[Buddha-l] teaching creationism

[curt]

It sounds like potentially interesting reading, and since these fellows 
come down on that side of the question I might need to add them to the 
suggested reading list, although I don't think they'll make the cut for 
the required list. I am very embarrassed, though, that I neglected to 
include either the Poimandres or Philo of Alexandria's writings on 
Genesis in the required list. No discussion of "Creation" could even be 
conceivable without Poimandres - and if we must drag in Genesis, then 
the only saving grace is Philo. Except for Elaine Pagels, that is (but 
she must, unfortunately, be relegated to the recommended list).

But here's a serious question. Does anyone actually consider the 
Buddha's physician analogy a convincing argument against metaphysical 
speculation?? I sure don't. The last thing I want in a doctor's bedside 
manner is a 'tude like that. Doctor's who refuse to explain what they 
are doing and why (especially when the refusal is absolute and on 
principle) should be avoided.

- Curt

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 11:14 -0400, curt wrote:
>
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>>Here is a tentative reading list for a class (that exists only in my 
>>mind) on "Creation and Cosmology"
>>    
>>
>
>I would wish to add to that list Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's
>thought-provoking book The Universe Story. A shorter, but no less
>thought-provoking, piece by Berry is his address to Harvard Divinity
>School in 1996 (http://ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm) in which he speaks
>of the shortcomings of the modern university, the inadequacies of a
>legal system that has as its principal frame of reference the deeply
>flawed US Constitution, the institutionalized greed of international
>corporations and the failure of churches to address the most pressing
>issues of our time. (The churches are criticized for failing to realize
>that God's primary form of revelation is the world of nature, not a
>bunch of sentences in a book.)
>
>It's a beautifully thought out and eloquent diatribe that every educator
>on the planet Earth should be required to read. The tone is more gentle
>in many ways but every bit as compelling as Ralph Waldo Emerson's
>trenchant address to Harvard Divinity School a century and a half
>earlier.
>
>If one is looking for intelligent versions of Intelligent Design, Swimme
>and Berry are a good place to start. (You can get a clear-worded
>introduction at http://ecoethics.net/ops/tucker.htm). Theirs is not the
>two-dimensional presentation of Christian Fundamentalists whose agenda
>is to smuggle the Bible into biology classes, but the combined work of a
>physicist specializing in gravitational field theory and a Jesuit who
>spent his life studying not only Christian theology but the religions
>and philosophies of India. While it is pretty obvious that Berry owes a
>big debt to neo-Vedanta and to some of the later forms of Buddhism, it
>is also obvious that he is prepared to be every bit as critical of
>institutionalized Buddhism as he is of the US constitution (the
>document, not the battleship) and of traditional Catholicism and
>Puritanism.
>
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