[Buddha-l] there he goes again (sam harris)

[curt]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> On Friday 27 October 2006 05:45, curt wrote:
>
>   
>> You forgot Toni Packer - she also (didn't) try the same thing - and it
>> also didn't (not) work for her, too.
>>     
>
> You apparently know something about Toni Packer that I don't know. It has been 
> my impression that she has actually done quite well in disentangling herself 
> from a great deal of nonsense without creating a new tangle.
>   

Tangling is in the eye of the entangled. The whole idea that there is 
some kind of "problem" with Buddhism that only only secularist humanists 
are able to fix is completely subjective. From where I stand Toni Packer 
is just another Zen teacher who refuses to use the word Zen - there's 
hardly anything new about that. Back in the day they not only didn't use 
the word, they beat the crap out of anyone who even looked like they 
might have said it recently. There is nothing western or modern or 
"scientific" about that and Zen has been doing it for well over 1000 years.

>   
>> Perhaps the idea that there is something inherently wrong with "belief"
>> is just another belief. It kinda sounds like it.
>>     
>
> Yes, of course it would be a belief if one held the view that there is 
> something inherently wrong with holding views. So what's your point? Do you 
> know of anyone (aside from that fool Nagarjuna) who has advocated the 
> obvioulsy self-contradictory position you are outlining? Or are you just out 
> chopping up straw men again?
>
>   
Harris called his first book "The End of Faith" - Batchelor titled his 
book "Buddhism Beyond Belief". Please point out my error - but it 
appears to me that both fellows are saying what I said they are saying - 
that there is a thing called "belief" or "faith" - and that this thing 
poses some kind of a problem. Then proceed to argue how one can overcome 
this problem by getting rid of that "thing."

Obviously all that either Harris or Batchelor are saying is that there 
are silly beliefs that lead to problems and very well founded beliefs 
that lead to book-sales. But where is there anything modern or western 
or "scientific" in that claim? Who in the history of claiming things has 
ever claimed anything other than this? It was of course Socrates who 
said that it really all boils down to this. We only err out of ignorance 
- and ignorance is just the absence of knowledge.

- Curt