Occidental and Oriental Philosophies

[pat]

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote: Your ego is telling you that you believe in only concrete things and somehow because you don’t then a belief in God is a lesser position, but in reality, your just hoping you’re right, just like everybody else. Being satisfied sensoraly or scientifically is far from the end all be all of every position.

I don’t think eastern philosophy observes mindfulness. It’s an epistemology like Kamui says. But it deals heavily in metaphysics, which is why I am curious as to why you haven’t dismissed it out right, since you borderline deny the existence of metaphysics all together.[/quote]

Reality has some objective truths; gravity pulls, fire burns and tomorrow on the dentist chair I’ll have 20 minutes of discomfort.

I’ve never denied that life itself is a mystery, but I don’t consider myself a buddhist for the reason you gave: some tenets like reincarnation are aspects of buddhism I have no affinity with. Actually, the entire concepts of enlightenment is something I find debatable.

So I take the parts that mean something to me; from buddhism, from advaita vedanta, from non-dualism, from taoism, even the Baghavad Gita made an appearance years ago.

But the jist of eastern philosophy, that struck a chord with me, obviously.[/quote]

How objective are said truths if you can’t even prove they exist?

[TheBodyGuard]

So I take the parts that mean something to me; [/quote]

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.

[ephrem]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote: Your ego is telling you that you believe in only concrete things and somehow because you don’t then a belief in God is a lesser position, but in reality, your just hoping you’re right, just like everybody else. Being satisfied sensoraly or scientifically is far from the end all be all of every position.

I don’t think eastern philosophy observes mindfulness. It’s an epistemology like Kamui says. But it deals heavily in metaphysics, which is why I am curious as to why you haven’t dismissed it out right, since you borderline deny the existence of metaphysics all together.[/quote]

Reality has some objective truths; gravity pulls, fire burns and tomorrow on the dentist chair I’ll have 20 minutes of discomfort.

I’ve never denied that life itself is a mystery, but I don’t consider myself a buddhist for the reason you gave: some tenets like reincarnation are aspects of buddhism I have no affinity with. Actually, the entire concepts of enlightenment is something I find debatable.

So I take the parts that mean something to me; from buddhism, from advaita vedanta, from non-dualism, from taoism, even the Baghavad Gita made an appearance years ago.

But the jist of eastern philosophy, that struck a chord with me, obviously.[/quote]

How objective are said truths if you can’t even prove they exist?[/quote]

Please take a 20 lbs dumbbell and drop it from 3 feet onto your left foot.

Feel that?

That’s me proving gravity exists.

Anyway, you expect me to concede to this philosophical thought experiment but somehow it’s not relevant to your position.

Because if it was relevant to you, what would be left of your beliefsystem?

[ephrem]

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Yes, absolutely but in all honesty you [general you] should not dismiss certain ideas merely because you come in conflict because of it.

What i mean is, is that when conflict arises [in the min/body] due to a truth; something that you cannot accept as true because of previous trauma for instance, then you shouldn’t discard the idea, no matter how tempting.

The aspects of you [still general you] where conflict begins; anger, selfloathing, fear, those are the aspects where you must heal before you can begin to let-go.

The practice of mindfulness can only begin if one is at relative peace with onesself. And this ties-in wonderfully with the LSD talk from Cortes: with psychedelics there can only be honesty, and only honesty brings you peace.

(:

[pat]

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Eastern philosophy tells us, it is ‘being’ and the ‘meaning of with-in’. To me it sounds on the surface profound, but in essence it’s ultimately meaningless. We are so special that ‘with-in’ necessarily means much.

BTW, I am trying to arouse people and evoke negative feelings but ultimately I want people to support and make a case for eastern philosophy, not attack my simpleton lack of actualization and unification with existence.
[/quote]

Eastern philosophy tells us nothing that you can’t find out for yourself. If you can’t trust your senses to tell you the truth than that includes any kind of philosophy and religion, including yours.

Why is one thing meaningless and the other meaningful if both are devoid of truth?[/quote]

That’s not my criticism of Eastern philosophy. My criticism is it states “truths”, doesn’t back them up, and some practitioners have leveled the accusation that if you don’t accept a give truth, it’s because you haven’t thought about it enough. I don’t believe this fallacy has a name, if it does Kamui please let me know, because it’s not in my database of fallacies. I will call it the dogma fallacy. It’s true and your an idiot if your don’t think so.

