fantôme profane Offline
Religion: Pantheistic Mystic
Title:quintessence of dust
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Originally Posted by Tiapan View Post
Yep I made a mistake because I grouped Buddhism with the monotheistic group - my bad. I would however claim it is just another top down faith. Therefore it fits exactly with other organized religions. As such it also fails to be reconcilable with science, since once again it is top-down not bottom-up. Therefore flawed as an ideology. But I must admit its probably closer than the rest. Read previous posts please
Interesting. Could you be more specific? What specifically in Buddhism is irreconcilable with science?
(edit to add interesting quote)
Quote:
“If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” - the Dalai Lama
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As a skeptic I will always question anything "Super" Natural.
The premise I am stating for debate, is as follows:
Most organized religions assign, all that is known and unknown or "cannot" be determined as the property of an omnipresent of mystical Spirit who is running the show, and somehow has the ability to bend the laws of chemistry and physics to achieve "Miracles", like creating the universe, water to wine etc. In Judaism and Christianity it is God, in Islam it is Allah, in Buddhism it is Karma, Spirituality and rebirth through a succession of lifetimes. etc, etc.
Does Buddhism state there is a spiritual side to man, does it believe in things such as "Rebirth". Buddhism is actually a collection of similar theologies. Its hard to put the finger on exactly which one is saying what. This contrasts markedly with the dogmatic blinkered monolibristic (One Book) monotheistic cultures of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic theologies. In other words some all pervading super thing/stuff/imaginary-friend somehow wanders about watching and organizing the universe, using methods beyond physics. TOP DOWN THEORY.
The actual evidence suggests that quarks coalesced from a very hot beginning "The Big Bang" and as the universe cooled the more particles aggregated. Then over a very very long time, some arrange in one particular way that has allowed life to initiate, at least in this earth environment. It was for very important reasons based on Carbon, allowing sentience and intelligence to develop later. All this because things tend to become more complex with time naturally, as a direct consequence of the laws of Entropy, Enthalpy applied in chaos theory. BOTTOM UP THEORY.
At present humans are the temporary custodians of the power in our local solar neighborhood. Might I suggest we have already been surpassed in this role, by more powerful organisms. No longer are we the smart noble hunter gather at the top of the food chain. Like the oldest continuous culture in the world, the Australian Aborigines, some 50 thousand years.
First an analogy: What is more powerful the bee or the hive, the termite or its mound, the wasp or its nest, the piranha or its school? My point is if we define life as anti-entropic evolving adapting systems with the ability to reproduce and expand, then these societies of "minor" organisms constitute a separate recognizable species in their own right. (Sentience is a desirable attribute of life but not an essential one).
After all animals are simply a socialist co-operative of billions of symbiotic cells, where the function of a individual constituent cell is very different to the behavior of animal as a whole in both form, function and morphology, where one is the embodiment of the total society of individual cells, essential to the well being of the whole, hence the symbiosis.
These are currently not recognized as separate species instead they are grouped as biological cooperative societies. The analogy to life is obvious as the form, function and morphology of the society are quite different to the individual constituent organisms. Anyway on this basis I will apply the rule of evolution that is key "Survival of the fittest", in other words the one who competes and lives longest, adapts and reproduces most successfully wins. (Bit like Monopoly isn't it)
These new organisms have more power over your life and death than you may wish they had.
These powerful social organisms live far longer than humans, they consume huge resources and energy, they excrete massive amounts of waste, they use vast energy, they do amazing work, they reproduce and expand, they adapt to changes in environment.they can generate move billions of dollars( the new blood of higher life), they can send men to Mars.
They are in fact the life forms I now define as religions, Nations (Geographic) and Multinational Corporations. They are all gladiators in a battle for supremacy with no holds barred (including nice godly ones). They are in the midst of a kick arse battle to see which system is best, but at the cost of millions of human lives. This is the law of the jungle (survival) and we have been surpassed by the very creatures we have created and must now live by their rules. Each has its own individual demographics, loyalties, boundaries and interests which are different and conflict with other groups. These new organisms are more powerful and decisive than any individual human king queen or president which are these biological juggernaut's figureheads. (look at QE2 and the British)
It is for exactly this reason that God and Religions were invented as a social control mechanism about 8000 years ago, it succeeded as a working system that allowed the development of early agrarian social systems and saw the demise of nomadic systems, and has continued to the present.
This is all very predictable through evolutionary theory. Yet this is often strongly denied by many of religious and spiritual ilk, they cannot accept the concept that humans are a transitional species of ape evolving gradually into some future species, we are NOT the end product. This contradicts the words in their "one" books. We were not made perfectly, out if clay (other than metaphorically), by some super guru. We are not one person stealing another persons mind and body when we die (rebirth).
What we evolve into eventually, if there is in fact an end, is open to speculation. With genetic engineering, molecular biology, semiconductors and nanoparticle technologies available the possibilities become very interesting. Homo Silicus or Homo Omnipotentensis perhaps? Will the internet as an exponentially growing massive neural network become sentient in some new genesis? Science says it may well do. Has this already occurred?
Metaphorically many aspects of religious teachings may in fact be interesting analogies of the sentient observation of our natural universe. As such they are a product of this natural Universe but not necessarily the cause of it. Pantheism and Panentheism equate God and the natural Universe as either equivalent or part of God. A nice politically correct notion of a bet each way, that really takes no one any where.
What if God IS a figment of the imagination, does this mean that the natural universe is also a figment of our imagination. Do I hear existentialism? Or IS it possible the Natural Universe exists but God/Spirit/Karma does not?
BTW If there was no Natural Universe eg before "the Big Bang" or after "the Big Crunch", would the God/Spirit/Karma still exist?
Hence my initial premise that the quintessential difference between religious thinking and scientific thinking is that they are founded on axiomatically opposed bases. As such I postulate they are mutually exclusive.
“If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” - the Dalai Lama
There is hope yet.
