Tag: morality ethics

Pyrrho’s thought and practice was a form of Early Buddhism which he learned during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The conclusion to be drawn from the evidence about Pyrrho’s thought and practice is that he adopted a form of Early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, including its philosophical-religious and pragmatic elements, but he stripped it of its alien garb and reconstituted it as a new ‘Greek Buddhism’ for the Hellenistic world, which he presented in his own words to Timon and his other students.

Beckwith, Christopher I.. Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (pp. 54-55). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

The earliest attested philosophical-religious system that is both historically datable and clearly recognizable as a form of Buddhism is Early Pyrrhonism, the teachings and practices of Pyrrho of Elis and Timon of Phlius, as shown in Chapter One. Its central features correspond exactly to some of the central features of the traditional putatively “early” form of Buddhism presented in Pali canonical texts.

However, the latter tradition of Buddhism also contains many elements—beliefs, institutions, devotional practices, and so on—which developed at the earliest in the Saka-Kushan period, three centuries after Pyrrho. They spread throughout the ancestors of the attested forms of Buddhism, creating Normative Buddhism. The elements that are attested only from approximately the Saka-Kushan period on—the exact time remains to be established—are far from trivial. They include the Saṃgha, the community of monks; the idea of the bhikṣu ‘monk’ per se, as well as of the bhikṣunī ‘nun’; the vihāra or monastery; the Vinaya, or Buddhist monastic code; worship of the Buddha;4 development of the idea of reincarnations of the Buddha, both human and godlike; abhidharma or “Buddhist scholasticism”; and many others. They are now considered to be essential elements of traditional Buddhism, yet there is no historically sound evidence that they existed at all5 (and some evidence that they did not yet exist) until long after the visit of Pyrrho in 330–325 BC and that of Megasthenes in 305–304 BC. The lateness of the development of devotion for the Buddha and Buddha incarnations, as well as reverence for the Buddha’s teachings (the Dharma) and the community of monks (the Saṃgha), means that the invention of the Triratna (‘Three Jewels’) formula is even later (perhaps as a “popular” substitute for the difficult Trilakṣaṇa1 ‘Three Characteristics’ formula, which is phonetically similar.

Beckwith, Christopher I.. Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (pp. 61-62). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

  1. The Buddha says, “All dharmas are anitya ‘impermanent’…. All dharmas are duḥkha ‘unsatisfactory, imperfect, unstable’…. All dharmas are anātman ‘without an innate self-identity’.”
     ↩︎

Motivated reasoning, speaking to effect

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Motivated reasoning means reasoning to gain. Speaking to effect means speaking to cause something.

Both are the most common forms of thought and speech for all people with few exceptions.

Speaking to effect and motivated reasoning maintain personas.

Because it is difficult to tell truths and because trying to do so brings calamity, we don’t. We narrow thought instead; our voices dull faceless muffled sounds with no meaning.

This is the tone and timbre of samsara, the feeling of group delusion, the Suffering of the First Noble Truth.

Vaccines from an ethical doctor’s POV — former Cleveland Clinic Medical Director Dr. Daniel Neides

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

link

__________

We need many more doctors to speak out like this. The public is primed to handle the worst news due to widespread understanding of the covid vax and childhood vax schedule failures. I congratulate Dr Neides for his words and hope many more will follow him. Government alone cannot be expected to reform itself. Same goes for the vax industry. Doctors, however, if a large number of them speak out can change everything quickly. ABN

One wrong move by government here, and you will see, at the very least, 250k Irish people descend on the capital in a blink — Conor McGregor

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

One wrong move by government here, and you will see, at the very least, 250k Irish people descend on the capital in a blink.

They must step down, there is no other way.

I cannot see another way.

We have already heard the warning of using the army against its own people.

We have heard the threat that they will come for the protestors after the protest ends.

We have then seen the attempted character assassinations on the protest leaders.

None of this has worked an iota as every single person in this country, outside of the political paywall and even within, is wide awake to it.

These threats, as well as being pitiful, are now futile.

Where else do they think they are going here?

Government, you have no more moves.