I don’t believe either are meaningless and both do recognize truth, I say western philosophy is more advanced and better developed.[/quote]

This in particular is rich from you. And I’m not taking a pot shot. I wish you could sit back, and read the entirety of your postings on the subject of philosophy, religion and science, and see the apparent conflicts in your reasoning and beliefs (or, what you CHOOSE to believe and why).

“My criticism of Christianity is it states “truths”, doesn’t back them up, and some followers have leveled the the accusation that if you don’t accept a given truth, you don’t have faith and you’re going to hell.”

See how that works?

I’d say dogma fallacy is apropos
[/quote]

Okay show me where we were discussing Christianity? There plenty of religion threads this isn’t one of them. And don’t lie you were taking a pot shot. If you weren’t you wouldn’t introduce something that is not being discussed and using it to ‘prove’ I don’t have a point or that I am close minded? Really if that is all you got from what I have been saying, you haven’t really read it, didn’t comprehend it, or … I will refrain from saying it.

Take this as a criticism please…You wonder why people react to you the way they do? You always take a partial point and attack a persons character or some way personally, when most of the time you are missing the point all together. You wonder why people get pissed? You really have to wonder?
You say there are conflicts in my reasoning, and say I am close minded. Ok, show me the conflict in what I said?

When you can’t find it, you’ll realize you took your personal bias on what all Christians must be like and applied to a situation that didn’t even call for it.

[pat]

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote: Your ego is telling you that you believe in only concrete things and somehow because you don’t then a belief in God is a lesser position, but in reality, your just hoping you’re right, just like everybody else. Being satisfied sensoraly or scientifically is far from the end all be all of every position.

I don’t think eastern philosophy observes mindfulness. It’s an epistemology like Kamui says. But it deals heavily in metaphysics, which is why I am curious as to why you haven’t dismissed it out right, since you borderline deny the existence of metaphysics all together.[/quote]

Reality has some objective truths; gravity pulls, fire burns and tomorrow on the dentist chair I’ll have 20 minutes of discomfort.

I’ve never denied that life itself is a mystery, but I don’t consider myself a buddhist for the reason you gave: some tenets like reincarnation are aspects of buddhism I have no affinity with. Actually, the entire concepts of enlightenment is something I find debatable.

So I take the parts that mean something to me; from buddhism, from advaita vedanta, from non-dualism, from taoism, even the Baghavad Gita made an appearance years ago.

But the jist of eastern philosophy, that struck a chord with me, obviously.[/quote]

How objective are said truths if you can’t even prove they exist?[/quote]

Please take a 20 lbs dumbbell and drop it from 3 feet onto your left foot.

Feel that?

That’s me proving gravity exists.
[/quote]
Technically, no it would. It does prove that you want me to hurt my foot because you don’t like what I said.

[quote]
Anyway, you expect me to concede to this philosophical thought experiment but somehow it’s not relevant to your position.

Because if it was relevant to you, what would be left of your beliefsystem?[/quote]

Uh, this is what we’ve been discussing??? No reason to get all persnickety I have done you no wrong. I am not asking you to concede anything, if you disagree with something I said I expect you to make your case and tell me why without wishing me bodily harm or wondering what the elusive ‘it’ would do to my belief system…

[pat]

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?

[pat]

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

Well, one thing is for damn sure. You can’t be dishonest with LSD… It will kick the that door off of it’s hinges in a quick minute.[/quote]

I could not count the number of times I have said exactly this about LSD when talking about it. It is THE main aspect of the drug I remember. Once you are trippin, you CAN NOT lie.

Matter of fact, that’s why people look so silly. Because it seems so completely absurd. [/quote]

One time, a friend of mine and I were good and dosed. So he thought it would be fun to put on an old '70’s Porno, turn the volume down and put on Slayer to go with it. I was laughing so hard I could not even breath. They were going perfect with the music.

Television is horrible on acid, everything looks so fake and the actors look really fake. I could watch sports and stuff but anywhere acting was concerned was annoying.

