I think it is alright, i just think that thread is going to be mostly arguing and long past the point of an actual discussion.DNS wrote: ↑Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:29 pm As I look at the Waharaka thread, I see numerous people challenging and refuting Waharaka's and Lal's views. And that is fine. Why censor their views? Allow it to stand in the marketplace of ideas and have it put for challenge, which is what happened.
If we start censoring what is true Dhamma and what is not, who decides? Obviously, there are some limits, to use an extreme example if there was someone who said that the Buddha prophesized the coming of Christ and is actually a Christian who advises us to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Now that would be going too far, but for just a different interpretation of the Suttas and a different account of anatta? Nah, that can withstand the marketplace of ideas and be put up for debate and challenge.
Yes, exactly and if we banned Ven. Waharaka's ideas, a Theravadin monk, do we also ban Ven. Thanissaro?
For those that want a more strict, hard-core Theravada only where dissenting opinions against anything in the Tipitaka, Commentaries and Abhidhamma are not allowed, there is the Classical Theravada sub-forum.
It's not that the rest of the forum is not Theravada too, but the other sub-forums simply allow more challenges, questions, and debates over certain passages, for example if they are early texts or later additions, true or not true.
Even for the early Buddhists, well before the Third Council, there were many disputes over what was the true Dhamma, the true Vinaya.
https://dhammawiki.com/index.php/Buddhist_councils
However what about the Taoist who evangelizes this forum with "Nibbana is a soul which takes up another body after death" and calls people who disagree annihilationists? I think that is beyond reasonable and if we literally wait for someone who says that the Buddha prophesized the coming of Christ and is actually a Christian who advises us to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, that is just setting the bar unreasonably high.
I think the Taoist is way out of line and he is openly Taoist claiming that the Buddha taught that Nibbana is an Everlasting Soul which takes up a Body, is very quarrelsome too.