What I suggest then is that, in regard to a brand new context we all agree on, we discuss the manner in our own respective “I” reacts to conflicting goods as that relates to our view about objective morality here and now and the fate of “I” there and then.
Given our take [assumptions] regarding either a God or a No God world.
My own favorite context revolves around abortion. But I’m open to any other that we can all agree would best highlight the things we might agree or disagree about.
You can note your reactions in this non-discussion of abortion:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195498
Some participants are trying to discuss it but Biggus … not so much.
The reactions are enough in themselves?
Indeed, here are some examples of me not discussing my views on abortion:
Note to others:
Seriously, what point is he making here that I am clearly missing?
Biggus sits on a fence:
He asks posters and ‘philosophers’ a bunch of questions:
If you give an answer :
Then you have a political prejudice, an existential contraption, a general answer, it’s in your head, you’re abstract, you’re in the clouds.
If not that, then your answer doesn’t meet his interests:
As always, the poster fails in some way.
Yes, and to the moral and political objectivists [Buddhists, Christians, liberals, conservatives etc.] I ask for an explanation as to why they don’t sit on the fence. How, in other words, their own convictions are not impinged by the manner in which they construe identity, value judgments, and political power in regard to abortion. Giving them the opportunity to explain why the intertwined components of my own moral philosophy are not at all reasonable to them. I sit on the fence because, philosophically, it makes sense to. And I suggest in turn the reason objectivists don’t sit on the fence is embodied in what I call the “psychology of objectivism”.
But beyond this I cannot go. My own assessment here is no less an existential contraption subject to change given new experiences, relationships and access to ideas. Just as is the case with them. And with you.
Yes, given the manner in which I assess moral convictions as political prejudices rooted historically, culturally and interpersonally in dasein, it makes sense to me to describe them as such.
But to the extent that others are not willing or able to demonstrate to me how and why their own value judgments transcend the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods in my own argument, I can only react to what they post as I do. I’m not saying that they are necessarily wrong any more than I am saying that I am necessarily right. I am only pointing out that here and now they have failed to persuade me. Exactly what they do in regard to their reactions to me.
And what interest me on this thread is the extent to which Buddhists choose the behaviors that they do in interacting with others from day to day as that is reflected in their beliefs about karma, enlightenment, reincarnation and Nirvana.
The part that, in my opinion, you yourself nearly always avoid.
And, please, come on, on thread after thread after thread here others are either able to convince those who don’t think like them to finally do, or they “fail” to.
I fail to convince you, you fail to convince me. Only with the objectivists, if someone fails to agree with them that makes them necessarily wrong. That makes them ineligible to become “one of us”. And, for some, that then precipitates the retorts, the name calling, the huffing and puffing, the ad homs.
And, no, by all means, not just you.
I would just like to note that this thread is in no way about the solution to the abortion problem, so it is hijacked. Buddhism is not really a moral system, it is a practical system. I think the discussion of whether participation vs. abstract discussion of Buddhism is on the border to being off topic, but given that Buddhism so clearly, as a system and culture, is about getting away from overratiocination and emphasises practices vastly more than belief, our foray into Iamb’s approach is at least somewhat relevent.
the thread is, after all, about ‘getting’ buddhism, no solving the moral conflict issues of a person who has said he has never been interested in participating in Buddhism despite exposure to Buddhist ideas and buddhists in his life.
Not that: he has never had any interest. Yet, here we are discussing his abortion issue in a thread about a subject he is not interested in.
In the West religious discussion revolved often around right beliefs. Eastern religions are much more focused on effective practices.
So he has been an effective virus.
…and yet you all seemed to enjoy the exchange. 
We can explore what a Buddhist has that Biggus (or someone like Biggus) lacks when meeting moral problems. IOW, what the difference in the two approaches?
That’s easier to do when the questions are confined to a particular context like abortion.
Combining the two?
From the wiki article “Buddhist ethics”:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_ethics#Abortion
Well, what do you know: “There is no single Buddhist view concerning abortion, although traditional Buddhism rejects abortion because it involves the deliberate destroying of a human life and regards human life as starting at conception.”
Okay, so in regard to any one particular abortion in any one particular set of circumstances, how does any one particular Buddhist encompass his or her own moral parameters as that relates to his or her own individual understanding of karma, enlightenment, reincarnation and Nirvana.
As opposed to my own suggestion that individuals here [Buddhists or not] are likely to embody moral values rooted in their own particular historical and cultural contexts. And, then, from individual to individual, predicated largely on the confluence of actual experiences that they have had predisposing them to one rather than another set of political prejudices.
So, what I would be most interested in here, is a discussion about abortion among those who call themselves Buddhists. How would they rationalize the behaviors that they would choose if they were themselves burdened with an unwanted pregnancy. Or knew of someone they loved who was. Or, if not abortion, any other conflicting goods.
And then others who are not Buddhists noting the manner in which their own value judgments were derived and why from their point of view abortion is either moral or immoral.
And then philosophers [ethicists] taking all of these existential narratives into account and discussing the extent to which, using the tools of philosophy, it might be possible to arrive at the most reasonable and virtuous set of behaviors.
