So, you are not interested in Buddhism, for example, as something that might help you. Fine.
What is you goal when you try to get Buddhists to explain their morality, how they deal with conflicting goods and what they mean by various terms like Karma?
Since you are not interested in getting help, a suggestion would be not to mention all the sans God, fractured and fragementation, imminent oblivion stuff. This adds nothing to your finding out information about Buddhism. And you might, instead of callling us stooges, notice what a likely conclusion it is that you are seeking help. We have, of course, presented other motives based on your behavior. And when you explain WHY you are investigating things like Buddhism, you actually only explain WHAT you want to know.
You do seem to be seeking information about belief system. Alright, it is not to help yourself. But you are trying to get information and understanding about Buddhism. A number of people with more experience than you have pointed out that practice within Buddhism is necessary for understanding. When they tell you this your objection is not ‘I can get the information I need through online discussion’, but rather that you cannot do this (lack of mobility) or you do not have time to do this since there are so many religions and approaches. The first objection is false. You could get instruction in the practices. The second also makes no sense because you could investigate Buddhism say, via practices, in an hour or even less a day and continue your online approach also.
Note we are telling you that in terms of gaining knowledge - regardless - participation is a better way to learn. This is common in all sorts of fields. Here we have a radically cross-cultural field of knowledge that is practice based and has terms that are even tricky for Asians raised in Buddhist concepts to understand. So, even people who do not have the ethnic and cultural gap to cross are still facing a cultural divide where practice is considered KEY by all experts. This is of absolutely no interest to you. Which raises the issue of what you are doing asking for information from people with more knowledge than you about something, if their answers are of absolutely no interest to you. You want to understand X. Well, here’s a way to start understanding X. No interest. Makes any rational person wonder what you are doing.
But the core issue to me is: OK, we were wrong, despite bemoaning your upcoming death and your fracturedness and fragmentation, you are not seeking help when investigating Buddhism Fine.
But then why are you interested in getting information about Buddhism?
Note telling me WHAT you want to know how Buddhists resolve conflicting goods or know their path is the best one or a valid one is not an answer to the question. That is an answer related to WHAT you want to learn.
Now why is the WHY important to me and perhaps the other two?
Because we have noticed things like:
a) someone in good faith answers your questions and you then tell them it’s all in their head or they have contraptions to soothe themselves and the like
b)someone (both Phyllo and I have gone through this) do relate what you ask for and 1) you forget that we have done this 2) later say that we have not done this and ask us to do it 3) in my case confuse me with an objectivist, like the fact that I have a preference means I am an ethicist and somehow need to demonstrate that everyone SHOULD have my preferences.
c) Act as if points made, even in threads that are not yours, are somehow wrong or offtopic since the right topic has to do with what you want people to do.
It ends up looking very passive-aggressive. Come and get mindread and get dismissed. Come answer my question and then the answers are so unimportant to you that you don’t even remember it happened. Come answer my question and then I will respond by repeating things that do not apply to the individual responding in good faith to your question. cut and paste, almost bot-like behavior. But perhaps you have some other WHY where this all makes sense. If so, you are keeping your cards close to your chest. It’s not for help, despite all the bemoaning your situation. It’s not to have a chance to mindread and frustrate people who you used to openly say were causing a lot of the world’s problems (objectivists).
Right now it looks like you dish out something, but seem to think we should be aghast that we are talking about you personally, when you do this readily enough to anyone who actually does what you ask. And rather in a rather facile way.
Sure, that kind of thing can be and often is healthy behavior in a group or project or community. Hey, you’re being false and wasting people’s time. You are claiming X, but you are acting hypocritically if this is the case. Hey, you are making it seem like your interest should be the group interest so you hijack activities as if they should (objectively) be what you are interested in. Hey, you’re being manipulative. Of course groups and communities can abuse this kind of thing, but your reaction presumes that it is per se wrong to do this.
Nope, dear objectivist. I’m sure you are aware of the idea of a signal to noise ratio. Right now you seem like passive-aggressive noise. But who knows. Maybe you have a WHY where your behavior makes sense and it is not that.
Do let us know.
Here you say to Phyllo…
It sounds like you believe there is a lot at stake. Since Phyllo can join groups and has suggested it, he should engage directly in the religions. OK, you don’t do this. You have your method. You method is via the screen. But you still have all that ‘at stake’. What do you think your process here will do to deal with all that so much that is at stake?