Revelation 4:11
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Posted on 06/15/2005 8:29:43 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
In the re-emerging debate over creationism, intelligent design and evolution, much has been made of the need to keep religious faith out of the classroom. If this were accomplished, it would, of course, be a great loss, for if religious faith is removed from the classroom, physics, chemistry, and biology will have to be dispensed with and the hard sciences will be completely lost to us. This is a point that is lost on most of the people in the debate.
Take, for instance, the foundational premise of physics: reality exists. As members of a Christian Western culture, we often have a hard time understanding how fully those two words represent a specific religious viewpoint. To assert that reality is not an illusion, but is, in fact, substantial is to take sides in a long-standing religious debate.
The Hebrew and Christian faith insists on independent physical reality. The Hindu, the Buddhist, the Taoist traditions, along with any number of similar religious traditions, hold precisely the opposite viewpoint. For these other faith traditions, reality is not only an illusion, but an obstacle to real peace. Christians say that in order to achieve peace, we must needs work for justice. Other religious traditions say that to achieve peace, we must recognize physical reality as an illusion, an artifact of the mind, a stumbling block that prevents our achieving total union with Nirvana or Moksha Nothingness. For Christians, peace comes from a full transformation from our fallen selves into who we are. For others, peace comes from completely extinguishing who we are.
The idea that physical reality has an independent existence with laws that operate both upon it and upon me is a religious concept because it simultaneously insists we have the ability to know something outside of ourselves and insists there is something outside of ourselves to be known. After all, the very word “religion” is derived from “re-ligare” the Greek words for “tying back together.” For Christians, our investigation of physical reality is part of our task as persons. Through it, we begin to tie back together a reality that was irretrievably broken at some earlier point in time.
This is an important point, for investigation is only possible by means of a pre-existing purpose, and this purpose is the foundation of the statement “reality exists.” Let me explain. No one investigates a thing without having a purpose in mind. The purpose directs and forms the investigation. We investigate in order to establish “why.” But, where reality has no real existence, there is no “why.” Investigation is purposeless and therefore not undertaken. Thus, the statement “reality exists” assumes not only that the investigator exists, it also assumes that the thing to be investigated has a “why” associated with it. In short, “reality exists” assumes the existence of purpose in both the investigator and the thing to be investigated.
The search for a unified field theory is one example of such an assumption in action. The hard sciences exist only because an ordered reality pre-exists them. If the universe were formless chaos, there would be no underlying reality upon which logic could function, nor, arguably, would there be a way to demonstrate the existence of logic at all. Logic would be the illusion instead of the tool.
Physics tells us we can treat the particles that compose the universe as information packets. Physics does not point out the obvious: information exists only where purpose exists. Where reality is an illusion that repeats on an endlessly cyclic basis, there is no information to glean, no reality to tie together.
The Eastern faith traditions are, in this sense, not religions at all, for they carry no sense of the need to heal reality. Even the healing of the individual is accomplished only through personal self-annihilation, the removal of information (although they would call it the removal of illusion) from the equation. For them, the reality is simple: there is no equation.
As this discussion should demonstrate, it is no more possible to remove religion from the classroom than it is to remove religion from public discourse. If we would say “reality exists,” we have injected religion into the classroom. If we say “reality is an illusion,” we have avoided injecting religion into the classroom, but only by virtue of having denied the need for a classroom at all.
The next essay will discuss how science has reached the absurd position of denying its own reality.
Revelation 4:11
See my profile for info
Good points.
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The author is a bit off key on Eastern religion, but his underlying point is valid.
Not much. Buddhism really has no theology, which makes the comparison hard to make. I would simply say that a Japanese who is both a Buddhist and a scientists has to keep his religious and his scientific views compartmentalized.
I concur. I'm no expert on Eastern religions, but it looks to me like he's overextrapolating from a rudimentary knowledge of Buddhist philosophy.
He does make good points about the spiritual implications of science (a consideration that drove me into the field). It's great to discuss the ramifications of science in a spiritual light; though the point should also be made that the methods of scientific inquiry and deduction must necessarily remain agnostic and free of dogmatic influence (inasmuch as that is humanly possible).
1) No such thing as Buddhist philosophy
2) Realism is the philosophical basis of modern sciience.
As I said, my knowledge in this is very limited, so I won't argue this point. What term would be better to define how Buddhism views existence? (Nihilism, perhaps? I'm honestly at loss here.)
2) Realism is the philosophical basis of modern science.
This one I have to differ with, at least when it comes to our perception of matter/energy on a subatomic scale, where Quantum Mechanics has shown that, even on a fundamental level, it is impossible to observe a system without affecting the quantity you attempt to observe (i.e. the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle), in essence making reality subjective (at an atomic level). QM doesn't show that realism dosen't objectively 'work' at this level, but it shows that it is hidden from observation in a foolproof way. (Bell's Inequality showed this explicitly, formulated in 1964 and never shown to be violated.)
Weird stuff indeed.
The relation of science and faith is discussed in "Modern Physics and Ancient Faith".
Depends on how you define theology. If you define it as the study of the nature of God, Buddhism is mute on the question of God's existence - in an attempt to avoid substituting theology (talking about God) for direct experience. It does however affirm that the universe is founded in compassion. Hinduism, it's parent religion, has a quite rich theology.
If you define it as "inquiry into religious questions," with prime question of who are we and what is our relationship to the cosmos then buddhism certainly has theology.
a Japanese who is both a Buddhist and a scientists has to keep his religious and his scientific views compartmentalized.
No more so than the contemplative Christian, and I believe both would say the objective is to bring what they have learned about the nature of reality to their everyday life most especially their livlihood.
I will agree with you on the aspect of duality, that Cartesian views sparked Western science which quickly outpaced Eastern science. I think now Western science can benefit from non-dualism.
Another tact.. Medieval Europe had far more machines than did China. Though China was in many respects much richer and more sophisticated than Europe, though they built great fleets while the Europeans were developing caravels less than half the size of junks, the "drive" behind European sailing vessels was propelled by a technology that was founded on deeper principles than China's. Maybe it boils down to a choice to let machines do the work of men.
Like Rome, China had everything needed to develop science except the right mindset.
the methods of scientific inquiry and deduction must necessarily remain agnostic and free of dogmatic influence
Yes, it has to in order to remain pure scientific method. Oddly enough, buddhism takes the same approach to religious inquiry - it is in a way an empirical approach to a different subject. Science must also remain valueless (in the larger sense of the word).
inasmuch as that is humanly possible
A good qualification. It's interesting to me how much scientists look for "beauty" in their explorations: " a beautiful solution" is often sought or seen as another criteria of its truth. Beauty of course is an attribute of God and certainly not a quantifiable scientific quality.
Excellent article. Thanks.
Definitely not nihilism. Non-dual would come close or be exact if you change it to "how buddhism views human existence."
One of the primary tenets is that our perception that we exist "in here" and the universe "out there" is an illusion - that we are not separate, not subject object, but a single experience of reality - an illusion that when combined with the illusion of permanence causes our suffering. A second tenet is that the truth about existence can be known through direct personal experience.
Another interesting difference that has wide implications is that buddhism counts another sense more than the five senses of the West. It also counts intellect/consciousness as a sense.
Except that what passes as Buddhist "theology" is more like western theosophism. I do not "get" Buddhism" but I think that just as Greek philosophy was transmuted by Christian theologicans, Buddhist "thought" is know to us through western/westernizerd writers who were looking for alternatives to Christianity. It seems to be that Buddhism is more a matter of discipline , ritual, and local culture than a logical construct.
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