05.27.11
Single-Payer in Vermont
Amy Goodman: Single-Payer in Vermont, A State of Healthy Firsts
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/26-4
05.26.11
Most Distant Object in the Universe
Cosmic Explosion Is New Candidate for Most Distant Object in the UniverseScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — A gamma-ray burst detected by NASA’s Swift satellite in April 2009 has been newly unveiled as a candidate for the most distant object in the universe. At an estimated distance of 13.14 billion light years, the burst lies far beyond any known quasar and could be more distant than any previously known galaxy or gamma-ray burst. Multiple lines of evidence in favor of a record-breaking distance for this burst, known as GRB 090429B for the 29 April 2009 date when it was discovered, are presented in a paper by an international team of astronomers led by former Penn State University graduate student Antonino Cucchiara, now at the University of California, Berkeley.
Religions ‘reincarnating’
After our discussions of Buddhism and rebirth, it is worth considering the issues of religion in the context of the so-called ‘eonic effect’. The term ‘eonic’, referring to ‘eons’ and also to the electronic term ‘eonic’, is apt in the sense that religion itself keeps ‘reincarnating’ (so to speak, speaking with a metaphor) in each new epoch in the eonic series. Part of the debate over Buddhism springs from the failure to see that this religion has to ‘reincarnatte’, as its Axial Age birth and sequence are now a part of ancient history.
Are Atheists The Most Faithful Believers?
http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/are-atheists-the-most-faithful-believers/
Top 10 New Species
T. Rex Leech, Titanic-Eating Bacterium, Batfish That Hops and Glow-in-the-Dark Fungi: Scientists List Top 10 New SpeciesScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and a committee of taxonomists from around the world — scientists responsible for species exploration and classification — announced their picks for the top 10 new species described in 2010. The May 23 announcement coincided with the anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who was responsible for the modern system of plant and animal names and classifications.
Harris’ goofy misuse of the ‘killing the buddha’ theme
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/killing-the-buddha/
We cited this essay yesterday, with some critique. I am surprised that Harris would publish this. It is bad stuff.
The theme of ‘killing the buddha’ should be avoided at this point. As here, the usage is deteriorating into something totally wrong, and almost ominous.
I was not present at the creation of this term, but its meaning is easy to infer. I could be wrong, but I doubt I am too far off:
The idea of ‘killing the buddha’ referred to the way consciousness in relation to traditional texts or teaching, especially books, or repetitively conditioned beliefs about Buddhism, loses the real dimension of understanding.
This mechanization of thought is a characteristic theme of Zen Buddhism, which tries many techniques to make a student snap out of his mesmerized ‘buddhism’.
The phrase is taken over ad infinitum now, and rarely refers to this original context of meaning.
Now with Harris, who is not a buddhist, the term seems to refer to destroying buddhism as such, not the intent of the original saying, whose intent was surely to fulfill the teachings.
Harris is too focussed on science, neuroscience, and the brain. FORGET THE BRAIN, for a moment. Use the ‘software’, a set of mental objects, rather than obsessing over the ‘hardware’.
By the same token this analogy reminds we might learn something from neuroscience, but at this point, as with Harris, it is being used to undermine something like buddhism in toto.
Everything possible from the software can be do without reference to the brain: indeed the final stage of that is ‘enlightenment’ beyond the hardware (body and brain).
Rajneesh book with reincarnation details
http://mmoutreachinc.com/cult_groups/rajneesh.html
An ancient web page from the Bible Belt denouncing Rajneesh ironically contains the link to the tale of his previous lives. The book is now hard to obtain.
REINCARNATION
Rajneesh taught, not a strict reincarnation, but a form of progressive transmigration. Rajneesh believed that his last previous birth was 700 years ago, and that he was 106 years old when he died. (Dimensions Beyond the Known, pp.68,76).
The Bible refutes both reincarnation and transmigration with the words in Hebrews 9:27,
“It is appointed unto men to die ONCE and after this comes judgment.”
The idea of progresssive transmigration is actually an intriguing take, but in the end the same as that of ‘reincarnation’, more or less.
Comment(s) from ‘a secular buddhist’
Another comment from ‘a secular buddhist’, plus follow the thread of comments there.
http://darwiniana.com/2011/05/22/a-secular-buddhist/comment-page-1/#comment-357887
Richard
207.138.47.153 Submitted on 2011/05/26 at 8:50 am
Star,You’ve written one of the dumbest posts I’ve ever read. The suttas have to be read in context and you have to realize that the discourses are given to people who are at different stages of the path. Those at the beginning are spoken to in terms of personal narratives (you have to start somewhere!!!) and more advanced practitioners are give instructions of a more phenomenological, stripped-down nature.
