How do the modernist hell-deniers interpret AN 3.36?

[chownah]

So what do the modernist denialists say about this?

Probably they say the same thing that classical denialist say about this but I don't know for sure......

The sutta seems pretty much like a morality play (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_play).
chownah

[Coëmgenu]

So what do the modernist denialists say about this?

They say the exact same thing that you say when you encounter a sutta that bewilders you, namely that the sutta is corrupt and Adhamma. The difference is that they are bewildered by rebirth and other worlds and you are bewildered by anattā and that which is empty.

[cappuccino]

one must achieve Enlightenment in this very life

the task often requires several lifetimes

[sphairos]

one must achieve Enlightenment in this very life

the task often requires several lifetimes

all the texts say that one must do it ASAP, because if not in this life, then, maybe, never. Some of those who weren't good enough to achieve it here and now may proceed in the future life, but that's not what the texts say. They say : strive for Enlightenment here and now with all your power, will, energy and strength. If you don't, you won't reach it. Of course some people comfort themselves that they will make sotāpanna, but that's very hazy and ambigue prospect. And it is already like Christianity or something. Buddhism is rational and empirical, but Christianity is metaphysical and fideistic. Those people "who believe in sotāpanna" may be better off in Christianity... It is a perversion of the Buddha's message, who clearly says : reach Nibbāna here and now.

[cappuccino]

may be better off in Christianity…

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment

[sphairos]

may be better off in Christianity…

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment

yeah, but you 100% get to live again: either in Hell, Limbo or Heaven.

[cappuccino]

may be better off in Christianity…

Hebrews 9:27
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment

yeah, but you 100% get to live again: either in Hell, Limbo or Heaven.

impermanence

[Coëmgenu]

No, "you" don't get to "live again" in hell, limbo (a non-Buddhist concept) or in "heaven" or whatever. "Your" life is over. When the Buddha's mother's life ended, it was over. Now there is a deva in the heavens, not a human lady who gave birth to another human and died after childbirth. The deva did not birth a Buddha, die after childbirth, etc. Of course, the notion that there was ever a "you" in the sense of an ātma was a misconception, so nothing has changed. The phenomena continue on "without you." You need to practice as if your head were on fire because, after death, hell or the animal womb could follow, and there is no bodhi proceeding from hell or the animal womb, as a ghost, etc. It is related to the "precious human birth."

[cappuccino]

The phenomena continue on "without you."

just another day

[Ceisiwr]

No, "you" don't get to "live again" in hell, limbo (a non-Buddhist concept) or in "heaven" or whatever. "Your" life is over. When the Buddha's mother's life ended, it was over. Now there is a deva in the heavens, not a human lady who gave birth to another human and died after childbirth. The deva did not birth a Buddha, die after childbirth, etc. Of course, the notion that there was ever a "you" in the sense of an ātma was a misconception, so nothing has changed. The phenomena continue on "without you." You need to practice as if your head were on fire because, after death, hell or the animal womb could follow, and there is no bodhi proceeding from hell or the animal womb, as a ghost, etc. It is related to the "precious human birth."

[cappuccino]

"Your" life is over. When the Buddha's mother's life ended, it was over.

yesterday is over…

you are here today

[Coëmgenu]

Some people think that "Buddhism" teaches that no one really ever dies, and it actually does teach that, but not in the way that most people want.

Pain without the pained,
the deeds without their doer,
peace, naught a one calmed,
is not what's “wanted”, dreamt of.

Instead: peace and calm,
deeds and the fame following,
the ending of pain
with the lingering of "me"
to enjoy it: what’s “wanted”.

[sphairos]

No, "you" don't get to "live again" in hell, limbo (a non-Buddhist concept) or in "heaven" or whatever. "Your" life is over. When the Buddha's mother's life ended, it was over. Now there is a deva in the heavens, not a human lady who gave birth to another human and died after childbirth. The deva did not birth a Buddha, die after childbirth, etc. Of course, the notion that there was ever a "you" in the sense of an ātma was a misconception, so nothing has changed. The phenomena continue on "without you." You need to practice as if your head were on fire because, after death, hell or the animal womb could follow, and there is no bodhi proceeding from hell or the animal womb, as a ghost, etc. It is related to the "precious human birth."

No, you do. It is like flame of fire etc. Is the flame borne out of another flame the same flame or not? The Buddha said that "I don't exist" and "I exist" are equally wrong thickets of views. Nowhere you will find in the early Pāli sources Vasubandhu's ill conceived nātmāsti. In Yogācāra terms what "gets reborn" is exactly this, "personal" ālāya-vijñāna, and without this ālāya-vijñāna you can't even explain the process of rebirth in their opinion. Of course, it changed a bit, but it this exactly this, not that ālāya-vijñāna.

Literal belief in heaven annd hells etc., feels to me, is the anti-Nagārjunian, dualistic, Christian and Westerners' reification of notions. For the Classical Hindu mind everything is mind in this or that sense. Material and ideal are just emanations of the true reality.

[cappuccino]

anti-Nagārjunian

just Buddha knows the truth perfectly

[Coëmgenu]

Well, we have differing readings of the basic facts of the situation. I would contest that "literal" belief in heavens and hells is distinctly Christian or Western "reification." I know many Hindus very invested in "anticolonialism" and explicitly "non-Western" ideological stances who very literally believe in the purgation between births, for instance, and I would actually suggest that to suggest so is actually just ethnocentrism and ignorance of non-Western and non-Christian religions. The lightworld is a "real place" to the Mandaeans. The soul is a "real thing" to the Jains. I think that you should contextualize this feeling you have that belief in "other worlds" is Western and/or Christian reification.