[giDdfezP]

You lost me on the 'sex' bit.

You are the one that said that if your auntie had bollocks she'd be your uncle. However irrelevant and off topic it was...

Anyway, 'people' are illusions.
That is an ontological assertion.

So are sects. Convenient fictions. Empty placeholders. Ideas are conventions.

If you believe in 'people' and 'sects' you have yet to comprehend anatta, They are conventions, in the sense that you are pontificating at me. And in that sense, that is not what I believe. I didn't know you were an Advaitist.

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. You are making a lot of assumptions. You are also employing an ad Homunem fallacy and derailung the topic.

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?
Im certainly not a determinist. Free will comes in the choice to not cling. But again, this is off topic.

The solution you pointed out is a formula for entrenching each 'side' more deeply in their positions. How do you come by this opinon?

Of course the debate would be over if everyone simply agreed to agree with your position. I am not asserting that. Again the Ad Hom.

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 have said nothing of fire or brimstone. Again the Straw Man.

I say this as someone who agrees with your basic premise, but has experienced first-hand the futility of your approach. I am not convinced.

Or perhaps you fail to see all the implications of what you are saying. Not at all. Again, this isn't about me. What is it that you find so big and scary about the solution that you feel the need to launch an extended attack on me to derail the thread a seventh or tenth time?


It wasn't intended as a personal attack. It was an Ad Hominem Fallacy.

It was a reference to the Certainty Bias. I apologize if my statement caused you offence. It did not cause offence. It was an Ad Hominem Fallacy. Play the ball and not the man.

Are you not out to "save" Buddhism by eliminating the opposition by dialectical force? No, I am not You assume a great deal.

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. Doesn't really look like it from your tactivs here.

We disagree on the strategy for addressing it. Your solution exacerbates the problem, in my personal experiences. That would be your opinion. YOu seriously think that suggesting that sects who call themselves "Buddhist" might do well to look to the teachings of the Buddha rather than superstition and culltural accretion exacerbates the problem? It's a no-brainer, FBM.

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. And again you go with the Ad Hominem.

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. What do you find so scary about suggesting that "Buddhist" sects look to the teachings of the BUddha that you feel a need to derail the topic into a Stuka-love-fest?

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. You are confusing objectivity for emotion and presuming a great deal. And, again resorting to ad Hominem and detailling tha topic.

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. That is not the case It appears that you would like it to be. This is called Confirmation Bias.

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. I did not ask for your diagnosis based upon your confirmation bias. Looks likke it is you who is falling to Certainty Bias. You know your own hammer, and everyone else is a nail. I do not share your motives in this respect.

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.
What is it that is so big and scary about the suggestion that folks who call themselves "Buddhist" look to the teachings of the Buddha, that drives you to launch a three-day ad hominem crusade to derail it?