[Buddha-l] Re: flat earth?

[curt]

Richard Hayes wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 May 2007 08:01, curt wrote:
>
>   
>> I cannot help returning to the
>> delicious irony of Stephen Batchelor uncritically repeating this bit of
>> misinformation whilst demanding that Buddhists (sorry, "Dharma
>> practitioners") stop believing things uncritically. 
>>     
>
> Batchelor, the last I spoke to him, was not claiming to be omniscient. He is 
> not an historian of science and so may not have read the things you have read 
> about what various people believed at various times. 
>   

Which begs the question of what he based his assertion on in the first 
place.

> I suppose the test of whether he really means what he says about thinking 
> critically is whether, when presented with good evidence, he is willing to 
> change what he says. 
>   

This raises some interesting questions. The book has been in print for 
over 10 years and is quite popular and it has propelled Batchelor into 
something of a "leader" of a "movement" (like all good "movements" they 
are now apparently changing their name from "Agnostic" Buddhism to 
"Secular" Buddhism). In all this time, when one supposes that Batchelor 
the scholar has been digging ever deeper into this matter, it has never 
occurred to him to learn even a little bit about the actual history of 
science (as opposed to the Readers Digest version). This from a man 
whose claim to fame is that he is bringing Buddhism "up to date" in the 
new light of the wonderful era of science and logic that we are so lucky 
to be living in. Also, one supposes that Batchelor's "fan base" is 
comprised of people who fancy themselves to be oh-so-scientific in their 
world view, and yet apparently none of them has caught this either.

There also happens to be a major issue here about "western" culture in 
general, and Batchelor's understanding thereof. In addition to making 
Buddhism more scientifical, Batchelor claims to be adapting it to 
"western culture". But it turns out he knows about as much about the 
history of western culture as he does about the history of science. Some 
very basic familiarity with the scientific and cultural achievements of 
classical civilization doesn't seem to be too much to ask from someone 
with Batchelor's self-proclaimed agenda.

- Curt