly present.
You are not constantly and eternally aware, and since your awareness is always of something or other, it must necessarily change and become interrupted
>For what reason would awareness being eternal and unchanging prevent us from knowing anything? There isn’t any reason why
Because you could never become aware of any changes if your awareness was eternal and unchanging. You'd still be tasting amniotic fluid.

>>19924915
>See, If this is the TRUTH that can be oberservable, why isn't it that all of the people on the world have same thing? Your worldview has the problem of undetermination of data and epistimec certituted. All of you have said are claims.
You should read Nagarjuna

>>19924960
I don't have the time to do it currently, TLDR?

>>19924966
He’s basically the Pyrrho of Buddhism.

>>19924520
Islam is the truth, you figured it out. Hope you revert anon.

>>19924979
>reality is inherently indeterminate
Again, just spewing grand metaphysical claims while doing epistemic bootstrapping, unless you have incarnation in your belief, you can't account for this and just making grand metaphysical claims like Plato and Aristotle too. And if reality in totality is inherently indeterminate, How did he know that his statements is true? Why does he believe that logic, reason, metaphysics, etc. are true while claiming the contrary? If as you said that Nagarjuna is just Pyrrho of Buddhism then He's just spewing grand metaphysical claims without having any epistemic certitude prior to metaphysics

>>19925042
>>reality is inherently indeterminate
Nagarjuna doesn’t make this claim. The fact that you included the word “inherently” makes me think that you would agree with him if you read him.

>>19925061
I know that's why I put if Nagarjuna said this. again as I said I don't know the guy

I have never seen a thread where Buddhism is defeated. Honestly impressive.

>>19925061
Ok, I've read a synopsis of him
>they are mere projections of human consciousness. Since these imaginary fictions are experienced, they are not mere names (prajnapti).
This is just solipsism, If this is his root for his metaphysics or reality itself, all of his works are just arbitrary and my critiques still stand

>Buddhist: no-self (anatta) is empirically verifiable

>Skeptic: and how does that occur?

>Buddhist: when we examine our experience, we find a lack of an unchanging eternal self

>Skeptic: When you say “examine our experience” what are you referring to?

>Buddhist: we examine things like sensory perceptions and thoughts to see if any correspond to the self, and none of them do

>Skeptic: Is the self individual thoughts?

>Buddhist: no, thoughts are not the self

>Skeptic: are sensory perceptions self, like the sight of an object?

>Buddhist: no, sensory perceptions are not the self

>Skeptic: So, how can you verify the lack of self when the things you are examining dont resemble it? Thats like saying “when I examine bananas, I can verify that apples dont exist”. At most you can verify that bananas are not apples, but that doesnt prove that apples dont exist

>Buddhist: No! You dont understand, when we examine everything in our mental life, the lack of self in the things we examine allows us see there is no self

Skeptic: can our awareness which is aware of the act of examination subject itself to examination and thereby be the subject and object of a subject-object distinction at the exact same time?

>Buddhist: No, that’s absurd

>Skeptic: Well, in that case, you are really using inference at arrive at the conclusion of no-self, since your examination of experience isnt exhaustive because it leaves out the knower of examination; and then you infer from your examination of whats remaining that there isnt any self whatsoever, but inference isnt the same thing as an empirical verification. So, thats not actually an empirical verification of non-self.

>Buddhist: what if I deny that there is any separate knower of examining and say the mind-components like thoughts are just examining themselves?

>Skeptic: then you face the exact same contradiction of something being the subject and object of a subject-object relationship, except now you positing thoughts and perceptions as examining themselves, which is just as unreasonable

>Buddhist: at last I truly see, my anglo-american buddhism and its obsession with empiricism was all a lie, thank you for setting me free

>>19915862
What is consciousness then under Buddhism?

>>19925243
>Ok, I've read a synopsis of him
Never change, /lit/

>>19924955
>You are not constantly and eternally aware,
Our experience of awareness is only of it in a way that doesn't contradict constancy and eternality, we never find ourselves to be anything but aware, we cannot directly empirically confirm if we've ever become unaware, because doing so would require you being directly aware of that, hence from within awareness and from the limits of what we can empirically confirm, we only find continuous awareness.
> you could never become aware of any changes if your awareness was eternal and unchanging. You'd still be tasting amniotic fluid.
There's no necessity that awareness needs to change when all change can be accounted by having absolutely all of it take place in the changing known objects including sense-perceptions, thoughts and higher-order mental functioning which are all given as presented or known objects to continuous reflexive awareness. The source of light doesn't need to change in order for changing things to be continuously illuminated by its shining. Continuity is actually needed in order to perceive change, because change occurs over multiple moments and hence requires the same observer lasting throughout both moments to perceive it. Otherwise, the separately arisen observer in each moment would perceive a single flash of an object without any semblance of movement inhering in it.

