Not at all. Discussing it in this context is part of my effort to find closure to my involvement with it. (In a Buddhist setting, there is such immens...
No, Christians don't hold monopoly over this notion, as there is a parallel in Eastern folk theories of karma. The basic formula in such folk beliefs ...
It is inevitable that one follows some moral code. The question is, which one, and how to make that choice. "Why should I do what I should do?" asks a...
No, more basically, and not just in reference to leaders. In religious/spiritual circles, a measure of cockiness and haughtiness is an absolute necess...
It makes sense to call something out as a fallacy provided that the other person handed in their text as the final version, the final product of their...
It's Mahayana/Vajrayana style. Some Tibetan monks, for example, regularly have debating practices where heavy insults are part of the course. The prac...
It's difficult to discuss these things with people who aren't fluent in Buddhist doctrine, specifically, in dependent co-arising, and it's too much to...
But then they first need to be convicted felons. And even then ... Our prime minister was found guilty by a court of law and should now be serving a p...
No, they're not, you're not being precise. Some of it is abstract discussion about the US legal and political systems and other political systems. Som...
You're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not an advocate of reincarnation or the existence of a soul. For myself, I resolved this issue by taking a middl...
It's a challenge, isn't it? How should a moral, liberal, democratic, cooperative person treat someone who refuses to cooperate? Banning them would be ...
Have you not learned anything?! They are winners, they don't dwell on old failures and they don't listen to naysayers. Mark my words, they'll breeze o...
"The soul is what gets reincarnated" is the part that several soul doctrines have in common. Where they differ is in the details. From this point on, ...
Sure, and I live in a country that has such a system. There is a trend toward simplification, polarization into two camps. The political parties somet...
As far as Hindu-style reincarnation goes, it's the soul that gets reincarnated, and the body is that gets born and dies. The question as to what, spec...
I already told you, several times: the soul. Do we really need to go through a couple of hundred pages of summaries of soul doctrines? I find it hard ...
Do answer this. I imagine that it's been "pretty simple for thousands of years" for "the average person", but that's not because the average person wo...
It's not okay, because we're still left with the issue of how to decide which doctrine is the right one, and with the necessity and urgency of said de...
Odd that you say that, given your earlier objections to my points about intelligle and good communication. Temporarily adopting another's metaphysics ...
But there are soul doctrines that have all this figured out. The Hare Krishnas come to mind. (In fact, one of the objections that the more traditional...
Theoretically, as far as the workings of kamma go, it seems possible that something that one cultivates in one lifetime should come easier the next ti...
There's more to it: You've probably left behind buildings, works of art, heaps of trash, you might have changed the landscape, etc., things that other...
Indeed. This is why doctrines about the soul tend to contain the desription of the mechanism by which the soul gets reincarnated. The "downside" is th...
Democracy is, eventually, about voting, and voting is about having the majority. Because of this, other principles of democracy, such as inclusiveness...
Now that's a productive approach to discussion! In an atmosphere of goading and cynicism, how can any decent person hope to have a meaningful conversa...
*sad* Why do you say that? What makes you think that I've "made up your mind that souls don't exist"? Do answer that. There are many doctrines about w...
Not at all. The Bible is quite inconsistent in its use: sometimes, the soul is something to have, and other times, it's something one is. Search it fo...
From the Visuddhimagga, linked to earlier: So according to this doctrine, there are differences between the ways different categories of people recoll...
"Have a soul"? Not are a soul? So if you have a soul, so that you and your soul are two separate things, who burns in hell for all eternity? You or yo...
Of course, I'm not disputing that. (This is why, in terms of theory of morality, I linked to Thanissaro Bhikkhu's The Truth of Rebirth: And Why It Mat...
I have the impression that if you edit a post of yours, and add a mention, that mention does not show up in the other poster's account and they're not...
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