You’re going nowhere but out I am afraid.

It is check mate. The gig is up.

I don’t condone it, I don’t call for it, just calling it as I see it.

Sláinte

link

__________

I hope and pray the Irish will save Europe once again. History seems to show they are in the best position to do it. ABN

The founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation vs the current executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

link

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit group founded in 1990 by Mitch Kapor, John Gilmore, and John Perry Barlow to defend civil liberties in the digital world. 

Status: Headquartered in San Francisco, the EFF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a staff of approximately 125 (as of 2025) and over 40,000 members, often described as the “online equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union.” 

Mission: The EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. 

Key Activities: The organization fights illegal surveillance, defends free speech online, challenges restrictive copyright laws, and develops privacy-enhancing tools like Privacy Badger and Certbot. 

__________

Looks like classic infiltrate–takeover–invert the org 180 degrees. Virtually every institution in USA and the West has met this fate. It is ideological asymmetric warfare, parasitism, and political ponerology all rolled into one. ABN

‘Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin’, an Aramaic phrase, which means, ‘You have been weighed and found wanting, and your kingdom will be divided and given to the Persians’ — E. Michael Jones

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

On Good Friday, Catholics celebrate the day on which the Jews killed Christ. It seems like an odd thing to celebrate, but the Serbs celebrate the battle of Kosovo Pole, and Texans celebrate their defeat at the Alamo, so I suppose it’s understandable that Christians would celebrate the most catastrophic defeat in the history of the human race. Let’s meditate for a moment on what it must have been like on the Friday evening after Christ’s body was taken down from the cross. Think of how devastated the Apostles must have felt gathered in the upper room full of fear that what happened to Christ would soon happen to them.

…On the other side of town, the Jews gathered to celebrate their victory. Not just any Jews, not all Jews, but certainly the Jewish leaders Annas and Caiphas were there. Try to imagine the smug satisfaction on their faces and compare it to the bitter disillusionment on the faces of the apostles that night. Nothing unseemly here. No vulgar exaltation of the sort we would expect from a buffoon like Rabbi Shmuley. No, think of the most distinguished Jews you ever met, Natty Rothschild, Rabbi Stephen Wise, and their self-deprecating gestures as they congratulate each other at the moment of their greatest triumph, the day on which they killed God and proved that they belonged to the master race which stood above everything Moses forbade.

…In Jesus’s time, “Jewish authorities” were known as the Sanhedrin. Today the Sanhedrin goes by a different name. It’s known the “Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,” an “umbrella body” that “coordinates national and international policy issues,”[3] for the following organizations: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the American Jewish Congress, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), J Street, a “Progressive pro-Israel organization that advocates for a two-state solution and diplomacy alongside security for Israel,” B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Masonic lodge which has as one of its main goals the promotion of the theories of Sigmund Freud, Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist organization, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is “prominent in Holocaust remembrance, fighting antisemitism, and tolerance education.”[4]

This is not an exhaustive list. It does not include de facto Jewish groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, Pornhub, Only Fans, and the news room at National Public Radio, but it does establish the fact that “the Jews” is a category of reality which exists in real buildings at real addresses which can be sued for damages as a concrete expression of the rage that is sure to sweep over this country when its citizens wake up to the damage they have done by dragging America into a war which it cannot win.

…Pretending that “the Jews” don’t exist as a category or that they didn’t get us into this mess will only make matters worse and increase the likelihood of violence. The rage continues to build. “The Jews” just announced that Israeli soldiers will not accompany the America troops which are now scheduled for a ground invasion of Iran, which is solely for the benefit of Israel. Even an establishment figure like George Will had difficulty containing his indignation when he reported this. Americans need to identify “the Jews” and hold them responsible for the irreparable damage they have done to our international reputation by ensuring that they cannot do this again. One way to accomplish this end would be to seize the assets of groups like AIPAC, the ADL, and the SPLC and distribute them as reparations payments to anyone they opposed or defamed. Is there something wrong with this idea? Is Professor Mearsheimer, the man who co-authored the definitive book on the Israel lobby, telling us that AIPAC should emerge from causing the biggest foreign policy debacle in American history unscathed?