>>19925686
>from the limits of what we can empirically confirm, we only find continuous awareness.
No you find it interrupted constantly. You might as well switch back to atman as the permanent enduring and unchanging thing in your system because at least something you've made up can conform to your description of it. Awareness comes and goes and is constantly interrupted and changed in response to objects. I don't see how you could claim otherwise. What you're doing is like describing a dog and then referring to it as a table. Tables don't bark. They don't eat meat. Where is this all coming from about awareness being permanent, given that the one who is aware is neither himself permanent nor aware at all times? Do you not sleep? Do you have total recall of things as if they were eternal in your eternal awareness? It's pure fiat, pure dogma. No demonstration of this at all.

>>19924559
What. It's easier to believe that they are considering anon didn't DIE.

>>19925938
His questioning you about identity over time anon

>>19925803
>>Awareness comes and goes and is constantly interrupted and changed in response to objects.
Nope. Instead, all we find in experience is objects of awareness changing like thoughts and sensory perceptions changing, but awareness itself changing is impossible to detect. Everything that you can possibly cite as an instance of awareness changing inevitably amounts to a conflation of awareness with a non-aware thing that awareness is aware of as its object, e.g. thoughts and sensations. In any occurrence of thought, ideation, emotion, mental state etc awareness in invariably present in all of them as the conscious witness of them, we never have first-hand epistemic confirmation of this partless effortless presence ever being interrupted. We instead can only make the (fallible) inference that it's absent in sleep or being knocked out, but we have no way of actually knowing if that's true or not.

To even say that you can "find it" interrupted in the waking, sleeping or any other state presupposes that you have an awareness that is present who is able to observe what you are calling an 'interruption', because if awareness is present and able to witness that and hence "find it", then it's not an interruption but awareness has remained as the uninterrupted witness of experience the whole time!

>Do you not sleep?
I do sleep, but with regard to the status of awareness in sleep, I can either
a) be aware of my unawareness during sleep, in which case I'm actually aware and not unaware
b) make imperfect guesses about what goes on based on various sources of information

neither refutes the premise that awareness is eternal and unchanging

>Do you have total recall of things as if they were eternal in your eternal awareness?
That's a red herring, awareness is something totally different from memory and so there's no inherent reason eternal unchanging awareness would necessitate or imply perfect memory of things.

>>19916383
>He describes an experience that's extremely similar to something that happened to me, and that both our teachers' systems were completely unable to and uninterested in properly accounting for
I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to here. Some out-of-body experience? Or something more mundane than that

>>19926478
Never mind I read what you wrote

>>19926425
>To even say that you can "find it" interrupted in the waking, sleeping or any other state presupposes that you have an awareness that is present who is able to observe what you are calling an 'interruption',
Sure, just not an eternal unchanging one. Or are you changing definitions now to preserve your terminology?

>bro if you meditate right you'll be able to fly and heal people and shit
>there's other worlds that you can be reincarnated into bro trust me they're real
>what reincarnates? it's a bundle of--bro it's too complicated to explain

>>19926516
>Sure, just not an eternal unchanging one.
We don't have a single proof or example in our lived experience of it being non-eternal or changing,
>Or are you changing definitions now to preserve your terminology?
What did I change? If you can "find" anything your awareness is still present remaining simply as awareness who was the finder of that, so it's eternality and immutability have not been contradicted by anything.

>>19926563
>it must be eternal and unchanging... because I say so
yes yes very compelling

>>19925279
Isn't anatta "not-Self" and not no-Self

>>19925279
you're confusing Self with identity(relative self), identity is what gives coherence to things self is the idea that the identity of things can be empirically eternal, which is empirically verifiable incorrect, since not only there's nothing in phenoema that can exist forever, but is in the same nature of things to flux and change, in order for something to exist it must change and become, everything exist and has an identity because something prior to it gave such identity and existence
so yeah this is a low level strawman, no buddhist would argument something this silly

>>19916304
>Mind (lol) you, this thing isn't accessible to the layman at all and I'd unironically recommend you start with the Greeks or a basic phenomenology book before you tackle this, as it's geared for academics and people that already know a lot of technical terms. But once you get what the controversy is, you'll never be able to take anatman uncritically.
care to give a little resume for the bois?

