Enlightenment would be a steady state of consciousness. One that is without various illusions - including that of a self.
It would annoy many people but one could argue that Buddhism is a branch of Hinduism. Siddheartha was Indian, his teachers, practices and contacts were likely in many cases Hindu, and he reworked ideas from Hinduism. I’d say it’s closer than Christianity is to Judaism and here the Christians worship a Jew who thought of himself as Jewish.
The Buddha focused on intention (not unlike Jesus) rather than just action. The intentions behind actions and the associated emotions and thoughts, lead to consequences, not so much what you actually do. He also elimated the caste system from Karma. You didn’t have to work your way up the castes. The funny thing, in a context discussing with Iambiguous, is that the goal was to END rebirth. IOW it was to stop coming back. Of course many Buddhists probably don’t understand this and are looking at having better future lives, but really the idea is to not come back at all, as there is no self to come back at all, and if there is a coming back, it is because of false beliefs. Further there is no self that comes back, just the habits. One is not actually, within Buddhism, making one’s next life better, but reducing harmful patterns that will come back. It won’t be you living them out however.
So I am sure Iamb can get into an argument and ‘defeat’ some Buddhist about future lives and he can feel smug that they haven’t proven anything and their beliefs therefore must be soothing. But that’s because he knows very little, and as you’ve pointed out projects Christianity on something he doesn’t understand at all. In fact Buddhism does not believe in a persistant self, not even during one liftime. A Buddhist who actually knows Buddhism is not getting soothed but has actually faced something harder to face that what Iambiguous thinks he has faced. It’s not just death at the end of this life, it won’t even be him in a week. There is no self that persists through time, though patterns can persist, they are empty.
Buddhism is less soothing than Iamb’s own beliefs but he will not acknowledge this or notice it because he does not, in good faith, study, let alone practice Buddhism, and it is ironically comforting to him to think that he is actually braver than everyone else. IOW it would tilt his whole worldview if he realized that there are objectivists (in this case Buddhists) who have even less to soothe them than he does. He simply cannot acknowledge this. His edifice of thousands of posts trying to undermine anyone’s comfort would be ironically confused. To a Buddhist he is hallucinating a self that he will lose at death. It’s not that Buddhism says ‘don’t worry, you’ll be back’ it’s actually ‘don’t worry, you never had anything to lose, it won’t even be you waking up tomorrow.’ He’s the one with the soothing hallucination to them.
While many Buddhists and most outsiders think that THEY will reap the fruits of good behavior, there is no persistant self in Buddhism.
Nirvana is the state that does not lead to rebirth (a better word than reincarnation in Buddhism). It’s a state that does not lead to anything coming back.
Which as said is generous of you. Unfortunately such a Buddhist gives Iamb more room to feel superior than a more doctrinal Buddhist would. You’re a good guy. Truly. I hope he treats you well.
You are representing here how a significant subset of Western Buddists think of Buddhism, though most people never really work through their own systems of thought.