From: tran@neep.engr.wisc.edu
Subject: [REL] BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: tran@neep.engr.wisc.edu
Organization: SCV Relay
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 17:08:20 GMT


1. BUDDHISM AS A SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY

   The Buddha discourages the vain search after and the theoretical discussion
of absolute notions such as the origin and the end of the universe or of the
self.  Instead, He demands, first, a study of life and phenomena in respect of
their laws.  This makes Buddhist Philosophy a scientific or positive philosophy

               (Dr. W.F. Jayasuriya, "The Psychology and Philosophy of Buddhism"

2. BUDDHISM AND MODERN SCIENCE

   "I have often said, and I shall say again and again, that between Buddhism
and modern science there exists a close intellectual bond."

                                     (Sir Edwin Arnold)

3. BUDDHISM COPES WITH SIENCE

   If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it
   would be Buddhism.

                                     (Albert Einstein)

4. BUDDHISM IS A COMBINATION OF SPECULATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY

   Philosophical conceptions are a product of two factors: one, inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other called the Scientific.  Seen thus,
Buddhism is a combination of both speculative and scientific philosophy.  It
advocates the Scientific Method and pursues that to a finality that may be called the Rationalistic.  In it are to be found answers to such question of interest
as "What are mind and matter? Of them which is of greater importance?  Is the
Universe moving towards a goal?  What is man's position? Is there living that is
noble?  It takes up where science cannot lead because of the limitations of the
latter's physical instruments.  It conquests are those of the mind.

                       (Bertrand Russell, "History of Western Philosophy")

5. BUDDHISM APPEALS TO MODERN MIND

   If Buddhism appealed to the modern mind it was because it was scientific,
empirical and not based on any dogma.

                                    (Dr. Radhakrishnan)

6. BUDDHA'S VIEWS CONFIRMED BY SCIENCE

   Indeed, the Buddha's views on phenomena are thus confirmed today by Western
science.  For, whatever our senses may say, the picture presented to us through physics of the phenomenal world, is that there is no solidity, form or
substance to be seen anywhere in the universe, but merely a collection of forces
in a perpetual state of flux, a momentary "arising and passing away".

                            (Egerton C. Baptist,"Supreme Science of the Buddha")

7. BUDDHISM BEGINS WHERE SCIENCE ENDS

   Science can give no assurance herein.  But Buddhism can meet Atomic Challenge
because the supramundane knowledge of Buddhism begins where science leaves off.
And this is clear enough to anyone who has made a study of Buddhism.  For,
through Buddhist Meditation, the atomic constituents making up matter have been
seen and felt, and the sorrow, or unsatisfactoriness (or,Dukkha), of their
"arising and passing away" (dependent on causes) has made itself with what we call a "soul" or "atman"- the illusion of Sakkayaditthi (substance-view), as it is
called in the Buddha's teaching.

                                          (Ibid.)

8. TRANSIENCY OF ELECTRO-MAGNETISM

   Here, then, is a beautiful explanation of the puzzling harmony of the Cosmos
without recourse to a mysterious unknown -God.  The Buddha encompasses both
gravitational and electro-magnetism in His Doctrine of Anicca -Transiency.

                                          (Ibid.)

9. CAUSE AND EFFECT

   Man reaps the results of causes he has put in motion in the past.  His sense
of ethical values is derived from the knowledge, clear in some, obscure in
others, but present to some degree in nearly all human beings, that there is an
actual fact a retributive and compensatory at work in nature.  The theist
attributes it to God; but the Buddhist, seeing no evidence for the existence of
a creator in a universe which is indifferent to suffering, seeks no further 
than the natural law of cause and effect.

                                          (Francis Story)


I will not discuss the above quotations.  

Chu'c T. Nga^n

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