…Just as Nostra Aetate provides the necessary category for this discussion by defining (and rehabilitating) “the Jews” as a category of reality which encompasses “Jewish leaders and their followers,” Catholicism can provide guidance on how to deal with the mechanism which allowed this to happen, namely, usury and the use of usurious ill-gotten gains to bribe members of Congress. In his letter to Margaret of Flanders entitled “De regimine Judaeorum ad Ducissam Brabantiae (“On the Government of the Jews, to the Duchess of Brabant”), St. Thomas Aquinas give practical advice on how Margaret should deal with the severe economic problems which usury had created in her realm. The Jews have no right to keep usurious wealth, which is another term for ill-gotten gains, and does not truly belong to the Jews, but restraint needs to be exercised in appropriating this money to ensure that “the necessary subsidies of life in no way be taken from them … this seems to be what should be observed, that … the services coerced from them do not demand things that they had not been accustomed to do in times gone by.”

link

__________

This is a longish essay about how ‘the Jews’ are going to pay dearly for having forced Trump into this war with Iran. I have provided a longer excerpt than I usually do to provide a sense of what Jones is arguing. The essay is rich in both Catholic and everyday reasoning. It’s well-worth reading. As for the term ‘the Jews’ and the confusion that arises from its use, I believe Jewish Supremacy is the better term and will solve the problems Jones describes, if more people use it. ABN

Why did you say to me in person on September 8th 2025, at 8:26 in the morning, ‘if they are going to remove you for your support of the Palestinians in Gaza, then they will try to remove me too’? — Carrie Prejean Boller

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Your Eminence,

I’ve tried calling you and texting you multiple times since the February 9th hearing on antisemitism which you and Bishop Barron were absent from. I wished to discuss this with you privately. But again, unfortunately, you’ve provided zero response to me.

However, today, you publicly made the post which I am replying to now.

You have publicly stated that you agree with Bishop Barron’s recently issued statements wholeheartedly.

Please answer this question: Why did you say to me in person on September 8th 2025, at 8:26 in the morning, “if they are going to remove you for your support of the Palestinians in Gaza, then they will try to remove me too”?

I explained to you at this meeting, that I was being asked to resign from the commission by the White House at the behest of our colleague’s Paula White and Dan Patrick. You expressed that you were shocked I was asked to resign in August because of my Catholic position on Zionism, and outspoken support of innocent human life in Gaza. You fully supported me as indicated by your words.

I had expressed to both you and Bishop Barron months before the February hearing that I was asked to be removed from this commission due to my Catholic beliefs and my support of the Palestinians in Gaza. Both of you said that would never happen. But it did.

Can you please explain to me and to all Catholics the meaning of this apparent contradiction?

If there is no contradiction between what you said to me in August and why I’m presently removed, then please explain.

I believe I was removed from the  religious liberty commission in February for the same reasons I was asked to resign in August.

link

__________

The excuse for removing Boller I have read is she was being ‘disruptive’ by raising the Catholic position on Zionism and pursuing a real answer. If history is a guide, the most likely explanation for the White House Religious Liberty Commission‘s cowardly actions and lame excuse is they, too, have been infiltrated by Jewish Supremacists and are not in full control of their own commission. ABN

Why hide the fact that Charlie’s views were changing about Israel, unless it’s somehow relevant to his assassination? — Candace Owens

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Narcissistic vengefulness. They view the exposure of that text thread as the beginning of the public recognition that Charlie was betrayed.

It was the launch pad for people with common sense asking “why hide the fact that Charlie’s views were changing about Israel, unless it’s somehow relevant to his assassination?”

“Why didn’t Turning Point, or Erika back Candace up when she told the truth?”

It was the first crack in their narrative. Were they not guilty, they would be tremendously grateful to the people who exposed the truth about Charlie’s final days.

