[goctorsurger]

There is a huge difference, FBM. People are born with their sex.

You lost me on the 'sex' bit. Anyway, 'people' are illusions. So are sects. Convenient fictions. Empty placeholders. If you believe in 'people' and 'sects' you have yet to comprehend anatta, which may explain the dualistic 'us vs them' false dichotomy that lies at the heart of so much dischord in the world and in your interactions with other BWB members.

The various sects choose whether to reference the teachings of the Buddha or not. If you believe in this, you believe in free will. Do you believe in free will? If so, who has this free will? Do not conditions arise out of previous conditions that...? Where is the free will in the patticasamuppada that allows these convenient fictions to choose freely and independently of prior conditions?

Clint asked if there was aqsolution to the problem of discord and sectarianism. I pointed out a solution. The solution you pointed out is a formula for entrenching each 'side' more deeply in their positions. Of course the debate would be over if everyone simply agreed to agree with your position. That formula works equally well in both directions. But stating that gets us no closer to a practical resolution, and taking a fire-and-brimstone approach to stating your case is counter-productive, to say the least. I say this as someone who agrees with your basic premise, but has experienced first-hand the futility of your approach.

It is inded a straw man. You are misrepresenting what I am saying. Or perhaps you fail to see all the implications of what you are saying.

It's also an ad hominem. It wasn't intended as a personal attack. It was a reference to the Certainty Bias. I apologize if my statement caused you offence.


That is not the case. Again, Clint posed a problem, I pointed to a solution. All this "save the world" crap is a distortion of what I am saying. Are you not out to "save" Buddhism by eliminating the opposition by dialectical force? Again, I agree with your basic premise. I don't see the Mahayana sutras or later-developed doctrines as genuinely Buddhist, and I agree, more or less, that some of these doctrines are hi-jackings of the Buddha's good name in order to contradict him. We agree on that. We disagree on the strategy for addressing it. Your solution exacerbates the problem, in my personal experiences. No matter how "right" you may be, if you beat people over the head with your evidence, you will accomplish nothing but to piss them off and further entrench them in resisting you. Regardless of how pure your intent, your headstrong and aggressive manner defeats your purpose, and you wind up making the problem worse, not better. I'm just glad you're not a Muslim, dood.

It's the domain of the mahayana. Exclusive domain? There's no chance that anyone else sets up lofty ideals and throws a hissy fit when the world doesn't conform to them? Think about this. I'm ready with dozens of examples. You're one of them.


But that is not what I'm doing. And that's what makes it a straw man. Simple denial with a bald assertion? No supporting argumentation? From this perspective, it seems more likely that you are incapable of seeing your own actions from a larger perspective, and therefore you see stawmen (innumberable strawmen) every time someone disagrees with anything you say. It seems to me that you have fallen prey to the Certainty Bias and have no interest in entertaining the possibility that your ideas and/or approaches may be anything less than perfect. I used to. That's how I recognize it. It's a great, great relief to be rid of this monkey on one's back. I won't ask you to trust my word on this, I will only suggest that you try it out and see for yourself. Look at things from others' perspectives and try to understand why they think the way they do, rather than judging them harshly for it. Thing are the way they are because innumerable other things beyond their knowledge, much less their control, were they way they were stretching back many millenia. No one is to blame. There is no one, ultimately. There are only phenomena arising and passing, conditioned by prior phenomena.