Almost all of what secular Buddhist protests against in Buddhism, such as rebirth, for example, is not an academic criticism insofar a scholars have not come to any final word as to what the Buddha actually taught. Sure, there are many good educated guesses—some better than others. Nor do various sects, like Theravada have the final word. Rather the protest is an emotional reaction, a reaction against immaterial spirit.
More importantly, what the reaction reveals, or I should say, belies, is the fact that traditional Buddhism is being colonized by materialists who claim to be Buddhists. As part of their colonizing effort, ‘science’ replaces the former Christian missionaries whose job is now to convert native Buddhists using the new gospel of scientism. In other words, native Buddhism must be saved from its antiquated, outworn superstitions such as karma, rebirth and nirvana!
The colonizing efforts of the materialists like Stephen Batchelor and others certainly has to be stopped in its tracks. A line in the sand has to be drawn that separates the needs and goals of the natural and physical sciences from Buddhism as a spiritual science which has much different goals.
Personally, I would like to see a more clearly defined battle between the secular Buddhists and the true Buddhists for the hearts and minds of Western Buddhists, one in which the claim of scientism, namely, the only means of knowledge is through the natural and physical sciences, is crushed once and for all.
There is s.th. besides science which is called personal experience. Yours is different from mine. Of course, yours as mine is only an illusion. But the illusion is the best guess one can have. Having been close to death can destroy the belief in any kind of rebirth once and for all. A lot of people, esp. those who have been in combat situations or terminally ill, describe the same experience (of course, there are also contradicting reports of others who saw a light, a tunnel etc.). It is like loosing another illusion. I claim that awakening answers questions like that, it surely does not confirm rebirth as it detects that there is neither birth nor death.
Posted by: dooyen | September 25, 2012 at 04:51 AM
Russian BOOK SLUT: http://en.bookfi.org
I found this Russian website with TONS of illegal/cool/neat/rare books for free download.
Ahh, I love Russian AMORAL "get free shit" mentality. I found a PILE of Fing gems on that site
Posted by: Java Junkie Junebug Julius | September 23, 2012 at 01:28 AM
Awesome book, Java Junkie... Never found a philosophical work comparing Hegel's Absolute Spirit with Tathagatagarbha. Gonna spend this weekend carefully studying it.
Posted by: Nor | September 22, 2012 at 02:05 PM
youll love this book, i got it years ago, but here it is free download, pro-atman, pro-citta etc etc. well written
http://www.scribd.com/doc/76935783/Brian-Edward-Brown-The-Buddha-Nature-A-Study-of-the-Tath%C4%81gatagarbha-and-Alayavijn%C4%81na
Posted by: java junkie | September 22, 2012 at 01:13 AM
The Buddhist philosopher, mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing proposed that all physical phenomena could be simulated and understood in terms of algorithms and datastructures.
So, presumably those phenomena that cannot be understood or simulated in this way are good candidates for being classed as non-physical: http://rational-buddhism.blogspot.com/2012/02/church-turing-deutsch-principle-and.html
Posted by: Sean Robsville | September 21, 2012 at 01:03 PM