Contradiction and pan-buddhism vs. zen or secular buddhism

There was a controversy going on in r/buddhism and I jumped in with a comment which I hope to expand and go into in grater detail here

I was responding to a now deleted account who seemed to summarize the debate

Non buddhism is buddhism

I am a vegan and I eat meat

How about "I'm a vegetarian and I use leather?" Contradictory also, right? "Isn't if funny that a person will eat if they're hungry, but they'll get mad at you if you throw an apple at their face?"

I once was at a zen center and we were handing out candy as part of a celebration. One of the people there asked: isn’t it contradictory for us, zen buddhists, to give out candy when it’s bad for your teeth? I think in lots of situations you can look for hypocrisy or contradiction and it can serve instead of against ignorance, it can serve against you, so you don’t do important things. In this case the candy was a way to give small gifts, and bring a small joy to those passing by.

I think plenty of buddhist figures have invited atheists into buddhism. Plenty of times they have said Buddhism is a philosophy of how to live and not really having supernatural as important to it, that it is not religious ideology.

In the introduction to Instant Zen a certain flavor of talk seems similar to what goes on with the discussion of “secular zen”

The effort to extract useful knowledge and pragmatic procedures from ancient lore is a hallmark of the original science of mind known as Zen. While many sects and cults eventually grew up around the traces of original Zen, as a rule these spinoffs returned to the very same sort of sentimental religiosity and dogmatic authoritarianism that original Zen eschewed, making them useless, even counterproductive, in the way of Zen mind liberation.

Are the fantastical or religious elements important? Or is the important thing in zen or buddhism something like nirvana? Letting go of attachment, hate, ignorance?

Layman P'ang seemed one individual who was somehow outside of monastic Buddhism, while fulfilling the requirements for a Zen Master. I think Nagarjuna spoke similarly, negated the buddha vehicle. I wouldn't be surprised if "Secular Buddhists" can fit in buddhism even while negating important parts of buddhism.

From Nagarjuna (quoted here

The Victorious Ones have declared that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible. [MK 13.8]

I reverently bow to Gautama who, out of compassion, has taught the doctrine in order to relinquish all views. – [MK 26.30]

Sectarism or antinomy seems pretty common. It's not easy to be pan-buddhist, I presume, because of situations like that.

In this context views about helping others or meditation: whether those are important or not can be a detail, right? All views on that are similarly to be rejected, relinquished.