The biggest problem for Buddhists are leftists subverting it for their degeneracy.

>>19925243
>Ok, I've read a synopsis of him
Are all /lit/ posters based like this?

>>19925279
>can our awareness which is aware of the act of examination subject itself to examination
yes, i don't know why your buddhist strawman said that is absurd, examining awarness itself is one of the most common techniques in buddhist dhamma, and there's nothing making awarness independent of phenomena, the fact that we need awarness to be aware of phenomena is the most direct proof that like everything else it needs to change in order to remain coherent
awarness and the objects for awarness are both interdependent, a subject needs an object and an object needs a subject in order for phenomena to exist

>>19922259
Im not him but you do come out as reddit cringe.

>>19915220
Because in Buddhism, any knowledge that's not practiced is worthless

>>19927940
they can't even account for knowledge

>>19928001
No one knows anything.

>>19928116
How do you know that?

>>19928120
Turtles all the way down.

>>19928120
He just contradicted himself kek, he doesn't even have an epistemic certitude for his take

>>19928120
>>19928141
read the skeptics, stop embarrassing yourselves with phil 101 gotchas

>>19928143
>gotchas 101
bruh you can't say we don't know anything while proclaiming that its the truth. this is a blatant contradiction, how did you know that we don't know anything while knowing it to be the case?

>>19928153
I'm not the guy you responded to

>>19914774
Why does he have a mustache?

>>19928160
You don't know that is a moustache.

>>19928160
>he doesn’t know

>>19914774
zero proof

>>19914774
>disprove
I can see disproving the religious nonsense. But how and more importantly why would you disprove teachings. Secular teachings tell you to always experiment yourself on teachings so therefore the path is all your own. disproving yourself is part of the secular teachings. It's infinite and also only relates to your own thoughts so unless you say a explicit thought to disprove it sounds pointless.

>>19925361

one of the fundamental aspects of reality, but not the oly one, interdependent with the other aspects and made of parts, that is, the different particular moments of awarness and the different aspects of awarness, my awarness is subjectively different that your awarness
so you can't say that is something that can exist outside phenomena, and isn't something that can exist on istelf or in a pure form, since it's a cluster of different aspects and moments of particular moments of awarness, less a thing andmore an activity

>>19928222
pragmatic fallacy, just because it works doesn't mean its good or bad. Why is cooming to porn bad? Why do I need to help others?
if you remove the root of the saying it becomes arbitrary. Also treating beliefs as a cafeteria style or a shopping mall galore show you're a classical liberal

>>19928276
Wrong on all counts. Fuck niggers. Also you don't get what I am saying and that's ok. You wont get it unless you read more about the secular practices.

>>19915234
there are no contradictions in buddhism
you just got filtered by the middle way

>>19922698
>Someone skip the first year of philosophy
you miss Kant then, affirming a first cause is even worst, since that then give causation the quality of breaking the causational link at any time, since all of the sudden a cause can exist without a prior cause, thus making the whole causation system impossible, the necessity of cause and effect no longer has consitency, more uncaused causes can appear at any time, and a causational chain can be broken spontaneously

you get even less knowledge with the idea of a first cause that with a beginningless infinite, since with such an inifnite each effect is giving meaning with his corresponding cause
is not perfect, but is way better than a first uncaused cause

>>19922671
>>19922671
if you read Hume you'd know that all knowledge rest on habits, not faith

>>19928287
emotional appeal
>Also you don't get what I am saying, You wont get it unless you read more about the secular practices.
Nigger, we live on the enlightenment empire being run by the atlantacist empire which compose of America, UK, and Israel
I've known way too much about secular beliefs, the shit happening today ironically enough is encourage by secular beliefs

>>19920243
>the doctrine is in fact irrefutable
this encapsulate how dogmatism works in the weak minds
but that otehr anon is right, Kant destroys that metaphysical concept with his trascendental psychology, you should read it, it will set you free

>>19928303
How did you know that infinite regress is true?

>>19921125
>but wouldn't general anesthesia pretty much disprove this,
>but reflexive awareness is continous as far as we can tell.
pick one and only one, you can't negate a chain of particular moments of awarness and at the same time say that reflexive awarness is permanent
if you recognize that awarness can change thanks to anesthesia, then your notion of a permanent reflexive awarness doesn't work anymore

>>19928321

i'm not saying infinite regress is true, i'm saying that a beginningless infinite is more robust epistemologically than a first cause metaphysical model, with a beginningless infinite you can't confirm an utimate fundament, but you can get relative, fucntional fundaments, with a first cause model, you have no fundaments whatsoever, causation just doesn't work since it contradict itself from the very beginning

>>19916452
sounds like you went into meditation expecting something you were told rather than inquisitively looking for the answer
you fucked yourself by starting from an incorrect position

>>19928354
>beginningless infinite
Isn't this just void?

