Majored in Japanese….that’s totally cool. Also, accept my apologies for any percieved snark, as no malice was meant. I just enjoy debate in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin.

Jeff

Really now, the gotcha! question is irrelevant to this exchange, and I suspect you just pulled it out of your … (oops! There I go being illmannered again, sorry. Its just that snark is so much fun when you’re not face to face…) Let’s start again –

If this is some kind of attempt at rhetorical checkmate, you must show me first where in my own words I asserted that ET life really does exist. I sure can’t find where I led you to jump to that conclusion. My specific point continues to be this — in the case of “how to deal with [theoretical] ET life,” it is intellectually lazy to assume that Buddhism can be dumped into the same cookie-jar as the Abrahamic religions. Why should I have to prove or disprove something I have not used to support this argument?

If anything, it shows I must be clearer and less argumentative in how I express my points.

If your question was not meant to be a gotcha, but perhaps innocently was intended as a kind of background check, I’ll say — personal opinion only — that I believe the universe itself is alive, and thus there is no distinction between terrestrial and ET life. The biological distinction is arbitrary. Mind you, this is just my belief. No proof on either side of this assertion.

Also personally speaking, your answer to my absurd question was spot-on. Thank you for a serious and considered response. It also happens to be close to how I would answer, engendered by a similar path as yours. Although I never experienced a crisis of faith, after close study of religious and philosophical systems to satisfy a curiosity begun when I majored in Japanese, I concluded that of all religions, some strains of Buddhism conformed pretty darn closely to how my own life was spinning out, but that I really didn’t have any need to spend any inordinate time on earth following it. (BTW some branches of Buddhist thought suggest this very dismissal — talk about covering your philosophical bases!)

And just on the odd chance that you think I have the potential to be a polite person after all, check out how polite the Zen experience is for those who choose to undergo it.

Yours truly in continuing curmudgeonosity,

pookapooka

I said I studied Buddhism….which I once did in my college days, along with Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Shintoism, and a bunch of other irrelevant religions. I studies those religions as a result of a crisis of faith and realized that I don’t need a crutch.

One thing your belief system didn’t teach you is humility and manners. You might work on thosed areas.

Oh yeah, you still didn’t answer my questions about ET’s.

Moreover, you also know that nowhere in Buddhism is there any indication that the “collective flock” must be kept “under control” — only guidelines of self-discipline to help the individual gain his/her own insight about the nature of life.

As to that silly initial factual-evidence question, may I and your laughing Buddha pose an equally irrelevant question to you? Can you prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that anything at all will exist, earthly or extraterrestrial, after your death? Be honest now. Laughing, of course, is entirely permissible.

Jeff

Can you show me factual evidence of extraterrestial life? Can you prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it exists?

As for your incorrect speculations, I have studied The Four Noble Truths, and have also studied the Tripitaka, so do know something of what I’m talking about.

Jeff

And yes, of course we should keep careful watch on the behavior of those who live ossified lives based on smug and unquestioning belief in some myth, particularly those myths that divide humanity between the Saved and the Infidel. Please reread my initial comment. The “who cares” part is about concerning ourselves unduly with the minutiae of how they grudgingly allow the myth to be slightly adjusted.

As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms “person” or “persons” shall include any alien from the moment he or she lands on earth.

What blind assertion did Brian make about Buddhism? Any assertations about Buddhism escaped my limited mental capacity. As for describing it as less authoritarian, Brian would be absolutely correct especially comparing Buddhism to orthodox religions of any type. My real Buddhist friends (as compared to white suburban cocktail party Buddhist converts, ie: Richard Gere, Stephen Segal et al,) describe Buddhism as pretty laid back, so Brian probably hit it on the head.

Jeff

Rrrrrr.

I’ve been thinking that the Bush administration has been slashing the NASA budget, in part, because the last thing a creationist needs is the discovery of evolved marine life on Europa.

The Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory said that aliens would be "extraterrestrial brothers." At least one of the major religions is thinking about the theological ramifications of extraterrestrial life instead of simply ignoring the…