roncriss

Can it be that he doesn't really want the answers? Why is he fearful of knowledgeable Catholics if he really wants to know the truth? If he really wants a debate why doesn't he go to the Catholic Bible group where anyone can answer him?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catholicbible/

Does this mean that certain people can be excluded somehow and that these LDS and protestants (in all cases) are in actuality trolling and really aren't open to new evidence or arguments, so they exclude those whose anwers they fear might be more persuasive?

I already asked this and got no satisfactory answer. Let me try to be more clear. The basic concept behind Buddhism is that there is no self or soul, "anatman", as opposed to the Hindu Atman (Buddhism is the protestantism of Hinduism in this respect). Buddha taught that there was no self as such, just an illusory composite or aggregate false self. When one reaches enlightenment and dies the "fuel" (I always found this unconvincing. If enlightenment really works why does the body and self continue to exist during this life?) is burned up and this false or contingent self no longer exists as such. Since there is no self to report back on the effectiveness of his method, why believe it? By definition anyone who achieves niravana no longer exists to testify to the efficacy. Isn't this, then, blind faith? Some suggested that the only evidence is experience, but if there is a self to experience then it obviously hasn't worked. Please don't compare to Christianity. Its irrelevant.

The goal of Buddhism is to cease to exist as a congent being and re-incarnating. Supposedly Buddha attained this state. How do we know if he no longer exists as a contingent being? By definition there is no "one" to testify to its effectiveness.