Fortunately, the moderation is not in favor of this so please be heartened.
I really hope you reconsider as I think your participation is beneficial for many.
I wonder if a solution that could appease everyone is the ability to mark individual threads to ignore as one can currently do for users? That way people who have aversion to hearing secular buddhists discussing their views in a safe thread without being argued with could ignore the thread? It also might help you to ignore certain threads so they don’t cause an impediment to your work?
Is that you, RV? Are you also posting as Suddh on DW? It is relevant to this topic if this is the case, as you have an extensive history of attacking various forums that don’t suit your personal preferences.
This thread seems motivated as a response to the thread where a user (@Alex70) - who seemingly accepts rebirth - asked a question of those on this forum who do not accept rebirth. Namely, he wanted to inquire into their thinking and understand their views, but expressly wished for the thread to not involve discussion of whether rebirth was “right” or “wrong.” As such, any discussion or debate about whether rebirth is “right” or “wrong” is off-topic to the thread.
I think we all should simply acknowledge the point of the thread and adhere to the OP’s stated motivation. That might be difficult for some of us with deep and entrenched views, but we should practice (I certainly need the practice!) to develop the skill of patience and putting others before ourselves.
It seems a valuable and well motivated thread to understand the viewpoint of our fellow dharma friends. Why can’t we just listen to the viewpoints of others without interjecting with debate and argument?
It is a fact that many on the path do not accept rebirth. Whether you view this as problematic or not it seems like a good idea to develop the skill of listening to understand what motivates another friends understanding. As someone who does accept rebirth I find it valuable to understand in good faith what my fellow path travelers - who I try not to view as beneath me - think and believe.
I’m very sorry to hear this as you are a valuable presence and source of knowledge on this forum.
As moderators we do our best to keep censorship to a minimum and to be a welcoming place for discussion and a variety of views. If you feel that we are falling short here or there is more we can do to facilitate it, I hope you can let us know via PM (to @ moderators) if not this thread
To be clear, I meant, people can freely reply there why rebirth is true, whenever a secular Buddhist post rebirth is not true. Not that the secular Buddhists are censored completely. I am not the mod there, so I dunno how many things they removed.
It is hard to continue a discussion on another thread when the momentum is on one. So indeed, it is a shortchange on both sides and also a compromise. I can dislike it, but also respect the mods enough to follow as they decide as I am not part of the mods or owner of this forum.
I have not compiled properly on supernormal powers research, I just know about Dean Radin who had. If anything helps to promote faith, I don’t see the harm in it. Also we are heavily text based (EBT has text in it), some external evidences independent of Buddhism is useful for those who doesn’t have so strong a faith in the texts.
I also have some concerns about how this forum and EBT in general is seen from the general Buddhism viewpoint. How close or far away we are to secular Buddhism. Anyway, I accept the decision, it’s already 3 times I asked and got negative. We can see the 3 times asking in real life.
To speculate ad infinitum, and fractiously* on the nature of anatta and nibbana is also clearly dismissed as unwholesome by the Peaceful One. But here, delight in the thicket of views is allowed and even encouraged by “seniors.”
Facts… treat them as you will, draw your own conclusions, practice the path.
Or not.
Edit @ +4hrs…
I used the wrong word. “Fractious” does not reflect my intention. It implies “unruly troublemaking” and would be the mundane (worldly, not unimportant) sphere of moderation which should properly concern itself with civility, TOS, etc.
I meant to use “Factious” without the “r.”
This word means “inclined to the formation of factions.” The Buddha, as I understand it, was not a fan.
This is an issue of Dhamma… not the purview of moderators, but “management.”
My apologies for any confusion or perceived ingratitude.
On a general note i can say that id rather see an update to the ToS saying that this wrong speech is tolerated or otherwise disconnect the ToS from the term Right Speech, rather this than there not being a discussion about these things.
I have no intention to derail the conversation. there are plenty of passages in the canon that would suggest that belief in rebirth is not right view. We have what the Buddha does not declare, we have the Kalama sutta, we have the Atthakavagga stating very clearing that we should not have formulated views about other realms…
Someone who is not an inerrantist, has reason to doubt passages declaring belief in rebirth as right view. Religious texts have a long history of redaction and interpolation. A more critical read is called for. That is why we have a forum for discussion.
In general i think questioning rebirth is tolerable to me and i think if not anything else it can do good in further convincing those who already believe and we help developing their understanding.
It is only people who are fixated in their opposition that need restraining because they can overwhelm the discourse.
I think secular buddhism is absolutely rejected by all conservative buddhists who think that scripture is absolutely clear on this.
I think it is essentially a secular discussion and text-critical in nature. Therefore on a platform dedicated to ‘discussion of EBTs’ it is well appropriate on one hand but there is then a complicated divide between people.
I think that textual criticism can get overwhelming, just due to the amount of people that there is and it is essentially content meant to disprove what the buddha supposedly taught.
Nevermind if opponents of conservative buddhism would make bots like this.
Some interesting food for thought on this thread. Obviously, this is a Discussion Forum about EBTs so exactly how to interpret the texts is on topic. While the texts definitely talk of rebirth, I agree with @cdpatton that there is sometimes some over-reach into non-Buddhist concepts when discussing and/or justifying rebirth:
I have found Patrick Kearney’s comments in his talks that cover anatta and what he calls “life after life” very helpful. The two are inexorably connected and any discussion of rebirth without a deep experiential understanding of anatta is merely the stating of concepts.
I would therefore urge caution in labelling the questioning of some concepts of rebirth as “wrong view”.
Like this thread here is about my feedback to the admin about the service. And you have force made an argument against rebirth in it.
For me to respond to every point you are making here would be tedious.
I have not engaged you in other threads much but i am familiar with things you say and much of it is like the points you raised here.
I think that if you want to write a text critical essay you can discuss your understanding of EBTs and i might consider participating but this is otherwise excessive.
I have not argued against rebirth here. I argued that there is good reason to believe the Buddha did not declare a position on it. I will leave my part of the discussion at that.
An extreme example would be of people who believe that buddha is a mythical creature, that some people made up the suttapitaka and they have a hundred page powerpoint presentation that they want to show everyone but which nobody wants see.
I think the internet is big enough for everyone but the text critical content is a distict category which not many people are organically interested in.
I don’t ever approach secular buddhist spaces because i think they are deficient in expertise relevant to my interest and i don’t find it strange that secular buddhists come to non-secular spaces because non-secular spaces are not deficient in expertise relevant to my interest, and they would be welcome in my space on account of shared interest but if the non-secular space gets overly secularized then it’s just another secular space that non-secular people leave.
Can’t even factually accurate, correct and truthful speech, that seemingly is uttered to spread dhamma, be considered wrong speech depending upon the context and the wisdom/motivation of one uttering it? It seems to me wrong speech is just a convention and to rightly label it depends upon context and wisdom, right?
I can’t find any hard and fast universal essence to wrong speech that makes it so. Wrong speech, right speech, the ToS are all dependent phenomenons; thus it seemingly takes correct motivation and wisdom to apply these in a way that is beneficial to beings and avoids acting as a condition for further harm to beings. A tricky needle to thread…
Applying rigid rules and definitions without remembering the proper motivation and spirit of those rules risks causing further problems for all of us poor miserable beings trying to find a way out of this cycle we find ourselves in. I thank the moderators for trying their best to apply context and wisdom while making choices for the best outcomes on the forum. I’m sure it ain’t easy