No my metaphysical worldview claims isn't empirical on nature, you're critique doesn't work on me since In my worldview
I believe Incarnation is real ergo the external "world" is both transcendent and eminent in the created world at the same time

>>19928276
>treating beliefs as a cafeteria style or a shopping mall galore show you're a classical liberal
Yes nothing says classical liberalism like... ancient Indian sramanic movements... the brainrot is too advanced in you better luck next lifetime

>>19921125
>but wouldn't general anesthesia pretty much disprove this
not at all, since you don't wake up with your mind reset after anesthesia, they're traces of prior moments of awarness, thus an identity

>>19917722
>this is like that
where the fuck did you pull 'like' from?
your ass?
it's not
>this is like that
it's
>this is that

>>19928397
genetic fallacy, when did I say classical liberalism is equal in totality to ancient Indian shamanic movements?
Is treating beliefs as a cafeteria style or a shopping mall galore show the metaphysical grand narrative of the indian shamani movements?
In classical liberalism, It is

>>19928393
>Isn't this just void?
no, why it would be a void?
>you're critique doesn't work on me since In my worldview
no critique will work if you stay dogmatically in your believes and worldview

>>19928418
This is quickly becoming a real pearls before swine moment. Your heuristic for finding things you agree with is so busted you don't even realize you are doing the thing you complain about.

>>19928427
>no, why it would be a void?
Then what is beginning less infinite? Are you saying everything already existed?
>no critique will work if you stay dogmatically in your believes and worldview
that's also a dogma, every worldview even the atheist will always have a dogma
e.g. the external world/metaphysics/supernatural is not real
>This is quickly becoming a real pearls before swine moment.
When did I pick and choose?, I just called you out for committing a pragmatic fallacy

>>19928365
It sounds more like he was inquisitively looking and found different answers than what his teachers wanted. And eventually he saw behind the curtain.

>>19920453
>it can simply remain as the unchanging witness while the mind and body handle the duties of thought and all practical functioning. The mind is capable of changing and switching from thought to another while being illuminated by an unchanging and effortless luminous presence, and this is all that's needed.


how can awarness be aware of the changes of the mind if awarness itself can't change?

>>19928442
>>19928456

>>19924242
Bump

>>19928456
>Then what is beginning less infinite? Are you saying everything already existed?
no, because that would imply a limit for what could exist

>also a dogma, every worldview even the atheist will always have a dogma
that could be true, but i'm not using a worldview, i'm using logic, causation has a meaning, thus rules, an infnite set of casues vs a uncaused cause bith have logical impications that are above believes and dogmas

>>19928481
everyone has a worldview, even you, it is inescapable
and that worldview will dictate the meaning of logic, reason ,being ,self, god, etc.

>>19928456
>Are you saying everything already existed?
Not him but, why not? Not necessarily "everything" whatever you mean by that but something existed that caused the current state of affairs through whatever metaphysical cause and effect framework you accept.

>>19928456
What is a pragmatic fallacy? I don't argue in retardspeak like someone who memorized a chart. Are you saying pragmatism is inherently a fallacy? If so I guess you must be wedded to some sort of categorical imperative system in order to avoid being pragmatic, wherein you have to do the same thing no matter what the situation calls for, even if the results are poor. Moreover, seemingly your only motive is to preserve "classical liberalism" as a slur against belief systems you dislike, in which case, who cares what your political opinion is, it is still anachronistic to call Buddhism classical liberalism

>>19928486
>and that worldview will dictate the meaning of logic,
not really, wolrdviews had no effect on things like math or logic

>>19928495
>wolrdviews had no effect on things like math or logic
That's cute. Entire logical systems have been invented to save worldviews from their critics. You really think aristotelianism came before, say, belief that there is a cosmic all-father?

>>19928488
>Not him but, why not? Not necessarily "everything" whatever you mean by that but something existed that caused the current state of affairs through whatever metaphysical cause and effect framework you accept.
How did you know that? Are you there at the beginningless infinity?
>>19928495
Are you proposing that math and logic are self evident truths?

>>19928508
>Are you there at the beginningless infinity?
Was getting enlightened part of your plan?