And, finally, theologians, who might reconfigure these conclusions into one that includes their own understanding of God and/or religion and/or Enlightenment — as that relates to their assumptions regarding the afterlife and/or salvation.
All of which eventually coming down not to what one believes is true but what one is able demonstrate that all rational people are in fact obligated to believe is true in turn.
So go and search all those people out and discuss it with them. Stop wasting your time here with people who don’t meet all your needs and expectations.
Yet again you allow yourself to be reduced down to one these…retorts.
You know, maybe if you were to search out Buddhists and become one of them that would happen less often. 
What’s the goat choking on now??
He just wrote that he is “most interested” in hearing from Buddhists, non-Buddhists, philosophers and theologians :
Most of those people are not here, aside from the non-Buddhists. He has to go someplace else to find them. That’s just common sense.
That’s a different thread, easy to start. And likely more effecting in a Buddhist forum.
Generally, Buddhists do not consider Siddhartha Gautama to have been the only buddha. The Pali Canon refers to Gautama Buddha at least once as the 28th Buddha (see List of the 28 Buddhas). A common Buddhist belief is that the next Buddha will be one named Maitreya (Pali: Metteyya).
In Theosophy, the Maitreya or Lord Maitreya is an advanced spiritual entity and high-ranking member of a hidden Spiritual Hierarchy, the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom.
Maitreya (Sanskrit), Metteyya (Pali), is regarded as a future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. … According to Buddhist tradition, Maitreya is a bodhisattva who will appear on Earth in the future, achieve complete enlightenment, and teach the pure dharma.
Meditating with Descartes
Karen Parham asks how close Western philosophy gets to Buddhism.
Same with Buddha and Buddhism. Some people have a conscious understanding of them, others do not. And, from my frame of mind [rooted in dasein], some have one conscious understanding of them while others have a different understanding of them. So how, for all practical purposes, does that work in regard to karma, enlightenment, reincarnation and Nirvana? If there is no innate idea linking the teachings of Gautama Buddha to the billions of mere mortals around the globe, how would it not be the responsibility of practicing Buddhists to at least take their own assessment out into the world and to proselytize.
After all, if someone is not even aware of Buddha and his teachings, how can they possibly attain either enlightenment on this side of the grave or immortality [however that works] on the other side of the grave?
Of course from my frame of mind, this changes very little. We can only project into God that which is derived from our own minds. In other words, that which is derived from our own minds. And how is that not rooted in dasein rooted out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view? Whether you come at God or Buddha inductively or deductively, from the East or from the West, there is still the part where your own unique accumulation of experiences, relationships and access to ideas predispose you to embody one subjective/subjunctive account rather than another. And, to my knowledge, no one able to pin down the optimal account.
Until there is a way to demonstrate both intellectually and empirically the existence of an entity that transcends both the minds and the lives of mere mortals, it really comes down to any particular existential leap that any particular one of us are able or not able to make.
More or less blindly as they say.
Given my current set of circumstances, I have no viable option to go much beyond this apartment. On the other hand, in virtual reality, there is always the possibility that someone [here or elsewhere] might be able to link me to an experience of their own relating to Buddhism relating to my own interest in it: morality on this side of the grave, immortality on the other side of it.
With Phyllo, he either has the option to explore other religious paths or he does not. But: Given that he is able to sustain some measure of comfort and consolation with his own current rendition of the existential relationship between God and objective morality, why bother?
Well, I suggest, with so much at stake – good and evil here and now, immorality and salvation there and then – shouldn’t he at least attempt to probe other religious denominations in order to be more certain that the path he is on really is the right one?
Then, for most here, cue either blind faith, Kierkegaard or Pascal.
No, it’s not a different thread. Not if what I want to “get” about Buddhism is how those who practice it choose the behaviors that they do on this side of the grave [in sync with karma and enlightenment] so as to attain what they would like their fate to be on the other side of it [in sync with reincarnation and Nirvana].
Now, if there are Buddhists here do not spend a whole lot of time thinking about that part of their religious beliefs, fine, they can move on to other things with other people.
But some actually might. And it’s them I’d like to exchange thoughts and feelings with.
Google “theology forums” and you get lots of hits including:
theologydegreesonline.com/the-t … educators/
Google “buddhist forums” and you get lots of hits including:
Same for you. You’ve got the path you are on now. But there may well be a more rational and virtuous path still. And, again, with so much at stake on both sides of the grave, shouldn’t you really be making an effort to set aside time to try them all?
Starting with, say, the major ones first: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
And then moving on to all the rest: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions
Or is this part only relevant to me?
Am I the only one confused by this?
Biggus repeatedly expresses an interest having discussions about his concerns … most recently discussions with Buddhists, philosophers and theologians.
I link him to sites where he could have these discussions. He ought to grateful … right? But he’s not.
I don’t express any particular interest in having these discussions personally. I don’t care about oblivion, the afterlife or salvation. I have a little interest in general and practical philosophy and no interest in “serious” or academic philosophy.
So yeah, those links are relevant to him and not to me.