[Buddha-l] Re: Where does authority for "true" Buddhism come from?

[Vera, Pedro L.]

Well, the volume of msgs coming from this list has bogged me down (actually it helps me exercise the delete key and actualize their emptiness, I suppose). There is one point that I would like to bring up:
 
On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 12:58 +0100, Vicente Gonzalez wrote:

> I am anxious to read any non worldly argument supporting the idea for
> the cease of -self because death.

and professor Hayes replied:
 
It will be interesting to see whether anyone is willing to provide
arguments for that conclusion. 

I'm puzzled as to why the burden of proof falls on those that say there there is no "self" after death, rather than on those that claim there is. Although I do not understand what Vicente calls a "non worldly" argument, I would argue that the burden of proof lies on those that posit a continuation of conciousness/self (whatever) after death, be it in a Buddhist or Christian context. 

>From my experience, I have only encountered arguments based on authority (Jesus said it; Buddhat said it, favorite guru said it, etc). I have yet to come across anything that could be (even remotely) construed as "evidence" for the continuation of consciousness/self (whatever) after death. In fact, it seems to me that the finality of death is rather obvious and patently observable (I might throw in reproducible too). We do not have reports of people coming back, aside from the Tibetan stories of recollected memories. I can make several arguments, based on brain physiology and neurochemistry, that once your brain goes, so does your conciousness and so I opt to believe that the argument for "live brain"="consciousness/self" and "dead brain"="unconsciouness/no-consciousness/no-self" is rather strongly supported by the evidence available. The counterclaim, however much as I would like to believe in it, is not supported by the evidence. 

I'm not particularly agitated (at least at the moment) by my contingency, but it appears to bother quite a lot of individuals across many different religious denominations. In this particular instance, I dont find Buddhists much different from Christian. People seem to need this idea that "something" or "someone" will go on. I think that it's fine that people accept to believe whatever they want. However, I dont see the point of proving all of the things that apparently do not exist. (e.g. Christian heaven, Western land, paranirvana, etc). The burden of proof lies on the other parties. This outlook makes a rather rabid materialist, and a poor Buddhist. Oh well, I'm a pretty poor catholic (or ex-catholic) too.

Regards,

Pedro L. Vera

 

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