Anybody who says “The Wall” is a good acid movie has never done it. I couldn’t think of a worse movie to watch…It a suicidally depressing movie.

And acid trip is an indescribable experience. Anybody who has done it, understands that. No words exist to describe the absurdity of that state. It is extreme if anything. It’s kind of like despair in that you cannot describe it and people who haven’t been there couldn’t possibly know what the experience is like. One things is for sure, I don’t regret a single moment and I thank God I was able to have the experiences I had. I would never trade it.

[Brother_Chris]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

I didn’t know “suits you” was the definition of truth. I thought it was test and disregard what is found to be false, not having anything to do with what suits you.

[pat]

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

I did sort of ‘figure’ it out, in terms of the profundity of it. It’s actually not really profound it just changes your perspective and usually made things hysterically funny.
I can’t say I’d never do it again, but I really don’t have any desire. I did it enough to squeeze everything beneficial out of it.[/quote]

I know just what you mean by this. All of our social constructs, our posturing, our strutting and peacocking and primping and pretending to our roles are exposed for what they really are. All of a sudden we see all of these things intensified and enhanced and enlarged and made into caricatures of what we once knew. A world dreamed up by Jonathon Swift. Later all returns to normal. We can feel again the necessity and pull of conventions. But now, suddenly, we are free to adopt them without our prior innocence or ignorance. We can take some, leave others, no longer enslaved, we can make slaves of our prior masters. Not a bad deal.

I have a feeling my description of it sounds decidely western.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. [/quote]

Of course then you had the hippies who took this to the extreme and abandoned all preening as superficial. If anybody is wondering where such notions came from it was acid and an extreme desire not to appear superficial.
Weirdly, after a good trip nothing felt better than showering and brushing the shit out of my teeth.

[ephrem]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote: Your ego is telling you that you believe in only concrete things and somehow because you don’t then a belief in God is a lesser position, but in reality, your just hoping you’re right, just like everybody else. Being satisfied sensoraly or scientifically is far from the end all be all of every position.

I don’t think eastern philosophy observes mindfulness. It’s an epistemology like Kamui says. But it deals heavily in metaphysics, which is why I am curious as to why you haven’t dismissed it out right, since you borderline deny the existence of metaphysics all together.[/quote]

Reality has some objective truths; gravity pulls, fire burns and tomorrow on the dentist chair I’ll have 20 minutes of discomfort.

I’ve never denied that life itself is a mystery, but I don’t consider myself a buddhist for the reason you gave: some tenets like reincarnation are aspects of buddhism I have no affinity with. Actually, the entire concepts of enlightenment is something I find debatable.

So I take the parts that mean something to me; from buddhism, from advaita vedanta, from non-dualism, from taoism, even the Baghavad Gita made an appearance years ago.

But the jist of eastern philosophy, that struck a chord with me, obviously.[/quote]

How objective are said truths if you can’t even prove they exist?[/quote]

Please take a 20 lbs dumbbell and drop it from 3 feet onto your left foot.

Feel that?

That’s me proving gravity exists.
[/quote]
Technically, no it would. It does prove that you want me to hurt my foot because you don’t like what I said.

[quote]
Anyway, you expect me to concede to this philosophical thought experiment but somehow it’s not relevant to your position.

Because if it was relevant to you, what would be left of your beliefsystem?[/quote]

Uh, this is what we’ve been discussing??? No reason to get all persnickety I have done you no wrong. I am not asking you to concede anything, if you disagree with something I said I expect you to make your case and tell me why without wishing me bodily harm or wondering what the elusive ‘it’ would do to my belief system…[/quote]

…and yet again you dodge the issue.

[pat]

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

I didn’t know “suits you” was the definition of truth. I thought it was test and disregard what is found to be false, not having anything to do with what suits you.[/quote]

LOL! Good pick up…True disregarding inconvenient things with out due consideration would be dishonest, not honest.

[pat]

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote: Your ego is telling you that you believe in only concrete things and somehow because you don’t then a belief in God is a lesser position, but in reality, your just hoping you’re right, just like everybody else. Being satisfied sensoraly or scientifically is far from the end all be all of every position.

