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Uhm... in short, we use analogies that work for the topic at hand. I don't think you can use the same analogy for everything and have it work.
Technically, just using plain English should be enough to describe/explain a topic. Analogies is just to simplify understanding.Sometimes we draw parallels with analogies because the analogy might be easier to picture in our mind. This helps specially when the topic is very complex. However, we lose some details because an analogy will (pretty much always) be a simplified model to represent our concepts.
To tackle your example, when discussing things with a devout Christian, you just don't mention "Buddhism" anywhere with your own examples, instead you try to set up an explanation that relies on human nature, psychology and logic.
At least, I think I managed to do that so far.. I didn't bring in karma nor reincarnation into the topic of life happiness at all (yet). You just can't use information which doesn't has solid scientific backup when discussing things with people. Furthermore, everything that we believe in should have some sort of manifestation in our regular life (or we wouldn't believe in it), so we can appeal to that at the worst case.
I don't know if anybody else will participate in this thread, though it was required to make it to avoid polluting the other threads with off-topic material which was nevertheless interesting to discuss about.
I think, as long as we can change topics (and not spend ten pages on the same debate) it'll be easy for new people who want to join in to get a grasp on what's going on and reply. Who knows, this thread might be over before it hits three pages.
SK7000
almost 12 years agoTechnically, just using plain English should be enough to describe/explain a topic. Analogies is just to simplify understanding.Sometimes we draw parallels with analogies because the analogy might be easier to picture in our mind. This helps specially when the topic is very complex. However, we lose some details because an analogy will (pretty much always) be a simplified model to represent our concepts.
To tackle your example, when discussing things with a devout Christian, you just don't mention "Buddhism" anywhere with your own examples, instead you try to set up an explanation that relies on human nature, psychology and logic.
At least, I think I managed to do that so far.. I didn't bring in karma nor reincarnation into the topic of life happiness at all (yet). You just can't use information which doesn't has solid scientific backup when discussing things with people. Furthermore, everything that we believe in should have some sort of manifestation in our regular life (or we wouldn't believe in it), so we can appeal to that at the worst case.
I don't know if anybody else will participate in this thread, though it was required to make it to avoid polluting the other threads with off-topic material which was nevertheless interesting to discuss about.
I think, as long as we can change topics (and not spend ten pages on the same debate) it'll be easy for new people who want to join in to get a grasp on what's going on and reply. Who knows, this thread might be over before it hits three pages.