[Buddha-l] science #3

[Dan Lusthaus]

(CONTINUED)

I suggested there might be some grounds for partial agreement. That would be
this.

Richard, you are arguing for a view of science that can only be universal
( = free from cultural or religious provincialism) if secular. Like the
Liberal political arguments of the 19th and early 20th c., and arguably
embedded in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, this presumes that
something can only be universally fair and equal to all if not committed to
one partisan or the other. The only way to guarantee freedom of religion for
all religions is to prevent govt. from making any particular religion the
official one of the state.

Further, since the "truths" uncovered by science can be abstracted from
their situations of origin so as to be adopted and applied by others in
different situations -- chemical reactions, and the formulas by which these
are described, work the same for Christians as for Daoists -- so "science"
itself somehow transcends both its originating and any of these other
situations.

There is enough validity in those propositions that they would make good
material for a lecture to a group of non-specialists, or the local PTA or
Textbook Overview Committee. As an antidote to the rightwing Christian
attempts to return us to the Dark Ages scientifically, it might even have
prove effective if doled to the right audience.

But another strategy would be to invite rightwing Christians to adopt a view
toward science that their Jewish, Muslim, Daoist, Confucian, etc., have
cherished for millenia. When all the aggadic elements in a religion can be
seen as ultimately allegorical, not "historical" or absolute, there may even
emerge a legitimate Christian Science (and not the type with an aversion to
medical science that nonetheless feels empowered and entitled to "monitor"
the rest of us).

It's worth remembering that this universalism of science and its having gone
the parochial confines of any particular religion, is itself a development
of a nearly ubiquitous religious sensibility. It is no different from the
oft-repeated Buddhist axiom that the Dharma will always have been true,
whether or not Shakyamuni or some other Buddha had discovered it or not
(even Nagarjuna subscribed to that axiom). It is also related to the
universalism espoused by Muslims, Sikhs, Bahai'is, Jews, and others, which
is that God is the universal God (as Guru Nanak said: God is not a Hindu nor
a Muslim), or as the Chinese say, Heaven impartially covers all equally, the
good and the wicked.

The advantage of finally getting Christians to take science seriously, even
as Christians, would be that the tension and struggle against science might
finally ease, after the last 500 years. Note that even living in the caves
of Afghanistan Bin Laden and his ilk have never renounced technology or
science. That disease is a specifically Christian malady.

Dan Lusthaus