[Buddha-l] Dependent arising variants

[SJZiobro at cs.com]

"Dan Lusthaus" <dlusthau at mailer.fsu.edu> wrote:

>So you are disputing that birth is both a necessary and sufficient cause of
>death? Does anything that hasn't been born die? Does anything that is born
>not die (much as many hope)? So, rather than cancer, war, cardiovascular
>conditions, car accidents, and whatever other thing one can point to,
>"birth" is indeed the number one cause of death. Death follows birth
>ineluctably and necessarily. Even Mark Twain admitted that.

Dan,

Is birth the cause of death, or is it simply a necessary condition without which speaking of death would be meaningless, but which is changed by either an extrinsic cause (murder, falling off a cliff) or a cause intrinsic to the ogranism (cancer, cardiovascular disease)?

Stan Ziobro