1. Ignorance is beginningless. I don't suscribe to beginningless
enlightenment.
2. All human laws arise only when trouble, disorder, where
suffering comes about. If nobody is stealing and nobody have stuff
thats stolen, there would not be a law to prevent those from
happening. Laws evolve due to circumstances and incidents.
The dawning of civilization arises partly due to the discovery of
ways to harvest and own 'stuff' - i.e. crops, animals, etc. Because
there is ownership and property, there later arose stealing and
crimes, and where stealing and crimes arose, there arose the need
for governance, and then there are kings and its rule of law. Kings
are not kings without the support of its people even if it is not
democratic, as we have seen many kings have been overthrown in
ancient history. Humans 'enact' the kings due to a need... we
depend on rule and law for order in society.
In a sense those rules are invented due to necessity.
3. Wait... I didn't say suffering or not suffering has anything to
do with moral obligation. I merely said people wish to be free from
suffering, and Buddhism provides the path to the end of
suffering.
Conventionally, you are of course responsible for your actions,
wholesome actions lead to a wholesome karmic result and unwholesome
action leads to an unwholesome result.... just like you are
responsible for your cancer if you continue smoking everyday.
4. You are missing the point. My point is that just like babies can
grow, we too can end suffering and ignorance. And we do not say
'suffering is natural because we are born with suffering therefore
we should continue to suffer'.
1. If ignorance is beginningless, that means it is eternal. Why
should this state be considered inferior to being enlightened since
it preceded enlightenment?
2. Your explanation for moral laws is flawed, especially when
you try to base it on evolution. Again the same naturalistic
fallacy is committed in your argument. In a survivial of the
fittest environment, there is nothing to say that it is wrong to
take from you by force if survival is the purpose. The best
explanation would be that man is created as a moral being. Laws are
necessary in a fallen world, and laws are to show that man has
broken the law. Yes, kings and kingdoms have changed and toppled,
but this only shows the sinful nature of man.
3. Why do people wish to be free from suffering if ignorance has
been the eternal condition? Apparently telling people that they
have no real existence do not solve the problem. Buddha may have
been enlightened but he still fell sick and died. In other words,
he was still subject to death and suffering. Compare this with
Christ, whom though He also suffered and died, rose physically from
the dead to show His victory over death.
4. Apart from there being a moral law to be accountable, why
should anyone be held for an action that leads to unwholesome
effects? And why do anything that goes against the ignorance state
which is the primordial or beginingless state?
5. Babies grow because, like all living things, they are
designed to grow, unless they have some problems that inhibit
growth. A Christian view of life is that while suffering and death
exists in a fallen world, it is not the way things should be, thus
it would be consistent to want to see the end of death and
suffering. But in a natural law universe where things are just the
way they are, why go against nature?
