10.31.06
Article from Asian Tribune
Is our evolving universe an intelligent design?: this is the original article referred to in the previous post. Note that the discipline of Buddhist thinking is present. These people really don’t need any hype from the western ID movement.
Is our evolving universe an intelligent design?
Sun, 2006-10-29 02:58
By Vasantha RajaWhile the whole world is reeling with deeply depressing realities - global warming, civil wars, terrorism, nuclear threats and so on - a mind-boggling phenomenon, perhaps a far more intellectually challenging and incomparably relevant one for mankind, is raging among some eminent scientists today: Put simply, it is this: Is our evolving Universe - that has systematically produced life and intelligence in a seemingly directed manner since the Big Bang fifteen billion years ago - an Intelligent Design or not? That’s the question.
Strong prejudices surrounding the Jewish/Christian/Islamic/Hindu ‘God’, however important that concept may be to the majority of mankind today, seem to needlessly complicate the debate in counterproductive ways. These religions, though shrouded with ancient cultural values and prejudices, seem to essentially reflect the ways in which early man had glimpses of a transcendental reality. Even Buddhism, despite its atheism, talks of a transcendental existence beyond this world in the form of Nirvana. Although the Buddha always declined to describe Nirvana in terms of anything we experience on Earth, he never gave it a nihilist interpretation. The Mahayana tradition in particular (see Saddharma Pundarika sutra or Lotus sutra) interprets Nirvana as a spiritual reality where enlightened ones dwell.