I don’t think eastern philosophy observes mindfulness. It’s an epistemology like Kamui says. But it deals heavily in metaphysics, which is why I am curious as to why you haven’t dismissed it out right, since you borderline deny the existence of metaphysics all together.[/quote]

Reality has some objective truths; gravity pulls, fire burns and tomorrow on the dentist chair I’ll have 20 minutes of discomfort.

I’ve never denied that life itself is a mystery, but I don’t consider myself a buddhist for the reason you gave: some tenets like reincarnation are aspects of buddhism I have no affinity with. Actually, the entire concepts of enlightenment is something I find debatable.

So I take the parts that mean something to me; from buddhism, from advaita vedanta, from non-dualism, from taoism, even the Baghavad Gita made an appearance years ago.

But the jist of eastern philosophy, that struck a chord with me, obviously.[/quote]

How objective are said truths if you can’t even prove they exist?[/quote]

Please take a 20 lbs dumbbell and drop it from 3 feet onto your left foot.

Feel that?

That’s me proving gravity exists.
[/quote]
Technically, no it would. It does prove that you want me to hurt my foot because you don’t like what I said.

Anyway, you expect me to concede to this philosophical thought experiment but somehow it’s not relevant to your position.

Because if it was relevant to you, what would be left of your beliefsystem?[/quote]

Uh, this is what we’ve been discussing??? No reason to get all persnickety I have done you no wrong. I am not asking you to concede anything, if you disagree with something I said I expect you to make your case and tell me why without wishing me bodily harm or wondering what the elusive ‘it’ would do to my belief system…[/quote]

…and yet again you dodge the issue.

Issue? What issue is that gravity? Would you like to discuss gravity and it’s reality?

OK, I’ll start…What is gravity, exactly?

Sorry, I got confused by the fact that you didn’t really make a point in this post, you just sound frustrated…

Just for the record, I do believe gravity exists.

[kamui]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

I didn’t know “suits you” was the definition of truth. I thought it was test and disregard what is found to be false, not having anything to do with what suits you.[/quote]

LOL! Good pick up…True disregarding inconvenient things with out due consideration would be dishonest, not honest.[/quote]

since we are discussing about truth and cultural differences, i will suggest that our western concept of truth came actually from three different sources :

there is truth. a “barbarian”, germanic concept, which is linked to the idea of truce. It’s the truth of constructed consensus, fair trial, experimentation. An economical, political and scientifical truth.

there is “veritas”. A latin concept which is etymologically linked to the idea of faith. It’s the transcendant truth of apodictic ideas and religious beliefs.

and there is “aletheia”, which etymologicaly means remembering and “unveiling”. It’s the truth that reveals itself beyond the mists of memory and perception.

There is probably not a lot of “truth” in a drug trip, but there can certainly be some “aletheia”.

[TheBodyGuard]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Eastern philosophy tells us, it is ‘being’ and the ‘meaning of with-in’. To me it sounds on the surface profound, but in essence it’s ultimately meaningless. We are so special that ‘with-in’ necessarily means much.

BTW, I am trying to arouse people and evoke negative feelings but ultimately I want people to support and make a case for eastern philosophy, not attack my simpleton lack of actualization and unification with existence.
[/quote]

Eastern philosophy tells us nothing that you can’t find out for yourself. If you can’t trust your senses to tell you the truth than that includes any kind of philosophy and religion, including yours.

Why is one thing meaningless and the other meaningful if both are devoid of truth?[/quote]

That’s not my criticism of Eastern philosophy. My criticism is it states “truths”, doesn’t back them up, and some practitioners have leveled the accusation that if you don’t accept a give truth, it’s because you haven’t thought about it enough. I don’t believe this fallacy has a name, if it does Kamui please let me know, because it’s not in my database of fallacies. I will call it the dogma fallacy. It’s true and your an idiot if your don’t think so.

I don’t believe either are meaningless and both do recognize truth, I say western philosophy is more advanced and better developed.[/quote]

This in particular is rich from you. And I’m not taking a pot shot. I wish you could sit back, and read the entirety of your postings on the subject of philosophy, religion and science, and see the apparent conflicts in your reasoning and beliefs (or, what you CHOOSE to believe and why).

“My criticism of Christianity is it states “truths”, doesn’t back them up, and some followers have leveled the the accusation that if you don’t accept a given truth, you don’t have faith and you’re going to hell.”

