[Buddha-l] it's not about belief

[curt]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>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. 
>
OK - we are obviously differing on the definition of "science", and I 
don't want to argue over definitions (but see below). If we keep to the 
statement that I quoted - the author of that statement clarifies his 
meaning by stating that the work of Copernicus and Darwin provide the 
most "obvious" examples of what he is talking about. Lets take them one 
at a time.

Copernicus lived in the 16th century - but his most revolutionary 
contribution to science was based directly on work done by Aristarchus 
of Samos - who lived in the 3rd century B.C. Aristarchus not only 
proposed that the earth orbits around the sun (the idea picked up by 
Copernicus), he also proposed that the moon orbits around the earth, 
that the apparent light of the moon is reflected light from the sun - 
and he also managed to accurately calculate the relative sizes of the 
earth and the moon. Other Greek astronomers calculated such things as 
the distance between the earth and the moon, and the size of the earth 
itself. Isaac Asimov's excellent book "The Universe" has an extensive 
section at the beginning about the accomplishments of ancient 
astronomers. While it is true that Aristarchus' "heliocentric" 
hypothesis was widely rejected - he was not arrested and threatened with 
torture for his proposal, nor did he suffer any abuse whatsoever - and 
there is no record of any authorities, Religious or otherwise, declaring 
his ideas to be "dangerous". Copernicus died (also unmolested, I 
believe) without ever proving that his theory, or, rather, his attempt 
to revive Aristarchus' theory, was correct. But when Galileo claimed to 
have verified that Copernicus and Aristarchus were correct and that the 
earth does indeed orbit the sun - he was dragged before the Inquisition 
twice, threatened with torture, forced to recant under threat of 
torture, and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest - 
and it became a criminal offense to publish or possess any of Galileo's 
writings.* I don't think there is anything even remotely resembling 
these event in any other Religion - but I would be most interested in 
hearing about it if I am wrong.

Darwin lived in the 19th century and proposed a theory of evolution by 
natural selection. Christians who adhered to a literal interpretation of 
the Book of Genesis objected to Darwin's theory because it proved that 
they were wrong. Darwin's theory and the Christian literalist opposition 
to it can be best understood in the context of advances in geological 
sciences that were going on at the same time - which allowed for 
scientists to begin to accurately measure the age of the earth - in 
billions of years (as opposed to the 4000 year date arrived at by 
literalist "calculations"). The only doctrinal basis for the Christian 
opposition to evolution is a narrow, literalist interpretation of the 
Bible that is also completely contradicted by these advances in 
geological sciences. I know of no other Religion, outside of 
"fundamentalist" Christianity that holds such views. In fact, there are 
some Muslims who claim that Darwin ripped off his theory from them! 
Jewish scholars have a long and proud tradition of allegorical and 
metaphorical (as opposed to literal) exegesis - Philo of Alexandria (a 
Platonist and a Hellenized Jew) - is one of the best known examples of 
this very old tradition. Buddhists and Hindus traditionally believe that 
the earth and all life on it is many "kalpas" old - I forget how long 
that is in years, but it is compatible with modern science, more or 
less, and I have never heard of any Buddhist or Hindu who claimed that 
either modern Biology or modern Geology are wrong because the Sutras or 
the Vedas say so. Has anyone else?


>When confronted with science, every single one of them split
>into factions, one faction accommodating traditional beliefs to science,
>the other repudiating science.
>  
>
Hmmm - really? Are there any school boards in India or Japan that have 
ever refused to "teach evolution" and instead have students read from 
the Sutras or Vedas during Biology class?

The claim that science is a new thing in human history would have been 
news to Francis Bacon, Galileo and Isaac Newton - who clearly saw 
themselves and their scientific activities as part of an ancient 
tradition. They enthusiastically identified themselves with men (and 
women) of learning from Classical Greece and Rome - such as Aristarchus, 
Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Eritosthenes, etc. They clearly wished to 
break with the recent past - but they also wished to reconnect with the 
more ancient past, when intellectual inquiry had been free an 
unfettered. Moreover, in ancient times not only did Religion not oppose 
science - but scientists did not generally oppose Religion, either. 
Modern science, such as it is, is merely good at producing technical 
wonders. But what good is a scientist who has no moral compass? The 
scientists who developed nuclear weapons, for instance, can be divided 
into two camps: those like Oppenheimer who had some understanding of the 
ethical implications of what they were doing but went ahead anyway, and 
those like Feynman who had no idea that there were any such ethical 
implications in the first place. And today - what good are medical 
researchers who are willing to assist drug companies in hiding important 
medical information from the general public (like data on drug 
side-effects)?

- Curt

* P.S. In 1992 Pope John Paul II "rehabilitated" Galileo Galilei, and 
stated that he had been sentenced "in error". Interestingly, the Pope 
insisted that the Church had acted in good faith, and that the mistake 
was due to the Church having received bad information. Sound familiar?