Should you be always radical in telling the truth?

[Arnoud]

I did not say misunderstand, I said misinterpret.

Of course you did as that would make me the active misinterpreting one and you the passive misunderstood one. Anyway, semantics.

Your apparent lack of agreement is based on your misinterpretation ie you are arguing with yourself. Lot's of people do misunderstand and misinterpret me (and lots of other people) and I constantly misunderstand and misinterpret people. This is no surprise whatsoever on a medium of communication like the internet. Now my relations with other people though, are neither of concern to you, nor of relevance to this thread, so try to keep on topic please.

Please tell me where I brought up your relations with other people other than your relations with people on this forum, which is public and thus on-topic to what we were discussing. Not on-topic in this thread as a whole.

You do realise that intention plays a huge role in karmic outcome, right?

Yes, but there is also such a thing as idiot's compassion.

It was neither a fisherman nor a ferryman it was a "pirate" bandit.

Boatman then. The story I was referring to is the one about the Buddha as a Bodhisattva where he killed the boatman to save 500 arhats as the boatman was going to kill them all. Why didn't he just overpower him and tie him so that the evildoer could become a great saint. Sometimes it doesn't work that way and that is precisly my point. We don't know the outcome so in the case of Milarepa it ended well. In another case it might not end so well.

Anyway who said anything about right and wrong? I spoke about karma vipakka.

First time you mention those words.

I don't think I said that anything is clear cut, I believe I said that I would put preserving (all) life over taking life.

And I say it isn't that simple as sometimes taking life preserves life as explained in the boatman story.

If Angulimala was killed then would he have had the chance to become an Arhat in one lifetime?

If Hitler was killed, 6 million Jews would still be alive. No Israel and middle eastern wars. Like I said, not as simple as you make it sound.

I also did not say anywhere that I would not call the police to deal with a mass-murdering-child-molesting-gang-raping-drug-snorting-dog-kicking lunatic.

I like how you included dog-kicking.

Would I save them from a blood thirsty lynch mob? I dunno, I certainly hope so.

I hope so too. I hope I would too. However, if you only have two choices, letting them go with 99% chance of continuing on their merry way (unless you can change people by just one encounter) or having them lynched by a mob but thus preventing further more excessive suffering, which would you choose? It brings me back to my beginning point, namely that your example works because it was Milarepa. In any other situation it is not that simple.

So as you can see, we are not disagreeing at any fundamental level, are we?

Probably not.

Still wondering whether you would accept that answer from your wife or not.

C
[/quote]

[Grigoris]

You do realise that intention plays a huge role in karmic outcome, right?

Yes, but there is also such a thing as idiot's compassion.

???

Why didn't he just overpower him and tie him so that the evildoer could become a great saint.

Ask the Buddha???

First time you mention those words.

I didn't talk about karmic outcomes??? Why don't you take a quick look at what I wrote beforehand.

And I say it isn't that simple as sometimes taking life preserves life as explained in the boatman story.
...
If Hitler was killed, 6 million Jews would still be alive. No Israel and middle eastern wars. Like I said, not as simple as you make it sound.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Anyway, the bit about Hitler, how do you know this would be the case?

I hope so too. I hope I would too. However, if you only have two choices, letting them go with 99% chance of continuing on their merry way (unless you can change people by just one encounter) or having them lynched by a mob but thus preventing further more excessive suffering, which would you choose?

I would take the third option.

[Arnoud]

I will just agree to disagree with you. Apologies to the TS for taking this off-topic.