What you are saying is a logical fallacy called an equivocation fallacy. It’s described as “Using an ambiguous term in more than one sense, thus making an argument misleading.”
Is it? any more/less nonsensical ?
regardless, i think that this was a surprisingly civil discussion and thought exercise given the potentially incendiary nature of the topic, and I agree that we covered all the bases worth covering. In many other platforms online, a discussion like this would have quickly devolved into petty insults; I guess that this is highly indicative of the decency of bonsai nutters!
Sorry if I come off too harsh, it’s hard to convey tone via text. I’m loving these conversations but if anyone isn’t I’ll stop.
I agree if people are not enjoying this conversation we should stop. I enjoy these conversations very much but I know most people are not used to them and can’t handle contention. I love contention and I never let disagreement change my opinion of people. I would be totally willing to keep talking or get a beer which anyone on this thread. Sorry again if I come of to contentious.
I agree this has been a good conversation that can’t be had with most people, and this is a great community. I disagree that there isn’t more worth covering, but I understand I’m a weirdo that love these types of discussions. Basically every person in my like is a Christian and are too afraid to talk about their beliefs so this is very enjoyable to me.
no one killed the thread, it’s just very challenging to discuss this sorta thing online. this a very civil forum, and our self moderation culture goes far on stuff like this, i’ve just seen how these things go if given time to run.
lol -
People can be
no worries it was for sure me, I choose to have as little of a filter as much as possible, as my posts show. But I can keep it civil too as I mentioned I am always surrounded by people I disagree with about most things.
My biggest and most influential lessons are probably too spicy. I would say a lot of what Jesus is claimed to have said is very useful, and the fact that those ideas were around long before Jesus says a lot about human beings. We have a desire to do good to one another because we are in a symbiotic. It’s very cool that we have evidence of that from thousands of years ago.
I think this is one of eye opening things about studying world religions. Oftentimes, its easy to pretend that people of the past were less intelligent of that, but it becomes very quickly clear that that is not the case. It was eye opening when I discovered that Carl Jung was heavily influenced by the Bhagavad Gita.
I agree meditation is very powerful, just look at the buddhist monks who set themselves on fire to protest the war in Vietnam. I can’t imagine many other religious people with the mental discipline, and confidence in their beliefs to do that. They also just sat there while they burned alive, very powerful demonstration of their will, mental control and commitment.
I am not a Buddhist, yet I grew up in a place where the majority of the population are Buddhists. I even went to school in a temple when I was young. It is one of the most peaceful religions I know.
its not a religion
This bolded part is my answer to @pandacular 's query on what I've learned from a religion other than what I grew up with. As a recovering Southern Baptist, fundamentalist to the core in my upbringing, Taoism 's embrace of the void, of nothingness as a model for meditation ties in very strongly with my studies of Existentialism (see: Sartre's Being and Nothingness). Then when I stir in a bit of Heidegger's Dasein (literally Being-in-the-world) as an living being with both consciousness and agency, I can see a way of existing in the world as a curious human: curious about other humans, trees, dogs, technology, etc.
But the thousands and thousands of Buddhists I know say it isits not a religion