Are we here to preach and make converts?

Question

Are we here to preach and make converts?

For me, the answer is no.

We shouldn't be a site for people with out a religious inclination or with doubt yearning for a change to a whole new system. (Blatant hypothetical question "Shouldn't we all be Mahayana by now?") We shouldn't be posting normative declarations in the form of a question. (Blatant hypothetical question "Should Buddhist be teetotalers by now?) And so on for every view ever ascribed to Buddhism. My comment about preaching should apply to answers & comments-- with the exception of advice questions. If someone is asking "What is the Buddhist thing to do about abortion, alcohol, depression, etc" and as they invariably do-- don't bother to tag with any particular school of Buddhism, then an answer is going to be somewhat prescriptive.

We shouldn't be a debate site, there is no independent third party to call a winner, no referees, no ground rules for what constitutes fair debate. Instead, we have Q & A where the winner is chosen by the question asker, or more commonly, not at all. Question askers are likely to pick an answer that suits their biases were they to post a statement for debate. (Blatant hypothetical question "A permanent, non-changing soul doesn't exist-- can you prove to me otherwise?") Maybe some enterprising reader of this post can go make a debate website.

In light of this, I urge people to ask questions with potentially factual answers, or advice questions or the many other sorts questions that get numerous upvotes — and move the preaching to their blog, the debate to one of the many forums that exist elsewhere on the net.

And I descent from my soap box, because this post is getting a little preachy.

Answer 1

If you look at other SE sites like Programming, Travel, Parenting, Cooking, English Language, Gaming, Photography etc. - most of them are based on the idea of requesting, sharing and receiving expert advice from people who have programmed, traveled, had children, cooked, played the games etc.

Very few of these sites are intended as places to copy/paste quotes from official documentation or from books on travel and parenting etc. Instead, most of the best answers come from the users who either faced the same exact problem as the questioner faces now and for various reasons were compelled to invest some serious effort into doing their homework, OR from the users who had direct and extensive experience (e.g. with traveling, raising children) -- in the area that OP has none.

Here comes my punchline. Most of the SE sites are based on experience rather than on quoting official sources. The only notable exception that comes to mind is the Fantasy and Sci-Fi site which in the large part depends on presenting quotes, by the people who seriously studied e.g. Tolkien's universe. Obviously no one can travel to Tolkien's universe and come back with direct observations. All we have is quotes.

I hope that Buddhism is an area of human activity in which people may and should have direct experience.

When a question is asked on the Programmers Stack Exchange, for example "what is the Agile approach to work estimation", the answer can certainly be "according to Poppendieck's vision of Lean we should do this, and according to Ken Schwaber's definition of Scrum, or David Anderson's presentation of Kanban, or whatever, we should do that" (="high quality, well sourced answers") -- or it can be something like "Inspired by Poppendieck's guidelines here is the method I came to prefer after trying various other approaches" or even "here is the approach to estimation that I think the best reflects the spirit of Agile based on my studies and practice". -- It is my belief that answers based on both wide study of preexisting art and on trying various methods in practice, are almost always superior to pure speculative answers or to answers discovered purely by uninformed trial-and-error.

So, are we here to preach and make converts? No. Are we here to share experience and give expert advice? Absolutely.

Answer 2

I think that the correct answer is that we are not here to make converts or preach. The overarching goal of stackexchange is to give high quality, well sourced answers in a brief and convenient format. In other words, the essence of the site's function is that of sharing information, rather than taking a position. People ask questions about what Buddhism says about x,y, or z, and other people give factual answers as to what the various traditions and schools of Buddhism have to say on it, because that's by and large a fact based style in conformity with the way the other stackexchange sites operate.

Answer 3

No. I am hear to talk, discuss, and inform, those curious about Buddhism.

The culture and beliefs are of interest to me.

I have studied them for some time. At one time I considered myself to be a Buddhist.

Though I no longer consider myself to be a Buddhist, I still enjoy talking and discussing on the topic. For me this site is an opportunity for me to talk about interests of mine, and maybe help someone find an answer to a question or two.

As soon as this site becomes about which school of Buddhist thought is correct, or starts trying to sway peoples beliefs it will begin to falter.

Though I do think this site should encourage those with questions that challenge the beliefs of Buddhism, and to try to answer them to the best of their ability without making it personal/ getting defensive. I do see that happen sometimes, thought not often at all. Overall this site does a great job of not preaching. The area to work on would be the reaction to questions that might be more challenging, or even seem disrespectful.

Answer 4

Yes, we all are here to preach and make converts. All shades of Buddhists will surely try to win converts for their set of beliefs, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing to be coy about.

Rationalism is a form of Buddhism. Gautam Buddha himself was a rationalist who questioned the established beliefs of his times, and took nothing on faith. Moved by the spirit of enquiry, Gautam Buddha established a tradition of intellectual and spiritual leadership, opposed to the traditions of followership that was prevalent in his times.

And so, rationalists too, like other schools of Buddhist thought, seek to win converts.