>>19928495
My world view of math and logic are that they are tools that are only important for their usefulness(read my diary desu to get a definition of useful) and if they weren't useful they would never be considered due to something like the anthropic principle. There is no purity or truth in them and any beauty is just human folly. Now I guess your view is different?

>>19928507
>Entire logical systems have been invented to save worldviews from their critics
give me an example please

>>19928511
Yes, know how did you know that? Give me an epistemic certitude

>>19928508
>Are you proposing that math and logic are self evident truths?
no, but they're systems to achieve or recognize self evident truths
>>19928520
>My world view of math and logic are
that's fine and dandym, but your worldview of logic isn't the same as logic itself, what you think about logic doen't have any corelation on how logic works

>>19928508
>>19928533
See
>>19928354
>i'm not saying infinite regress is true, i'm saying that a beginningless infinite is more robust epistemologically than a first cause metaphysical model

>>19928537
>no, but they're systems to achieve or recognize self evident truths
you just defined math and logic via your worldview
>>19928540
>beginningless infinite is more robust epistemologically than a first cause metaphysical model
How did you know this? since your metaphysical claim is empirical in nature, show me an empirical evidence for beginningless infinite, how can a beginningless infinite be real if entropy exist?

>>19928537
>no, but they're systems to achieve or recognize self evident truths
But they can only do that after defining foundational axioms, thus those achievements are not self evident truths they are inferentially justified truths from whatever brute facts you used to construct your system of logic/maths. And you choose those foundational brute facts because the system that grew from them was useful to your goals.

>>19920453
>There is no epistemic or logical basis to posit this
funny that you mention that, let me ask you, what epistemic or logical basis do youhave to post this?
>In each identifiable state that you can cite as belonging to the fluctuation of states, there is the first-hand experiential awareness of that state or "K" and then the particular content that forms the characteristics which give that state its unique features and which distinguishes it from other states and which is revealed by K
you're just making a pretty forced division there, but nver adress how did you get there, you take for granted that awarness has two moments, awarness on itself and awarness of a thing, but never explaiend how you arrived on that conlusion
you did that here too
>it can simply remain as the unchanging witness while the mind and body handle the duties of thought and all practical functioning

this is specially important because in this same trhead they give you an opposite vrsion of your awarness model, that is tehre's particular oments of awarness that end up creating an abstract notion of awarness
if you want to argument against that you can't just backtrack into your axioms, you have to actually explain why awarness works as you say and not the other way around
your whoel counter argument is just: no awarness works the way i think it works

>>19928533
>Give me an epistemic certitude
I would recommend you read some of the literature at this point, because that's something of a foreign question and no answer is going to satisfy it. If for instance the Lankavatara says that language is mere designation then there really is no discursive "epistemic certitude" we can arrive at outside of an intuition or experience, because the point of Buddhism is not to prove or provide a comprehensive system of knowledge. (Hence the famous image of the finger pointing at the moon and its explanation that the designation is not the designated). While some Buddhist philosophers have attempted to provide those, a fairly consistent theme, even among the systematizers, is a critical dialectic toward such systems, especially in Mahayana thought following Nagarjuna and the prajñaparamita literature. That is to say, what system of explaining things does not eventually buckle? We are left with explanation itself being conventional at best, efficacious so long as it is circumscribed to what it is meant to explain.

Buddhist philosophy is primitive skepticism with Indian mumbo jumbo and proto-Stoic “rules for life” thrown in for good measure.
You’re better off reading modern philosophy than the ramblings of primitive monks.

>>19928612
I always find it refreshing to read ancient literature and find people concerned about many of the same things. There is nothing new under the sun. Although the ancients really knew that while for us it is a platitude

>>19928597
I will read it if I have the time
>Buddhism is not to prove or provide a comprehensive system of knowledge.
Then its arbitrary, Buddhism also doesn't believe on Divine Revelation or Incarnation ergo it will have problems on epistemology in its metaphysical claims ergo I can't believe that Buddhism as a worldview is correct

>>19928623
>Buddhism also doesn't believe on Divine Revelation or Incarnation ergo it will have problems on epistemology
kek are you serious?

