Plandor wrote:

> "usual suspect" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Plandor wrote:
>>
>>> "usual suspect" > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> Plandor wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "usual suspect" > wrote in message:
>>>>>
>>>>>>........ (edited)...... No religious scripture commands or commends
>>>>>>abstinence of anything.
>>>>>
>>>>> and, from another one of your posts:
>>>>>
>>>>>>....... (edited)...... there are no prohibitions against meat
>>>>>>consumption in Buddhism
>>>>> ===================
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think those statements are entirely accurate.
>>>>
>>>> http://buddhism.about.com/cs/ethics/a/Food_2.htm
>>>> http://hinduwebsite.com/buddhism/vegetarianism.htm
>>>> Etc.
>>> ============================
>>>
>>> Perhaps
>>
>> No, definitely.
>>
>>> ...Yes, other Buddhist
>>> scriptures (from an earlier period) do allow meat-eating as discussed in
>>> the websites you provided links to above, but the Buddha changed those
>>> rules
>>
>> No, and I find it amusing that someone who probably has a problem with
>> the historicity of certain other religious scriptures (e.g., do you vouch
>> for the historicity of and take everything in the Bible literally?) would
>> take a document written in the 2nd or 3rd century and claim it's (a)
>> historically accurate, (b) properly quotes the Buddha, and (c) properly
>> hands down the Buddha's teachings on any and all matters. Moreover and
>> just
>> like the Bible, said document has undergone various textual revisions
>> over time and as it spread geographically. So why do you propose a
>> literal interpretation of what is commanded or forbidden when elsewhere
>> the Buddha is said to have expressly FORBIDDEN VEGETARIANISM in Sangha
>> when Devadatta asked him to institute it? You're offering an example of a
>> kind of "fundamentalist Buddhism" -- oxymoronic -- which is bound to
>> happen when self-serving Westerners embrace that which they don't
>> understand because they think it teaches something that it doesn't!
> =============================
>
> So then are you still standing by your earlier statements - "No
> religious scripture commands or commends abstinence of anything" and
> "...there are no prohibitions against meat consumption in Buddhism"?

Only self-imposed prohibitions by navel-gazing nihilists who take peculiar
"comfort" in denying themselves the very things they enjoy.

> Do you still claim themto be true? If so, then don't you consider the
> Mahaparinirvana Sutra to be a Buddhist scripture?

Your literalist zealotry is at odds with the precepts of Buddhism. Buddha
says *MONKS* can eat meat, Buddha says *MONKS* can't eat meat. If you
embrace the Mahaparinirvana Sutra and accept its teachings *literally* and
you are a Buddhist *MONK*, then perhaps you should avoid consuming meat if
it burdens your own conscience; however, no Buddhist monk or anyone else
has a right to suggest that Buddhism forbids the eating of meat. It does
not. It fully allows for it (even for monks).