[First of all, my take on this "spirituality versus materialism" jazz is that the differences you will often find posited between them tend to add up to a false dichotomy, or what a Buddhist will call a false duality, and that, just like a lot of things, there might be a middle way. Example Given:
Middle Way:
The primary guiding principle of Buddhist practice is the Middle Way which was discovered by the Buddha prior to his enlightenment (bodhi). The Middle Way or Middle Path has several definitions:
1. It is often described as the practice of non-extremism; a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and opposing self-mortification.
2. It also refers to taking a middle ground between certain metaphysical views, e.g. that things ultimately either exist or do not exist. 3. An explanation of the state of nirvana and perfect enlightenment where all dualities fuse and cease to exist as separate entities (see Seongcheol).]
* *
Now, on to the heart of the 'argument':
Quote from: Attis on May 16, 2007, 12:06:50 AM
Buddhism, like the rest of the religions on Earth", deny matter...
According to what text do you derive that notion? It isn't correct, I can tell you that much, and point you in the direction of some more in-depth readings on the matter, but arguing directly against such rampant reductivism is a fool's game. I will however try and show you how that
doesn't work.
How in the world does a person come up with a formulation like: "anti-materialism [aka anti-life]", in the first place? (
"also known as", no less... erm, that's not what I *know* about it...)
Have you defined, in context,
either of these terms with any rigor, or even referred to anything that might point to a definition?
And compare:
"like the rest of the religions on Earth":
(if you want to actually do some reading or talk to some people about it, you might find that, Christianity for one, somewhat well-known religion, does NOT 'deny matter'. IE: you'd be hard-pressed to find adherents that would proffer that view.)
Again, just like with your 'definition' of Theocracy earlier in this amazing thread, we get this little problem (along with a good dose of begging the question anyway
*):
(One of the types of
Faulty Generalization is)
Hasty Generalization (also known as ... fallacy of the lonely fact, leaping to a conclusion, hasty induction...),
is the logical fallacy of reaching an inductive generalization based on too little evidence.* (petitio: seeking, petition, request; principii, genitive of principium: beginning, basis, premise of an argument)
: "Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to take the expression in its widest sense) in failing to demonstrate the required proposition. But there are several other ways in which this may happen; for example,
if the argument has not taken syllogistic form at all, he may argue from premises which are less known or equally unknown...".
also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_definitionThese are mechanisms,
materially, which no tortured skewing of schema or dodging facts in evidence will ever get you around.
Maybe this is helpful:
*Materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; that matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology.*
Now, another Monistic School of Thought (Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that All is One, that there are no fundamental divisions and a unified set of laws underlie nature.) would be Buddhism, so we have at least a partial definition that might imply a false dichotomy, there...
see how that works?
TMW
