You said it was not important whether or not nirvana implies a cease of consciousness/existence, and that you still suggest trying to achieve it either way; this means that, given that you acknowledge that nirvana may mean a cease of consciousness/existence and that ceasing ones consciousness/existence is essentially banishing oneself to oblivion, you would favor oblivion over having to deal with the trivial stresses and sufferings of life.
Wow
Ok so firstly this
"You said it was not important whether or not nirvana implies a cease of consciousness/existence, and that you still suggest trying to achieve it either way; this means that, given that you acknowledge that nirvana may mean a cease of consciousness/existence and that ceasing ones consciousness/existence is essentially banishing oneself to oblivion, you would favor oblivion over having to deal with the trivial stresses and sufferings of life."
does not follow from this
"You said it was not important whether or not nirvana implies a cease of consciousness/existence, and that you still suggest trying to achieve it either way;"
Secondly what I
actually said was
"Why not focus on the suffering in your life and how best to be free of it, instead of worrying about concepts like existence or non-existence?"
Which was my advice to not worry about the past or future too much, but to focus on the present moment and to be free from dukkha here and now (which can be done)
Hence this
" you would favor oblivion over having to deal with the trivial stresses and sufferings of life."
Is
not something I have said
In fact I said the opposite, which was to deal with stresses as they arise in the here and now
As was quoted earlier
MN63: Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta wrote:
Then, when it was evening, Ven. Malunkyaputta arose from seclusion and went to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, "Lord, just now, as I was alone in seclusion, this train of thought arose in my awareness: 'These positions that are undeclared, set aside, discarded by the Blessed One... I don't approve, I don't accept that the Blessed One has not declared them to me. I'll go ask the Blessed One about this matter. If he declares to me that "The cosmos is eternal,"... or that "After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist," then I will live the holy life under him. If he does not declare to me that "The cosmos is eternal,"... or that "After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist," then I will renounce the training and return to the lower life.'
... (snip) ...
"Malunkyaputta, if anyone were to say, 'I won't live the holy life under the Blessed One as long as he does not declare to me that "The cosmos is eternal,"... or that "After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist,"' the man would die and those things would still remain undeclared by the Tathagata.
"It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a brahman, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.
So once again, you have just set up and knocked down
your own straw man arguments