See how that works?

I’d say dogma fallacy is apropos
[/quote]

Okay show me where we were discussing Christianity? There plenty of religion threads this isn’t one of them. And don’t lie you were taking a pot shot. If you weren’t you wouldn’t introduce something that is not being discussed and using it to ‘prove’ I don’t have a point or that I am close minded? Really if that is all you got from what I have been saying, you haven’t really read it, didn’t comprehend it, or … I will refrain from saying it.

Take this as a criticism please…You wonder why people react to you the way they do? You always take a partial point and attack a persons character or some way personally, when most of the time you are missing the point all together. You wonder why people get pissed? You really have to wonder?
You say there are conflicts in my reasoning, and say I am close minded. Ok, show me the conflict in what I said?

When you can’t find it, you’ll realize you took your personal bias on what all Christians must be like and applied to a situation that didn’t even call for it.[/quote]

Sorry you took offense.

I’m not engaging you in a pissing contest.

You seem to cherry pick what serves your opinion or bias, and much of the time they appear contradictory to one another across disciplines. Can I be any clearer than that?

[TheBodyGuard]

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

Why are you so interested in debating whether “eastern” or “western” philosophy is “better”? Are you saying there is nothing useful in eastern philosophy? Nothing to learn? That’s my point.

[TheBodyGuard]

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

I didn’t know “suits you” was the definition of truth. I thought it was test and disregard what is found to be false, not having anything to do with what suits you.[/quote]

Catholicism seems to suit you just fine and none of that has withstood any such rigorous test.

Do you care to define “truth” before you nit pick (a PWI favorite tactic). Define “truth” and let’s see how many “truths” we can list before we realize that “truths” are often very personal.

Is your “truth” that of a Muslim? Is his “truth” any less than yours? Don’t answer that, we all know your answer. Boring.

[pat]

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

I didn’t know “suits you” was the definition of truth. I thought it was test and disregard what is found to be false, not having anything to do with what suits you.[/quote]

LOL! Good pick up…True disregarding inconvenient things with out due consideration would be dishonest, not honest.[/quote]

since we are discussing about truth and cultural differences, i will suggest that our western concept of truth came actually from three different sources :

there is truth. a “barbarian”, germanic concept, which is linked to the idea of truce. It’s the truth of constructed consensus, fair trial, experimentation. An economical, political and scientifical truth.

there is “veritas”. A latin concept which is etymologically linked to the idea of faith. It’s the transcendant truth of apodictic ideas and religious beliefs.

and there is “aletheia”, which etymologicaly means remembering and “unveiling”. It’s the truth that reveals itself beyond the mists of memory and perception.

There is probably not a lot of “truth” in a drug trip, but there can certainly be some “aletheia”.
[/quote]

When discussing philosophy or any disciplined study, truth has only one definition. The definition I adhere to is “What is the case” or for short ‘what actually is’.

[pat]

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Eastern philosophy tells us, it is ‘being’ and the ‘meaning of with-in’. To me it sounds on the surface profound, but in essence it’s ultimately meaningless. We are so special that ‘with-in’ necessarily means much.

BTW, I am trying to arouse people and evoke negative feelings but ultimately I want people to support and make a case for eastern philosophy, not attack my simpleton lack of actualization and unification with existence.
[/quote]

Eastern philosophy tells us nothing that you can’t find out for yourself. If you can’t trust your senses to tell you the truth than that includes any kind of philosophy and religion, including yours.

Why is one thing meaningless and the other meaningful if both are devoid of truth?[/quote]

That’s not my criticism of Eastern philosophy. My criticism is it states “truths”, doesn’t back them up, and some practitioners have leveled the accusation that if you don’t accept a give truth, it’s because you haven’t thought about it enough. I don’t believe this fallacy has a name, if it does Kamui please let me know, because it’s not in my database of fallacies. I will call it the dogma fallacy. It’s true and your an idiot if your don’t think so.

I don’t believe either are meaningless and both do recognize truth, I say western philosophy is more advanced and better developed.[/quote]

This in particular is rich from you. And I’m not taking a pot shot. I wish you could sit back, and read the entirety of your postings on the subject of philosophy, religion and science, and see the apparent conflicts in your reasoning and beliefs (or, what you CHOOSE to believe and why).

