Wisdom?

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by pachomius2000
In Buddhism there is the audience which is everything. Take away the audience, nothing remains. And what is that audience or who is that audience? Man, or as the Buddhist theoreticians would tell us, sentient beings. "In the beginning there have always been sentient beings and they are all destined for Nirvana..." something like that, correct me if I am wrong about that theory of Buddhism.

Take away sentient beings, and Buddhism is no more.

What about metaphysical naturalism or the theistic religions even pantheistic religions? Take away man in metaphysical naturalism, and nature is still there.

What about the theistic and pantheistic religions? It depends upon how they design their deities. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the deity is there even without man; that deity has an intrinsic worth in itself: it didn't have to depend on man's existence to exist, but man and everything else depends on his existence and free decision.

Sounds bizarre? Well, it is just a piece of philosophizing from a man in the street; and as I said again and now again, it's all hypothetical, a script written by man: except that the script of Buddhism does not have what I call intrinsic worth, for there is nothing but man or sentient beings, while in the theistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, that script written by man indeed but hypothetical, yet still if man does not exist or does not write the script, the intrinsic worth of the script is just the same present in the construct of a deity all supreme to matter, time, and space.

And also metaphysical naturalism.


Pachomius

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=3508860#post3508860

[Meadmaker]

Buddhism teaches that matter proceeds from consciousness. You can't "take away sentient beings", because there would be nothing left. Everything that is came from sentient beings, or at least, from sentience.

[Dancing David]

Assuming that god exists, "that deity has an intrinsic worth in itself: it didn't have to depend on man's existence to exist", but if diety is a delusion of man, and you remove the human then you are still left with nothing.

So the two sums are equal.

And I am not sure about the mental onotology of matter, that sounds like some mahayana teaching. I am not sure that is part of the Pali canon.

[Dancing David]

Among the hypothetical matters or materials in philosophy and in religion, some are more hypothetical than others. Buddhism in my view is much more hypothetical as a philosophy and as a religion than the Christian faith as a philosophy and as a religion traditional in the Western world.


HMMM.


….

I think I can agree with you there. To be brief, Buddhism is not my three c's for a religion: my kind of cuisine, couture, and coiffure. You see, even though I call myself an ultra liberal Christian, everything in Christianity for me partakes of the hypothetical but for the culture habit which is still quite comfortable, Christianity and Christendom is still for a philosophy and a religion my kind of cuisine, couture, and coiffure; so that whatever the objections very valid against the Christian faith, it is still the most comfortable for myself, seeing that I can't live without the cuisine, couture, and coiffure of religion.

That is why also in many posts in this IIDB I have called myself an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, an infidel, a deist, and what have you, but never a Buddhist, maybe why not, okay then, also a Buddhist -- because Buddhism has all the best moralistic teachings of the West, and for that matter of any stable civilization and society.

[Meadmaker]

And I am not sure about the mental onotology of matter, that sounds like some mahayana teaching. I am not sure that is part of the Pali canon.

Could be. I'm afraid I can't tell you where I read it, but I believe it was in a Mahayana book.