“That they believe this doesn’t make it true that the Buddha did. ”
If we’re not going to take the earliest scriptures as a reasonable account of what the Buddha taught, then what is really the point of Buddhism? Is every practitioner supposed to follow their own predilections in creating their own Buddhism. I think postmodernism (in addition to scientism) is really inducing a lot of stupidity in people.
“…it rests on mistranslating and misunderstanding MN 117, in which the Buddha says that the “tainted right view” that includes belief in the efficacy of karma keeps one generating the aggregates of clinging”
Pure bullsh*t.
In that discourse, the point is that those whose minds aren’t yet enlightened are still stuck in the samsaric system. Only those who have reached the the transcendent level have transcended karma. Don’t flatter yourself…you’re not anywhere near that level.
“And what is right view? Right view, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right view with effluents [asava], siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.
“”And what is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions? ‘There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are priests & contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’ This is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions.
“And what is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The discernment, the faculty of discernment, the strength of discernment, analysis of qualities as a factor for Awakening, the path factor of right view of one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is free from effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.117.than.html
Star,
You’ve written one of the dumbest posts I’ve ever read. The suttas have to be read in context and you have to realize that the discourses are given to people who are at different stages of the path. Those at the beginning are spoken to in terms of personal narratives (you have to start somewhere!!!) and more advanced practitioners are give instructions of a more phenomenological, stripped-down nature.
“That they believe this doesn’t make it true that the Buddha did. ”
If we’re not going to take the earliest scriptures as a reasonable account of what the Buddha taught, then what is really the point of Buddhism? Is every practitioner supposed to follow their own predilections in creating their own Buddhism. I think postmodernism (in addition to scientism) is really inducing a lot of stupidity in people.
“…it rests on mistranslating and misunderstanding MN 117, in which the Buddha says that the “tainted right view” that includes belief in the efficacy of karma keeps one generating the aggregates of clinging”
Pure bullsh*t.
In that discourse, the point is that those whose minds aren’t yet enlightened are still stuck in the samsaric system. Only those who have reached the the transcendent level have transcended karma. Don’t flatter yourself…you’re not anywhere near that level.
“And what is right view? Right view, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right view with effluents [asava], siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right view, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.
“”And what is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions? ‘There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are priests & contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’ This is the right view that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions.
“And what is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The discernment, the faculty of discernment, the strength of discernment, analysis of qualities as a factor for Awakening, the path factor of right view of one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is free from effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right view that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.117.than.html
Richard
1
Canine Tooth from ‘Peking Man’
Unique Canine Tooth from ‘Peking Man’ Found in Swedish Museum Collection
ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — Fossils from so-called Peking man are extremely rare, as most of the finds disappeared during World War II. A unique discovery has been made at the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University — a canine tooth from Peking Man, untouched since it was dug up in the 1920s in China.
Intuitions Regarding Geometry
Intuitions Regarding Geometry Are Universal, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — All human beings may have the ability to understand elementary geometry, independently of their culture or their level of education.
Violent Video Games
Violent Video Games Reduce Brain Response to Violence and Increase Aggressive Behavior, Study Suggests
ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — Scientists have known for years that playing violent video games causes players to become more aggressive. The findings of a new University of Missouri (MU) study provide one explanation for why this occurs: the brains of violent video game players become less responsive to violence, and this diminished brain response predicts an increase in aggression.
Using Microbes to Generate Electricity?
Using Microbes to Generate Electricity?ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — Using bacteria to generate energy is a significant step closer following a breakthrough discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Vermont and universal health care
Published on Thursday, May 26, 2011 by the Burlington Free Press
Vermont Gov. Shumlin Signs Health Care Reform Bill
by Nancy Remsen
Optimistic that the rain would hold off and Vermont’s health reform bill would make history, Gov. Peter Shumlin stood on the steps outside the Statehouse Thursday and signed a law that puts Vermont on the road toward a universal health care system
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/26-4
Netanyahu on the Hill
Bibi and the Yo-Yos
By URI AVNERY
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery05262011.html
It was all rather disgusting.
There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu.
It was worse than the Syrian parliament during a speech by Bashar Assad, where anyone not applauding could find himself in prison. Or Stalin’s Supreme Soviet, when showing less than sufficient respect could have meant death.
