[Buddha-l] Hindu Fundamentalism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2005-08-02 at 22:58 -0400, curt wrote:

> To say that "there is no scientific evidence of Ram and Krishna"
> is nearly meaningless.

It's perfectly meaningful to me. Which word did you not understand?

> Is there some accepted criterion for what "scientific evidence" for
> the "existence" of a God might look like?

Observability would be a start.

> This is clearly an example of an anti-religious bias masquerading as
> scientifical "objectivity".

Oh for heaven's sake, Curt. There is nothing in the least bit anti-
religious in making the claim that a religious dogma has no scientific
foundation. It's not even anti-religious to say a religious dogma has no
historical grounding. It's just plain straightforward to say that a
religious dogma is a religious dogma and not a scientific or historical
truth. What might make such a claim anti-religious would be to add a
gratuitious policy advocation to that straightforward claim. If, for
example, one were to add that people who act on religious dogmas should
be rounded up and shipped to Mars, THAT would perhaps be anti-religious.
Similarly, there is nothing at all biased or anti-religious in saying
that there is no historical evidence that Jesus was crucified, no
scientific evidence that the dead can be resurrected, no scientific
evidence that a personal consciousness survives the death of a body and
goes out in search of another body, and neither scientific nor
historical evidence that Yahweh gave Israel to the Hebrews for all
eternity.

-- 
Richard Hayes