As I have said many times, Turning Point execs possess a dangerously low emotional IQ. They don’t know how innocent parties behave. They can’t even imitate innocence. Anger towards Joe Kent makes them look worse. Were I running their PR, I would have had Joe Kent on the Charlie Kirk show. Instead, they send Israeli attack dogs on him.

link

OnlyFans Owner Leonid Radvinsky Dies at 43 After Cancer Battle

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

The Ukrainian-American entrepreneur, who acquired OnlyFans in 2018, passed away peacefully on March 20 in Pompano Beach, Florida, after a long illness, the company confirmed Monday. Radvinsky, worth up to $8 billion, turned the platform into a revenue machine that paid creators billions and delivered him over $700 million in dividends last year alone. His family has asked for privacy, leaving the company’s future leadership uncertain as reactions pour in from shock to tributes for his business achievements.

__________

Radvinsky reportedly was the top donor to AIPAC. ABN

Latvian political discourse on immigration and Islam marked by growing concerns over national identity and security, particularly regarding the influx of migrants from Muslim-majority countries

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

In recent statements, Foreign Minister Baiba Braže has firmly rejected EU-mandated migrant redistribution, declaring Latvia “will not accept new migrants” and emphasizing that the country is already bearing a disproportionate burden in securing the EU’s external borders. She highlighted that over 12,000 attempts at illegal border crossings were prevented in recent years, primarily along the Latvian–Belarusian border, and stressed that Latvia would not pay for or host relocated migrants.

These positions reflect broader anxieties in Latvian society, amplified by extreme rhetoric from some Muslim community leaders. In 2015, Ahmed Robert Klimovičs, a spokesperson for the Islamic Cultural Centre in Riga, claimed that Latvia would become an Islamic state within 50 years, citing demographic trends and the high fertility rate among Muslim families. His comments—though later clarified as advocating democratic change rather than violence—sparked national debate and concern.

Meanwhile, Latvian security officials have reported that the country’s Muslim community has been affected by radicalization trends, with several individuals expressing intentions to join extremist groups like the Islamic State. The Latvian Security Police has also noted that young Latvians are being recruited by international criminal networks to smuggle migrants into the EU, further fueling fears about security and national integrity.

Buddhism and ethical signaling

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Buddhism is very much a system of ethics. Buddhist practice is founded on the Five Precepts of refraining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and the irresponsible use of alcohol.

In most Buddhist traditions, these precepts are taught as if they are fundamental to the workings of the universe. But how can morality be fundamental to the workings of the universe? How does it really even matter to human beings?

If we think of a human being as a signaling system, we may be able to show that ethical thoughts and behavior are of fundamental importance to the system itself.

Human signaling systems signal internally, within themselves, and externally, toward other people. Our most important signaling system is the one we share with that person who is most important to us, our mate or best friend. Let’s confine our discussion to this sort of primary signaling system.

If I lie to my partner or cheat her, I may gain something outside of our shared signaling system, but that signaling system will suffer. And when that shared system suffers, my own internal signaling system will also suffer because it will contain errors. It will no longer be in its optimal state. Similarly, if she lies to me or cheats me, our mutual signaling system will become less than optimal as will both of our individual, or internal, signaling systems.

My own signaling system cannot grow or become optimal without my partner treating me with the best ethical behavior she can muster. And the same is true for her with respect to me. And we both know this.

We would be good to each other anyway, but it is helpful to see that our being good to each other has a very practical foundation—it assures us optimal performance of our mutual and internal signaling systems.

FIML practice is designed to provide partners with a clear and reasonably objective means to communicate honestly with each other. FIML practice will gradually optimize communication between partners by making it much clearer and more honest. In doing this, it will also optimize the operations of their mutual and individual signaling systems.

To my knowledge, there is nothing like FIML in any Buddhist tradition. But if I try to read FIML into the tradition, I may be able to find something similar in the way monks traveled together in pairs for much of the year. I don’t know what instructions the Buddha may have given them or how they spoke to each other, but it may be that they did a practice with each other similar to FIML practice.

In any case, if we view human being as a signaling system, we may be able to claim that clear signaling—that is, ethical signaling—is fundamental to the optimization of that system.