SuttaCentral
You make it sound like I want to force beliefs on people. No, I’m not going to burn anyone at the stake. Point out flaws in their arguments though? Yes.
Saying one rejects Devas yet accepts nibbana, whilst also having faith in the Buddha is contradictory on different levels. One I have already touched upon. The other is that you have to accept kamma & rebirth if you accept nibbana, as nibbana is about bringing the misery of life to its final end.
… and so … ??? You’ve already offered a fundamentalist reading of the texts. Got anything else at hand?
If I say that Right Effort is an essential part of the path, does that make me a fundamentalist? If the opposite being Dhamma whatever we feel like it is? I remember a western convert arguing once that in addition to the NEFP we should add “Right Entertainment”. I suppose arguing against that is a fundamentalism too, for you.
It could, since a very large number of Buddhists follow the Bodhisattva path and take a Bodhisattva vow, and do not follow the Noble Path.
And as I have stated previously, ad hominen attacks include casting aspersions to set up straw dog arguments.
I could be wrong, but as far as I’m aware Mahayana doesn’t dispense with the NEFP. Or rather, not all forms of it do. If I recall Dogen discussed it once. But let’s say they did. Then I would think they are in error, just like how I think the whole Bodhisattva path is in error. If you think that’s me being fundamentalist, then we understand that word differently. Regarding you charges of logical fallacies, I’ve done neither here.
All in error, even though Mahayana is much closer to Indian Buddhism and the ancient texts than you are. Sound.
You are of course entitled to your view.
Yes, trust is a large part of faith, but trust is not a form of knowing. Rather, it is a form of admitting that you don’t in fact know whether something is the case. That is why trust is needed in the first place. If you have direct knowledge of something, then faith/trust is not required. That’s where most people get mixed up: believing faith is a form of knowing. It isn’t. At least it’s not what I have in mind when I use the word.
There is a difference between faith in a person and faith in an ideology/dogma/theory.
Usually, the latter comes from the former. Regardless, faith - whether in a person or an idealogy - is not a form of knowing and it is a mistake to regard it as such.
Indeed, but since and Arahant is said to still have faith you get an idea of how saddha, at least in the majority of contexts, is viewed in the suttas. On the epistemology I don’t think anyone here is arguing for Fideism.
How sure is that? I’ve heard about practitioners who use knowledge of the magic of “placebo”, and by developing that capability, they claim to become able to communicate or channel information from heavenly realms and entities.
I’ve studied more than 5,000 near death experiences. My research has convinced me without a doubt that there’s life after death.
Many cases of near-death experiences report encounters with luminous and powerful beings, which are basically the definition of devas.
Humans glow in visible light
The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists reveal.
in Theravada Buddhism it talks a lot about the luminous mind and in near-death experiences people also report that they realized that their own body is made of light.