>>19928553
>you just defined math and logic via your worldview
yes, that's how language works, i could link you the wikipedia page if you want, that doesn't make logic any less effective
>>19928553
>How did you know this? since your metaphysical claim is empirical in nature, show me an empirical evidence for beginningless infinite, how can a beginningless infinite be real if entropy exist?

you're mixing things up, first entropy can only work in a cluster of time/space, the buddhist model is ciclicla, so entropy isn't all that important
but that's besides the point, because we're not talking here about the physcial existence of anythng, we're talking about epistemics
>>19928557
>ut they can only do that after defining foundational axioms
>>19928557
yes in the same way you need numbers to do math, but there's all kind of numerical systems
>thus those achievements are not self evident truths they are inferentially justified truths from whatever brute facts you used to construct your system of logic/maths.
that's not true, logic and math use rational axioms, things like induction, negation and multiplication are prior to any cultural goals, that's why anyone can develop mathematical thinking but not a particular language

>>19928623
Divine revelation is the exemplar form of arbitrariness. There is no sense of conditions or contexts or anything of that sort, it's purely taken on authority, an authority theologians will often admit is entirely unknowable or indeed capable of overturning known reality anyway. You are then required t hope—that is to say, have faith—that the revelation is not arbitrary, because you cannot even begin to evaluate, you have entirely ceded that task to God. Only the serpent can teach you good and evil

>>19928627
Incarnation isn't supported by Buddhism
When I say Divine Revelation, it means the grand monad, One true God, gods, etc. from the external world have given you the Truth
>>19928634
>yes, that's how language works, i could link you the wikipedia page if you want, that doesn't make logic any less effective
I know, that's why I said, your worldview defines everything you believe in
>entropy can only work in a cluster of time/space, the buddhist model is ciclicla
They're both contradictory, time cannot be cyclical when entropy exist since some time in the future everything just dies, vanish or become void (absence of Being)

>>19928660
>the grand monad, One true God, gods, etc. from the external world have given you the Truth
How is that a necessity?

to know that are metaphysical claims are real and not arbitrary

>>19928664
>>19928670

>>19928670
Circular argument
You can't verify the truth of metaphysical claims

>>19928681
There will be circularity on fundamental level on the external world.
I don't believe on foundationalism since self evident truths doesn't reflect reality.
Are you saying you can prove logic without using logic?
Explain meaning without using meaning

>>19928681
Also if you say this then buddhism's worldview is wrong and arbitrary

>>19928695
>>19928703
All worldviews are arbitrary

>>19928705
Then yours too and if that's the case then there's no Truth which in itself is self refuting

>>19928712
Yes

>>19928714
>I've accepted self-defeating/self-refuting arguments since it makes me feel good

>>19928714
You must be over 18 to post in this site

>>19928722
>>19928723
Read the fucking skeptics, brainlets, and stop making garbage posts

>>19928726
Nigger follow your worldview
>>19928705
>>19928712
>>19928714

>>19928712
So what's the truth?

>>19928660
>I know, that's why I said, your worldview defines everything you believe in
yes but don't define how math or logic works, so you're saying absolutely nothing

>>19928738
This is addressed in the first fucking chapter of the outlines of pyrrhonism, stop shitposting and read a book

>>19928740
>>19928557
You're already proving his point and my point
also how a thing works and how things are defined are different

What are you autists arguing about?

>>19928765
Nigger you believe that there is no such thing as the Truth, why would I even read those books you mention that support your worldview when the former contradicts it?

>>19928776
What is the truth?

>>19928776
is meant for >>19928750

>>19928776
>why would I even read
I know you don't read, but you could make an effort for once in your life, zoomer
This "there being no truth is self refuting" statement does not threaten the skeptic worldview in the slightest, it just amounts to word games. You're far from being as smart as you think you are

>>19928634
>that's not true, logic and math use rational axioms, things like induction, negation and multiplication are prior to any cultural goals
I agree the axioms are simple, why complicate them needlessly, but you don't need to look deeply into the history of maths to find examples that whenever it became useful the axioms became more complicated to accommodate e.g. Discarding euclids axioms, the foundations of cantor's set theory.
>that's why anyone can develop mathematical thinking but not a particular language
Not sure what you mean here, there are many ways to formulate the axioms of mathematics(picrel) like there are many ways to formulate a language to communicate. Please forgive the wikipedia source but the wiki is pretty good for maths stuff especially for something as important as the Peano axioms.

>>19928794
Stop telling him to read le skeptics as if they were some authority figure and explain why the statement “there is no truth” being true isn’t self-refuting with your own words.