The Road to Hell
Jim Hightower: Privatization: The Road to Hell
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-3
Robert Reich: Paul Ryan
Robert Reich: Paul Ryan Still Doesn’t Get It
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-14
‘Frontline’ WikiLeaks Program
Greg Mitchell: ‘Frontline’ WikiLeaks Program: No Meat, Just a Goldfish
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-5
Hype about US Debt
Sally Kohn: Don’t Believe the Hype about US Debt
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-15
Race to the Bottom
Gregory Michie: Race to the Bottom: The Trouble with “Innovation” in Schools
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-12
Move Over Machiavelli
Mary Bottari: Move Over Machiavelli: WI GOP Kills Public Financing to Pay for Voter Suppression
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-13
Rhetoric Hides Dirty Secrets
Jeremy Scahill: Rhetoric Hides Dirty Secrets on Blackwater; US War in Yemen
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2011/05/25-0
‘Betrayal’ of Atomic Bomb Survivor
US Nuclear Tests ‘Betrayal’ of Atomic Bomb Survivors
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-0
Nuclear Safety Checks
UK, France Lobby to Water Down Nuclear Safety Checks
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/25-5
Wall Street’s Con Game
David Korten: 7 Ways to Stop Wall Street’s Con Game
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/25-8
Naked Capitalism
RG mail
Are we entering a new phase of economic maturity?
by Philip Pilkington, a journalist and anti-economist writing from amidst
the devastated ruins of Dublin, Ireland
Naked Capitalism (May 24 2011)
All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.
— John Kenneth Galbraith
What’s the easiest way to embarrass an economist? Okay, that’s a bit of a
trick question. After all, economics is a pretty embarrassing profession
and there are a million questions you could put to an economist that would
likely turn his or her cheeks red. You could, for example, approach your
typical ‘academic of ill-repute’ and ask them if they saw the bursting of
the US housing bubble coming or the unsustainable debt-overload that
accompanied it – yep, that would probably do the trick.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/05/philip-pilkington-beyond-growth-are-we-entering-a-new-phase-of-economic-maturity.html
05.25.11
The revolution of buddhism, and the mystery of secularism
Aryans, Hinduism,
And a Buddhist Revolution
The synchronous emergence of Buddhism and the proto-religions of monotheism seen in the Israelite theocratic state and its classic epic literature (the Old Testament) is a strong reminder that even Buddhism is bound to the wheel of evolutionary civilization (as it should be, though not ‘bound’).
The utter mess made by the Israelites (and later Christians) of the now lost original vision of monotheism (visible in the trace references to IHVH, bypassing all ‘names of god’) is part of the reason so many (Jewish) New Atheists are adamantly trying to lead people beyond that history. But the substitute cult of scientism is so totally impoverished that it is actually going to a feed a revival of these traditions.
The contrasting brilliance of Buddhism is also misleading: the hidden gnostic dynamism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is not something that the style of Biblical Criticism can properly critique. But the legacy of Buddhism is far more ancient than that of monotheism, which is suspect as an ideology manufactured at a stage of globalization in world history. At least its real intent is clear, in the context of degenerated monotheism.
I think that the real history of buddhism as indicated in Bazaz’s The Role of the Bhagavad Gita in Indian History, http://www.gurdjieff-con.net/index.php?s=bazaz, is an exciting reminder of buddhism’s revolutionary character, followed by its destruction by the neo-brahmin reaction, a tale excitingly told in Bazaz’s book.
But that history should remind us that a cycle of buddhism is now complete, right on schedule, and the coming degenerations are already visible. A new vision is required, and a new start. But that is a lot to expect.
The trick is to make secularism carry the load, and the trick to that is to see beyond the reductionist scientism now rampant to the original vision latent in the Enlightenment, as the source of a religion beyond religions, and a secularism beyond religion, but able to juggle all its pieces. The Great Freedom Sutra: the problem is already solved, as it were, all we have to do is to realize it.
This essay on the ‘freedom sutra’ should be rewritten without the refernce to the sufi factor, for it is present without any of that in modernity as it is, if you can find it.
The question of anti-science: flipping the bird at Big Science
The question of anti-science is obviously controversial: if you adopt that stance you should find one to five science subjects to study to keep up a balance.
But my point is that science kowtowing has gone on so long everyone is failing to see that scientists have their head up their ass on multiple fronts. Noone can see stupidity hiding behind ‘science smarts’. And most scientists really are stupid: look at Stephen Hawking declaring philosophy dead. eh?
It is grotesque, and the Dr. Kildare wunderkind science phase is getting a bit thin. The problem of course is that the achievements of technology tend to mesmerize the public into pliant submission to the whole pack of absurdities now being concocted by science jocks, next to much useful research no doubt.
Keep in mind that these people are almost always badly educated, specializing in science from the beginning and unable to discourse on anything else, until finally the shibboleths of new atheism empower people to pronounce on everything.
