Will wrote:
Therefore this "debate" wastes so much energy by one faction talking about their preferred practice and the other on the fact of Buddha teaching literal rebirth. Not a good basis for debate, if we keep arguing from differing premises. So I am out of it.
Seems rather a conveniently distorted characterization of what is being discussed, to provide smoke cover for a hasty retreat.
There are those who would claim that
without active, positive belief in reincarnation/"rebirth", one cannot call oneself Buddhist, and one
cannot practice the
Noble Eightfold Path (this is, of course, the nexus wherein lies the discussion of practice vs. belief in superstitions and speculative views). Of course, this same faction tends to pound ad nauseum the fallacious argument that claims that
non-belief is the same as belief in a negative (nihilist, annihiliationist) position, which is of course a Straw Man (actually a Straw-Man/Red-Herring/Ad-Hominem
Cocktail).
Some venues will allow, and even
encourage and
enforce Ad Baculum, such chicanery.
We seriously doubt that Dhamma Wheel is one of them.