Sorry Deeele, I have to admit to being a bit confused by your reply - I wasn’t really setting out a stall of any kind of the views I hold in the quotes you’ve used, or for that matter attempt to treat any of the views you presented in your post (#14) but rather just respond exclusively to your question “Why is not believing in reincarnation/rebirth something “materialist”?” with what I hoped would be helpful clarification of was was being referred by the word “materialist” (what tangled webs we weave when first we try to clarify ).
All I was saying is that there is a philosophical position called materialism and it has a specific(ish) definition (just as with any other view, phenomenologist, solipsist, whatever - it’s not necessary to agree with a view to recognise it exists and the basic ideas it advances).
In turn, applying this to my original post you commented on, what I said was that that to take a materialist view (as per the given definition), which is fundamentally in conflict with the notion of rebirth, would leave the Buddha’s teaching logically deficient.
I wasn’t really intending to get into the new themes you’ve raised so I’ll leave them for the elements to work out.
Sure. But these views & words have zero relevance to any discussion about Buddhism.
Thanks. You appeared to incorrectly apply the ‘Annihilistic’ view to the discussion. As I suggested, DN 1 & Iti 49 might assist here in straightening out the (old) themes you (originally) raised .
That’s inconceivable to me based on what I know of how the brain and body work (part of my major at university was neurobiology and physiology). Here’s a a study that dispels the simplistic notion of left-right brain dichotomy.
I can also see where you’re coming from. Still, I think you will never ever know the whole truth. Nobody will. I think even the Buddha didn’t: my belief is he knew just enough to become liberated and know he would never see the whole picture.
I know dozens of atheists who think exactly the same thing and have the same fixed absolutist position whike believing themselves to be the crème de la crème of the humankind (spoiler alert: they are not). ISIS is one example of absolute conviction, the atheist Bolsheviks is another one. The dangers of absolutism in spiritual question is one of the things the Buddha used to speak very often about in his sermons It is not about flying spaghetti monsters, it is about what your faith makes you do.
Faith without reasonable doubts is stupid. However, which doubt exactly is reasonable is a very good question. And yeah, imagine the Universe where you don’t believe in any kind of afterlife and then the Flying Spaghetti monster literally turns out to exist. Isn’t it a horrifying idea?
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