[Buddha-l] 'Nature' and eating meat

[Gad Horowitz]

gee.  Actually I havent unsubscribed.  but y'all feel free to write to gary.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gad Horowitz" <horowitz at chass.utoronto.ca>
To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 11:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] 'Nature' and eating meat


> thank you.  while stewing over this, I unsubscribed.  I have now
> resubscribed as gary harrow at boltfarb at hotmail.com.  but I shall always
be
> yours, gad
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Richard P. Hayes" <rhayes at unm.edu>
> To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 4:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] 'Nature' and eating meat
>
>
> > On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 17:32 -0400, horowitz at chass.utoronto.ca wrote:
> >
> > > Sorry if this response was inappropriate.  I thought you might ask
what
> > > misnagged means.
> >
> > I assumed it means nagged inappropriately or for the wrong reasons. For
> > example, when my wife asks me to do something that I have already done,
> > she is misnagging me. (That's just a hypothetical example. In fact my
> > wife neither nags nor misnags me.)
> >
> > >  In the Jewish tradition it means, roughly, one who is
> > > so devoted to rational thinking that he has little patience with myth
> > > (like the Tree, or the Lotus Sutra)little patience with paradox
> > > (Nagarjuna,Zen,Derrida, Magliola).
> >
> > That would be a sad and impoverished state of affairs to be in. In fact,
> > it sounds dangerously close to being a Republican.
> >
> > As you probably realize, I have nothing at all against myth and paradox.
> > I do tend to feel that systems of mythology that have evolved over
> > centuries and millennia work best when they are not mixed up with one
> > another. For this reason, it tends to strike me as a pity when one
> > speaks of, say, Christ as a bodhisattva or an enlightened being. That
> > does violence to the tradition in which he placed himself, so I would
> > rather show respect for that tradition and historical context by not
> > importing too many alienisms into it. Having said that, I am well aware
> > that myth is very dynamic and is constantly being renewed through
> > redefinition, as when Paul redefined all manner of Jewish terms and
> > symbols to arrive at a new mythology, or when the Buddha deliberately
> > redefined a bunch of brahmanical terms to come up with a new mythology.
> >
> > Redefining a former myth to arrive at a new mythology is a way of
> > keeping mythology relevant. The danger, as we all know only too well, is
> > when acceptance of the new myth leads to a denigration of the older one,
> > and of the people who still abide by it. Thus we have the ugly history
> > of anti-Semiticism in much of Christianity, and the equally ugly
> > phenomenon of dismissive rhetoric in the Lotus Sutra.
> >
> > > Please accept my apology.
> >
> > I don't need it, but if you are giving them away, what the hell, eh?
> > Maybe I can give it to someone who needs it more than I do. Who knows, I
> > might someday misnag somebody and then need to apologize to them.
> >
> > > I promise no more obfuscatory ad hominems.
> >
> > A really nicely turned ad hominem is pretty hard to resist. And, as the
> > history of democracy show us, a good ad hominem, tu quoque, straw man or
> > slippery slope fallacy will almost always get more votes than a valid
> > argument. So never sell fallacies short. But if one is going to use a
> > fallacy, it is better not to mix it with obfuscation, lest the fools
> > whom the fallacy is intended to dupe miss the point and vote for the
> > wrong party.
> >
> > Be well, my friend, and give Toronto a hug for me. (But not Mississauga,
> > eh?)
> >
> > -- 
> > Richard
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
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