[Buddha-l] Bourgeois Buddhism

[Stefan Detrez]

2011/10/4 Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms at xs4all.nl>

> On 04-10-11 08:05, andy wrote:
> >
> > Buddhism, as far as I can tell, has been extremely tolerant of doctrinal
> > deviations.  My framing of that statement already, perhaps, reflects a
> bias.
> > But why should we be concerned with someone calling themselves a
> Buddhist?
> > Actually, my present concern is with Buddhists that call for violence,
> which
> > strikes me as very non-buddhist.  But maybe it is not my place to object,
> or
> > to point out the basic contradiction in this.   I am open to argument .
> You're not helping us here, Andy ;-) .
> How can you tell whether violence is Buddhist or not if you cannot tell
> which doctrine is Buddhist?
>
> Erik is right in demanding clarification. This is what debate is all about.
And I'm also dissappointed in what I sense to be a taboo in determining what
a Buddhist is. Accepting someone to be Buddhist just because he or she says
so is nonsense. There HAS to be a minimal standard. If I see a person and he
wears butcher's apparel and he says he's a baker, then there is obviously
some cognitive dissonance if I were to claim that he for that matter is a
baker then. The nonsensical character of this sort of epistemological
relativism is pretty straightforward, as exemplified by Mr Kobutsu. Someone
can claim to be a chicken, but you can only believe them when they lay an
egg.

Stefan

Antwerp, Belgium