>>19928783
>can only be known by a worldview that supports incarnation since it justifies and gives epistemic certitude to our metaphysical claims
>>19928794
I've been using David Hume and Kant's transcendental arguments against Buddhism's claim from the beginning you retard
>This "there being no truth is self refuting" statement does not threaten the skeptic worldview in the slightest, it just amounts to word games
You're now just fucking with us, enjoy your last (You)
also this anon's take >>19928723

>>19928827
>>can only be known by a worldview that supports incarnation since it justifies and gives epistemic certitude to our metaphysical claims
Oh so you're just trolling. Ok.
Also stop avatarfagging, tranny.

>>19928823
>what i was just skeptic of skepticism haha imagine that now my dogmatic assertions must be true

>>19928823
Skepticism is not the dogmatic assertion that there is no truth, dumb fuck

>>19928844
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here

>>19928849
You just said it >>19928714
You’re going back and forth. Typical of someone who’s losing an argument.

>>19928823
tbf for him, appealing to an authors, theoligian, philosopher, etc. argument isn't appeal to authority
>>19928838
>Oh so you're just trolling. Ok.
You can't know the Truth in an empirical sense since "Truth" is metaphysical. You need Incarnation to justify and to give epistemic certitude to our metaphysical claims
>Also stop avatarfagging, tranny.
Do you have the normitive authority to stop me? are you a janny?

>>19928867
I'm not the second guy you quoted you fucking retard. I'm merely pointing out how juvenile and misinformed your criticism of skepticism is, you don't understand what you're disagreeing with.

>>19928872
>You need Incarnation
Why?
Buddhism accurately states that truth is inherently experiential. It is lived, not described.

>>19928887
>truth is inherently experiential.
Which branch of the trilemma are you advocating for exactly?

>>19928887
>Buddhism accurately states that truth is inherently experiential. It is lived, not described.
why doesn't plato or the gnostics believed this then? to them its external forms not inherently experiential
>Why?
>>19928670

>>19928276
>pragmatic fallacy, just because it works doesn't mean its good or bad.
False dichotomy; I can move beyond good and evil

>>19928904
which is just falling to evil again and to avoid accountability and reponsibility

>>19928898
My statement was unrelated to the picture I posted, I posted that pic to remind you of how shoddy all truth claims can be.
>>19928902
>why doesn't plato or the gnostics believed this then?
Why do people believe different things? Why do you believe this is an argument? Plato and the gnostics were realists, Buddhism is nominalist, they don't hold the same stance on universals in the first place.

>>19928902
>why doesn't plato or the gnostics believed this then?
Because they weren't Buddhists?

>>19928917
>>19928918
You just said that truth is inherently experiential. If that's the case then why did Plato and the Gnostics have arrived at a different outcome?

>>19928915
>avoid accountability and responsibility
Another false dichotomy - I don't have to consider. I'm not obligated to follow any moral principles or categorical imperatives.

>>19928921
Why should they have arrived at the same conclusion?

Buddhists, prove to me that bhakti, (worship, clinging to GOD) is wrong

>>19928851
You've strawmanned skepticism as nihilism and are now doing reductio ad absurdum with it to defend your own view. Bravo

>>19928925
to prove that your truth claim is correct since your truth claim is empirical in nature

>>19928921
Because they weren't aware of the Buddhist teachings? This like asking why the ancient Egyptians weren't Methodists.

>>19928932
You're being completely incoherent. Everyone should agree with Plato and the gnostics for their claims to be correct? It's obvious from your posts that english isn't your first language but your thought process is impossible to follow, you're making no sense at all.

>>19928928
>prove to me
The Buddha would say that God (Ishvara) is also subjected to dukkha, anicca, anatta.
He would also say that you should do what you want and that if you want the cessation of suffering, then you should follow his teachings and prove to yourself that they are true by attaining sotapanna. Shakyamuni didn't go around telling people to convert and that they were wrong, although he debated those who asked for it.

>>19928937
because it doesn't reflect your claim that truth can be known by inherently experiential, this is also suggesting that solipsism is true

>>19928958
You are being incredibly obtuse.
Gnosticism is also dogmatically similar to Buddhism in many aspects despite diverging metaphysics.

>>19928963
of course they have similarites but that doesn't mean they're equal on totality, that would be a quantifier shift fallacy

>>19928972
Whatever, that's not the point. Your strange claim that Plato and the gnostics (which by the way disagreed on fundamental, key aspects of what the "truth" is) are the benchmark for truth is stupid and makes no sense. By the way, the gnostics also believed truth (gnosis) to be experiential.