I think science is reaching critical failure in the midst of its success, and we are going to enter a post-scientific age, buried in technologcial scientism to be sure, as predicted by many.
In any case, we need a new educational system, one that can break the cycle of the meritocratic entrapment of the very intelligent who are then overspecialized to the point of narrowness. Such people make good defenders of the status quo, but they are shallow and stupid inside their smarts.
There were a series of warnings here, the last classic being the Weberian Iron Cage theme. And a warning.
to put this in perspective: the entire cadre of high IQ scientists is incapable, and I mean incapable, of seeing any problem with Darwinism.
That’s the grim sign, checkmate is nigh.
Harris, ‘killing the buddha’, and the new slaughter of buddhists
Harris on ‘killing the buddha’
This garbage from Harris sounds very profound, but it misses the point that the ‘killing the buiddha’ thematic is being grossly misused here. Preaching the flaws in Buddhism would work well with anyone but Harris, whose stance here is misleading: in the name of critiquing Buddhist traditionalism he is slipping in the poison of scientism. This kind of thinking is the root source of the confusions of Stephen Batchelor et al.
Harris has confused the issue, and the phrase ‘killing the buddha’ is dangerous at this point: the Chinese communists are gleeful at this line of thought, and the stage of murdering buddhists is on us again, and the last fart stage of the new atheism will turn violent. So I think Harris should withdraw the use of this now pompous phrase.
I am not a Buddhist and must have invented Buddhist critique all over again in the seventies, but the basis of Buddhism, which Harris is cleverly rejecting, is the path of enlightenment. That invariant is always present in Buddhism, whatever the brand, save that of Harris.
Page 1 of 2
An excerpt of this piece appears in our July 2009 “For 30 Years the Best of Buddhism in America: Commentary” retrospective. Here, we present the piece in its entirety.To see all of the complete “Best of” commentaries, click here.
Killing the Buddha
By Sam Harris“Kill the Buddha,” says the old koan. “Kill Buddhism,” says Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, who argues that Buddhism’s philosophy, insight, and practices would benefit more people if they were not presented as a religion.
The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi is supposed to have said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Like much of Zen teaching, this seems too cute by half, but it makes a valuable point: to turn the Buddha into a religious fetish is to miss the essence of what he taught. In considering what Buddhism can offer the world in the twenty-first century, I propose that we take Lin Chi’s admonishment rather seriously. As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism.
This is not to say that Buddhism has nothing to offer the world. One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. In a world that has long been terrorized by fratricidal Sky-God religions, the ascendance of Buddhism would surely be a welcome development. But this will not happen. There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can successfully compete with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should it try to.
The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism. Even in the West, where scientists and Buddhist contemplatives now collaborate in studying the effects of meditation on the brain, Buddhism remains an utterly parochial concern. While it may be true enough to say (as many Buddhist practitioners allege) that “Buddhism is not a religion,” most Buddhists worldwide practice it as such, in many of the naive, petitionary, and superstitious ways in which all religions are practiced. Needless to say, all non-Buddhists believe Buddhism to be a religion—and, what is more, they are quite certain that it is the wrong religion.
To talk about “Buddhism,” therefore, inevitably imparts a false sense of the Buddha’s teaching to others. So insofar as we maintain a discourse as “Buddhists,” we ensure that the wisdom of the Buddha will do little to inform the development of civilization in the twenty-first century.
Worse still, the continued identification of Buddhists with Buddhism lends tacit support to the religious differences in our world. At this point in history, this is both morally and intellectually indefensible—especially among affluent, well-educated Westerners who bear the greatest responsibility for the spread of ideas. It does not seem much of an exaggeration to say that if you are reading this article, you are in a better position to influence the course of history than almost any person in history. Given the degree to which religion still inspires human conflict, and impedes genuine inquiry, I believe that merely being a self-described “Buddhist” is to be complicit in the world’s violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree.
It is true that many exponents of Buddhism, most notably the Dalai Lama, have been remarkably willing to enrich (and even constrain) their view of the world through dialogue with modern science. But the fact that the Dalai Lama regularly meets with Western scientists to discuss the nature of the mind does not mean that Buddhism, or Tibetan Buddhism, or even the Dalai Lama’s own lineage, is uncontaminated by religious dogmatism. Indeed, there are ideas within Buddhism that are so incredible as to render the dogma of the virgin birth plausible by comparison. No one is served by a mode of discourse that treats such pre-literate notions as integral to our evolving discourse about the nature of the human mind. Among Western Buddhists, there are college-educated men and women who apparently believe that Guru Rinpoche was actually born from a lotus. This is not the spiritual breakthrough that civilization has been waiting for these many centuries.
