Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:Sorry, It's probably because I've never been convinced these arguments that involve labelling something "speculative" and thereby dismissing it.
Let's break this down for a moment.
I said, "The falsity of rebirth is a speculative view that cannot be verified."
So what does this mean?
To deny "rebirth" (as understood, conventionally in English) based on one's experience, you would have to experience death and then experience the absence of rebirth.
I do not see how this could logically be done, unless you could experience the future, here-and-now, and experience first-hand the lack of post-mortem continuity of experience.
Failing that, the view "rebirth is false" is necessarily speculative.
On the flipside "rebirth is true" is not necessarily speculative, because, like the Buddha, you could experience/recall 'past lives' and know it to be so, without recourse to speculation. If one's experience however, is not founded in the recollection of past lives, then the view "rebirth is true" would be speculative,
for that person.
Don't think of the word 'speculative' as an insult or denigration - it simply means it is a view that has not been experientially validated by the person holding the view.
So, returning to MN 48 for a moment, which refers to speculation... "If a monk is absorbed in speculation about the other world, then his mind is enthralled". If one knows from experience things "about the other world" then good for them. But if they don't know it, it is speculation, and if it is speculation, the mind is enthralled.
There is no "dismissal" in that - this "dismissal" you refer to is an erroneous inference on your part and is unnecessarily boolean.
Something being "speculative" neither makes it right nor wrong. If a speculator speculates that the value of ABC Shares will rise, and they act accordingly, that neither makes their speculative view inherently right nor wrong.
Metta,
Retro.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."