SuttaCentral
I don’t think the forum has ever claimed to be a place of pure academic study. If that is what you want, I’m afraid you will be constantly disappointed. Especially because the number of people on the forum who have the backrground to discuss the texts in the way you want is very small. You might have more success if you just PM the people you want to talk to.
I tried to address this issue in my first post. Sorry it didn’t meet your requirements.
Thank you Joseph. I started Buddhism as a meditator, so, yes, most use the EBTs to reconcile their experience. This said, the EBTs do say the Dhamma is something to be verified by each insightful personal rather than to be believed & preached on mere faith (MN 38).
However, returning to topic, one sutta is AN 3.99, which refers to differing outcomes of the same kamma.
Another interesting teaching is the stock phrase on killing, which seems to refer to the disposition to kill “all” living beings, as follows:
It’s when a certain person kills living creatures. They’re violent, bloody-handed, a hardened killer, merciless to [all] living beings.
Idha, bhikkhave, ekacco pāṇātipātī hoti, luddo lohitapāṇi hatapahate niviṭṭho adayāpanno sabbapāṇabhūtesu
If have never read a translation including the word “all” however the stock phrase above includes the word “sabba”, which generally means “all”.
In fact, all of the words in the above definition, such as “hardened killer”, seem to point to an extreme habitual psychopathic disposition & behavior. For example, the impression is a mother who kills a mosquito or gadfly threatening her baby or child may not fall within the definition above. For example, the Buddha never commented on how people should acquire food; which included no prohibition on sharing meat offerings with monks & nuns.
thanks for your reply @Snowbird (and @CurlyCarl ). You are right, I am being a bit arbitrary in what I am demanding of this forum, and I did after all start a conversation in Watercooler, so it’s silly of me to complain that people arent sticking rigidly to my definition of the topic.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to you and other posters who I have been snappy with recently, I have been grumpy with a toothache that has been keeping me up and foolishly rationalised my rudeness by telling myself that I was going to be more “authentic” 
such are the foibles of delusional samsaric existence…
Anyway, on reflection I have been short-tempered, grumpy, hyperbolic and combative in my post recently and I think I have caused offense and hurt to some of the posters who have actually been the very people who have engaged with me the most and for that I am genuinely sorry.
I am going to make more of an effort to respond with more care and “right speech” in future, and also work on passing over in “noble silence” those posts hat trigger my perennial frustrations.
This forum is amazing, and has had a huge impact on my life this last year, and I appreciate all those who make it what it is.
Metta
I’m sure others also appreciate you greatly. Thank you for posting here. 
So just to get back to this idea of a ‘seeming “tension”’. I’m still at a complete loss to see it. Monastics take (try to abide by) the five precepts, just like lay people, right? They don’t suddenly give them up when they ordain. They have the same standard. Don’t kill. They’ve just got a system that means (among other things) they are more likely to keep the precepts better than the laity. Part of that system is confession.
Our maybe I’m wrong? I wonder if I can ask, do monastics give up the five/eight/ten precepts during ordination?
I guess what I’m getting at is if you take it that a lay Buddhist who has taken the pancasila “falls” from legitimate lay Buddhism by swatting a fly while a monastic who kills a crow does not “fall” from their monasticism then it appears that the lay Buddhist is facing a tougher standard, like it seems like there’s a more absolutist feel to it? Does that make sense?
Now that @Dhammanando has disposed of my folk etymologies 
I am interested to hear from people about the evolution of lay-ethics in early Buddhism- are there any commentarial works or Jain texts that I should check out?
Ah, well that brings things into focus. Can you find textual evidence that this is true? Because I’m not aware of any. I think this is at the heart of your dilemma. I 100% do not believe that someone can “fall from legitimate Buddhism” by breaking any of the five precepts. You are kind of comparing apples and oranges when you pit the five precepts against the Vinaya rules.
In the suttas it is very clear what the consequences are of doing the actions that the precepts are attempting to prevent. (I phrased it like that because it’s not always framed as “breaking the precepts” but rather, “killing, stealing, etc”. There is no possible way to think that those consequences are only for lay people and not monastics.
And to give you some real world experience (since it sounds like you are open to it), do you realize how easy it is to accidentally kill an insect when you live in the forest? And how often there can be doubt around if it was really an accident? If monks became parajika from killing an insect, the doubt would be crippling. This is where the clear difference comes between the lay precepts and the Vinaya. Although many people don’t think the Vinaya is practical, it is in fact perfectly so.
I don’t want to say that lay people shouldn’t have opinions about the Vinaya. But I will say that if you haven’t studied it in depth and made an effort to live according to the Vinaya inside a monastic community, then your opinions and ideas about it are more often than not going to be wrong.
Oh right. I’ve not heard of that before. That seems quite extreme. Is it in the EBTs?
I mean no, but neither is the pancasila at least not by that name.
Like is there anything in the EBT’s that describe a requirement for lay Buddhists to undertake pancasila? Or a widespread practice of doing so?
I seem to remember something about wearing white and practicing celibacy, but that is different from the pancasila?
Maybe someone more knowledgeable in this area can link to some “classic” EBT’s that relate to lay follower ship (AN is my weakest Nikaya in that I have at least read the entirety of DN MN and SN in translation, but I can’t say the same for AN)
Maybe something like an 4.263 and the suttas that follow that one?
Or sn 42.8 perhaps?
Really I feel the vibe is more encouragement than requirement
I do think that not having read the AN is going to put you at a disadvantage for discussing these things. You seem to be very quick to make conclusions without having read an important part of the EBTs.
Check out this one: SuttaCentral
Sorry @Snowbird I maybe gave the impression of not having read AN at all, I have read suttas from AN, I just haven’t read it all from start to finish like the others.
I haven’t really arrived at any conclusions regarding this topic- other than that my initial hypothesis of “hand” for “panc” is probably wrong