For the fact is that a person can embrace the Buddha’s teaching, and even become a genuine Buddhist contemplative (and, one must presume, a buddha) without believing anything on insufficient evidence. The same cannot be said of the teachings for faith-based religion. In many respects, Buddhism is very much like science. One starts with the hypothesis that using attention in the prescribed way (meditation), and engaging in or avoiding certain behaviors (ethics), will bear the promised result (wisdom and psychological well-being). This spirit of empiricism animates Buddhism to a unique degree. For this reason, the methodology of Buddhism, if shorn of its religious encumbrances, could be one of our greatest resources as we struggle to develop our scientific understanding of human subjectivity.
The Problem of Religion
Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims vs. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in recent decades.
Why is religion such a potent source of violence? There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us–them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If you really believe that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism, or politics.
Religion is also the only area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give evidence in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet, these beliefs often determine what they live for, what they will die for, and—all too often—what they will kill for. This is a problem, because when the stakes are high, human beings have a simple choice between conversation and violence. At the level of societies, the choice is between conversation and war. There is nothing apart from a fundamental willingness to be reasonable—to have one’s beliefs about the world revised by new evidence and new arguments—that can guarantee we will keep talking to one another. Certainty without evidence is necessarily divisive and dehumanizing.
Therefore, one of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty-first century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns—about ethics, spiritual experience, and the inevitability of human suffering—in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas.
etc, etc, blah blah, follow llink for page 2
The harm done by Sam Harris, et al. Time for some plain anti-science
Sam Harris, I suspect (I don’t wish to be unfair, so he can clarify this), is a two-timer and hypocrite who has a New Age ‘shady’ past, and changed his tune in the intoxicating chance for celebrity as a New Atheist ‘guru’ and cult founder. His remarks on Vedanta/Buddhism, and meditation stick out comically from some of his writings.
But in the final analysis, the rigor mortis of neuroscience fundamentalism has taken hold and ‘mystical experiences’ are brain transmogrifications. It won’t wash, and it is time to call on those who are stimulating the Stephen Batcherlor’s to corrupt buddhism.
I am as much a science fan as anyone, but I don’t take it seriously on many questions. Those stuck in the syndrome of Big Science deserve challenge on the spot, with little fear of the useless charge at this point of anti-science. Over and out.
Keep working on your string theory notes, but anti-science is also an important cauttionary study too.
This is an enlightenment question, now lost, and the dialectical reaction of the Romantics is the archaeological evidence here.
My views on the paranormal: ESP, reincarnation, etc.:
My position on the paranormal is this: While there have been many frauds in the history of parapsychology, I believe that this field of study has been unfairly stigmatized. If some experimental psychologists want to spend their days studying telepathy, or the effects of prayer, I will be interested to know what they find out. And if it is true that toddlers occasionally start speaking in ancient languages (as Ian Stevenson alleges), I would like to know about it. However, I have not spent any time attempting to authenticate the data put forward in books like Dean Radin’s The Conscious Universe or Ian Stevenson’s 20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. The fact that I have not spent any time on this should suggest how worthy of my time I think such a project would be. Still, I found these books interesting, and I cannot categorically dismiss their contents in the way that I can dismiss the claims of religious dogmatists. (Here, I am making a point about gradations of certainty: can I say for certain that a century of experimentation proves that telepathy doesn’t exist? No. It seems to me that reasonable people can disagree about the data. Can I say for certain that the Bible and the Koran show every sign of having been written by ignorant mortals? Yes. And this is the only certainty one needs to dismiss the God of Abraham as a creature of fiction.)
My views on Eastern mysticism, Buddhism, etc.:
My views on “ mystical” or “spiritual” experience are extensively described in The End of Faith (and in several articles available on this website) and do not entail the acceptance of anything on faith. There is simply no question that people have transformative experiences as a result of engaging contemplative disciplines like meditation, and there is no question that these experiences shed some light on the nature of the human mind (any experience does, for that matter). What is highly questionable are the metaphysical claims that people tend to make on the basis of such experiences. I do not make any such claims. Nor do I support the metaphysical claims of others.
There are several neuroscience labs now studying the effects of meditation on the brain. While I am not personally engaged in this research, I know many of the scientists who are. This is now a fertile area of sober inquiry, purposed toward understanding the possibilities of human well-being better than we do at present.
While I consider Buddhism almost unique among the world’s religions as a repository of contemplative wisdom, I do not consider myself a Buddhist. My criticism of Buddhism as a faith has been published, to the consternation of many Buddhists. It is available here:
Killing the Buddha
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