[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 11:37 -0500, curt wrote:

> There has never been any other Religion - 
> not Islam, not Judaism, not Confucianism, not Buddhism, not Hinduism, 
> not Paganism, not Zoroastrianism, not Taoism, not Shinto, not Santeria, 
> etc - that has ever actively opposed scientific progress - or that has 
> viewed scientific discoveries to be "socially, morally, or emotionally 
> dangerous."

No other tradition in the past was confronted with science until fairly
recently. When confronted with science, every single one of them split
into factions, one faction accommodating traditional beliefs to science,
the other repudiating science.

> The statement quoted also possibly contains an implicit assumption that 
> "science" is a uniquely European project that began in the 17th century 
> of Our Lord.

That is not an assumption. It is a fact. No culture outside of Europe
had any science. Period. And Europe got it only recently. From there it
has gone to other places.

When scientific investigation of Buddhist writing got to Japan, a huge
scandal erupted when the dean of a Buddhist university said that Amida
Buddha was never a historical reality but was a myth that began
centuries after the death of the historical Buddha. 

-- 
Richard