[Buddha-l] Bangladesh Muslim lovefest

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 3-10-2012 0:46, Richard Hayes schreef:
>> So legitimizing Buddhism as basically a kind of neuroscience.
> I don't think that is his aim. I don't think he wants to legitimize Buddhism at all. Rather, I think he wants to claim that Buddhism has something valuable to contribute to a scientific age, despite its being filled with pre-scientific dogmas that don't bear up well under close scrutiny.
That too, but as far he is right I don't see much beyond Popper's famous 
'context of discovery'. Allthough I doubt if Newton could have 
'discovered' the laws of gravity if a lama would have fallen on his head.
>
> I think I misrepresented his answer to the question "Is naturalized Buddhism still Buddhism?" a better way of stating his position is that it really makes no difference what we call it. Buddhists do not have exclusive property rights on the teachings of Buddhism, and anyone who finds any of the teachings of Buddhism helpful in some way has every right to use them and to acknowledge their source. One can say "I got this idea from Buddhism, and I think it's very useful" without having to subscribe to Buddhism. That's not a very controversial claim. Indeed, it is so bland that it probably goes without saying.
Of course but we have to be carefull here, before we know it Buddhist 
ideas get build into plants and iPods and every lama, sensei and bhante 
will get sued by Apple and Monsanto because of infringing on copyrights.
>
> A problem I see with Flanagan's work is that I don't see how naturalized Buddhism differs from, say, naturalized Stoicism or naturalized Quakerism. (A naturalized Quaker says "There is no need for scripture, because we all have direct access to the mind of God. Oh, and by the way, there is no God other than your own mind.")
This is pretty much a daily routine for most religious leaders: saying 
just anything what comes up in your mind and claiming it to be God's 
word. In Buddhist circles one says it is the word of the Buddha and 
comes up with a suggestive quote from an accepted scripture.


Erik