Buddhas are Nihilist Observers, Not Compassionate Saints
The incoherence of the standard Western conception of Buddhism
This is an adaption of a debate I had elsewhere with a Buddhist critic of one of my articles on Buddhism. By the end of the exchange, this commenter mysteriously deleted his profile and comments. So, I’ve left out this commenter’s name, but included some quotations of his replies, and refer to them as examples of what a standard Buddhist might say.
The misleading introductory Western notion of Buddhism
According to the introductory, textbook presentation of Buddhism, this philosophy/religion offers a form of therapy for ending suffering and promoting happiness and compassion. But at that superficial level Buddhism is incoherent, so there have been numerous charitable attempts to reconstruct Buddhism’s core insights. Hence, the various schismatic groups that arose in the early history of Buddhism, such as the Theravada and Mahayana schools.
The practitioners of any religion will say that their creedal concepts and practices are “right,” so the Eightfold Path’s talk of “right view,” “right resolve,” “right speech,” and so on just begs the question and doesn’t distinguish Buddhism from the other religions.