>>19928958
Not everyone has the same experiences, let alone the same understanding of what they experience. That the truth can be known does not mean it will be. You are making all kinds of leaps that would be trivial to someone who bothered to read

>>19928976
You didn't get my argument, since your knowing of truth is empirical in nature therefore multiple people should know the same truth since they're equally living and experiencing the world

>>19928963
>Gnosticism is also dogmatically similar
Should have said epicurus, buddha and jesus were the same person. More logically sound.

>>19928985
>therefore multiple people should know the same truth
Yes, that's what Buddhism is.
>>19928989
???

Can someone clarify: when Buddhists say that the world is unreal they don’t mean unreal like a hologram but ‘impermanent therefore not really real’ whereas when Advaitins say the world is unreal they do mean like an hologram. Correct?

>>19928985
>multiple people should know the same truth
Yes there is actually a path which has been excruciatingly described on how to do this. The religion called Buddhism, which this thread is about, had dedicated much of its literature to teaching such a path to realization.

>>19928994
but they didn't arrive at the same truth, they have differences. How about atheist, muslims, jews, shintos, etc.?

>>19928989
Welp, so much for this parody of a discussion

>>19928994
>>19929002
Behold (some of) the faces of God

>>19928998
What's your point, that nobody's figured out the truth because nobody agrees on what the truth is?

>>19929021
No, it means that they have different truths

>>19929022
So the truth is relative?

>>19915089
>or are secondary sources covering medieval thinkers who did argue that way.
oh cool so its worthless

>>19929024
No, it means knowing truth via experiential is wrong since there are many different truth claims and they contradict each other if mushed into one truth

>>19929029
Assuming this is an accurate conclusion (it's not), then how do you know the truth? Via rational investigation? But people disagree, otherwise there wouldn't be a philosophical tradition, and metaphysics is not provable. Via "incarnation"? But this requires faith and there are many religions, none of which are provable.

>>19929029
Buddhism isn't a perennialism

>>19928820
so you recognize that axioms are neccesary and outside the realm of culture
math and logic function as a priori sintetical truths
a particular languae is a posteriori, it needs to be learned, you can by intuiton develop matehmatical thinking, you will never learn chinese if someone doesn't teach you how to speake chinese
so trying to say that a worlview that is sometihng cultural can affect logic inhi totallity is just wrong, since there's a rational component that exist above culture or worldviews

>>19929114
>you can by intuiton develop matehmatical thinking
Only in the same way a child can intuitively develop language skills. It is a useful thing we do whether that is due to evolution, us being created or some other cope is irrelevant. Just like we develop culture. Our intuitive axioms can be viewed as our culture. They are inherently incomplete and undeciable but we use them anyway because they are useful.
>you can by intuiton develop matehmatical thinking, you will never learn chinese if someone doesn't teach you
This feels like flawed logic, there are many ways to formulate mathematics, there is no reason to think that if the slate was wiped clean we would all end up using the same axioms we have now, there may even be simpler ways that could be invented but we just don't know by the anthropic principle.

>>19929190
>Only in the same way a child can intuitively develop language skills.
not really, a child ca learn basic arithmetic without no one teaching him how, by pure intution, but if he's never exposed to a language he wouldnt learn how to talk
>there is no reason to think that if the slate was wiped clean we would all end up using the same axioms we have now
we would end up using the same elementalmath, and that's the whole point
math and logic lack that cultural subjective aspect you want so desperately put in them in oreder to achieve some sort of forced relativisation, but you'll end up confusing yourself, we all know math and logic are meta-langauges and exist outside of the cultural realm
only how we learn math and logic is shaped by culture, but the system on itself exist in a whole different plane

>>19929248
>but if he's never exposed to a language he wouldnt learn how to talk
??? Is this actually what you think? How did languages come to be? How do they change and evolve over time? Tabula Rasa is bunk, children have the capacity to develop language without exposure to it. It in their genes/soul.
>but the system on itself exist in a whole different plane
??? That is completely unfounded and just platonic mysticism.

>>19929248
Let's do a thought experiment, you are rederiving the axioms foundational to math/logic. Which ones do you choose? You start with the intuitive ones and start to build a system. All seems good for a while but oh no, at some point you find a contradiction. Your intuitions have lead you astray, what do you do? You discard the axioms that you initially intuitively thought were right to continue building the system. Why are you building the system? Because it is useful as a tool in some form. You would do the same for language but contradictions aren't a failure state there.
And this is all before you realise several millennia down the track that the system is inevitably going to be incomplete and undeciable by its foundational assumptions.

>>19914774
It's satanic

>>19929847
He said genuine arguments, not low IQ christerbabble

Bumping because of the strangely insightful posts here.