[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist pacifism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-10-18 at 11:49 -0400, Richard Nance wrote:

> Curt, I suggest that you put down the Schopen and go have a
> look at the Pali commentaries, or Vasubandhu's Abhidharmako"sa, or
> "Saantideva's "Sik.saasamuccaya, or or any of the suutra commentaries
> preserved in Tibetan (most of which have been ignored by modern
> scholars). 

Another thing that Curt might do to liberate himself from the spell of
Saint Gregory The Protestant-Killer is to look at the rather large
corpus of literature produced by Buddhists who had no interest at all in
citing and interpreting scripture but felt that everything of value in
Buddhism could be derived through careful reasoning. Admittedly, there
were a few Protestants who held pretty much the same attitude (such as
Hosea Ballou and Ralph Waldo Emerson), but it was their position that
the Christian Fundamentalists rejected. And since it seems to amuse Curt
most to tar some of his opponents with the brush of Fundamentalism, the
school of rationalistic Buddhists (who existed both in Asia and in the
modern West) leaves his brush pretty much without any tar.

Curt has availed himself of many a well-known fallacy, but he has not
yet exhausted the storehouse. There are dozens of excellent fallacies
remaining that he has not yet tried. I think we should give him enough
time to show us that he can use them all.


-- 
Richard Hayes