“My criticism of Christianity is it states “truths”, doesn’t back them up, and some followers have leveled the the accusation that if you don’t accept a given truth, you don’t have faith and you’re going to hell.”

See how that works?

I’d say dogma fallacy is apropos
[/quote]

Okay show me where we were discussing Christianity? There plenty of religion threads this isn’t one of them. And don’t lie you were taking a pot shot. If you weren’t you wouldn’t introduce something that is not being discussed and using it to ‘prove’ I don’t have a point or that I am close minded? Really if that is all you got from what I have been saying, you haven’t really read it, didn’t comprehend it, or … I will refrain from saying it.

Take this as a criticism please…You wonder why people react to you the way they do? You always take a partial point and attack a persons character or some way personally, when most of the time you are missing the point all together. You wonder why people get pissed? You really have to wonder?
You say there are conflicts in my reasoning, and say I am close minded. Ok, show me the conflict in what I said?

When you can’t find it, you’ll realize you took your personal bias on what all Christians must be like and applied to a situation that didn’t even call for it.[/quote]

Sorry you took offense.

I’m not engaging you in a pissing contest.

You seem to cherry pick what serves your opinion or bias, and much of the time they appear contradictory to one another across disciplines. Can I be any clearer than that?[/quote]

You say shit like ‘This in particular is rich from you’ and ‘…see the apparent conflicts in your reasoning and beliefs (or, what you CHOOSE to believe and why)’ and I am not supposed to take offence? Why is what I said ‘rich’ exactly? What, that I have said, could you possibly base this on other than the fact that I am a Catholic Christian and you have a bias that leads you to believe that have not only proclaimed but dogmatically demanded that what I believe is the only thing that’s right and true and if you don’t believe what I believe, you are going to hell? It’s only bias that could have led you to such a conclusion, because I have never said anything of the sort, as a matter of fact I have said the opposite and caught plenty of shit for saying the opposite. If you are going to say shit like that, you need to back it up. Show me what I have said that would lead you to believe that I have shoved any kind of Christian or Catholic dogma down anybody’s throat at anytime. Hell I’ll even take a paraphrase. I know the search engine here won’t produce the results you are looking for.

Pissing contest? Where did I say, or accuse of having a pissing contest? You accusing me of things I did not say and opinions I do not hold, where have a called for a pissing contest?

Lastly, now you are leveling this “You seem to cherry pick what serves your opinion or bias, and much of the time they appear contradictory to one another across disciplines. Can I be any clearer than that?”
What precisely am I cherry picking? What did I say that shows cherry picking? I stated my opinion as opinion, and I defended my opinion with facts and reasons. Second, I specifically stated my intention which was to be engaged, was to be challenged. Show me I am wrong. And guess what, nobody has responded to the challenge. Nobody has stated 'you’re wrong Eastern philosophy is ________________________" Sure, people have expressed their like for it, and that it has some value, but nobody has come to it’s defense in any kind of meaningful way. Now you accuse me of ‘cherry picking’ and yet you said exactly this “…Use what suits you, discard the rest.” ← Pardon the fuck out of me but this is the very definition of ‘cherry picking’. I said noting resembling that, but yet you level the accusation. Based on what? That I am a Christian, something not even being discussed.
So it boils down to this, you falsely accuse me of shit I am not doing, conflicts that don’t exist, and dogma’s I am not preaching, but I shouldn’t take offense. I should take your prose as well meaning and sincere? Really? Yeah, I am being unreasonable…

[pat]

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:

So I take the parts that mean something to me;

And isn’t that the essence of a true search for truth? As opposed to doggedly hanging onto and defending dogmas and biases? Debating which is “better”? Really? Use what suits you, discard the rest. To deny wisdom where wisdom can be found b/c you can’t see past your stubborn bias is no honest search for truth.[/quote]

Dare I ask, what the hell are you talking about?[/quote]

Why are you so interested in debating whether “eastern” or “western” philosophy is “better”? Are you saying there is nothing useful in eastern philosophy? Nothing to learn? That’s my point. [/quote]

Again, where did I say ‘…there is nothing useful in eastern philosophy’? I am not even going to recount what I said, go read it.