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Evolution And Buddhism
Many faiths struggle to fit the findings of modern science, Evolution in particular, into thier Religious / spiritual belief systems. So I am curious to see what people here think.
Is evolution consistent with , against or irrelevent to the Dharma Teachings?
Is evolution consistent with , against or irrelevent to the Dharma Teachings?
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http://www.columbia.edu/itc/religion/f2001/edit/docs/aggannasutta.pdf
At least that's one way of thinking. There's also more effort and thought involved.
Life is change. Change -> complexity -> intelligence -> ignorance -> self-awareness and mental defilements -> suffering -> seeking liberation from suffering.
I think I read somewhere not long ago (it might even have been here on NewBuddhist) that the Dalai Lama is said to have chuckled glowingly about evolution being a paradigm amenable to Buddhism — while referring to some monkeys.
Strict? No. Hey, it's all good. There are probably at least twenty other threads buried on this forum on this same subject and the moderators are so kind as to let things get so pleasantly layered and iced. It's all good and not at all strict.
However, some of us who have been visiting here awhile and remember when Beginners was Buddhism 101 and Advanced Ideas Buddhism 202 might find it a bit comical that something we learned about in third or fourth grade was considered "advanced" thought.
I think the mosquito, built like an oil-rig drill, disproves Intelligent Design. Not to mention the prion and other pesky things such as opportunistic fish that invade and take over rivers —nor even to think of the virulent Ebola Virus.
Oh, and I left out the most important rebuttal of Intelligent Design:
The Bible says the human lifespan is three score years plus ten. Elsewhere it says 6 score if we do good. Well, behold the human pelvis's intersect with the femur: The Hip. Ne'er was a thing so ill designed to give 70 years of good service.
Lol.... I never would have thought of it that way
I think we will never know. It's like contemplating the navel.
I'd say it's more or less irrelevant, although it's certainly not inconsistent.
In DN 27, the Buddha does give what can be interpreted as a rough theory of evolution to a pair of brahmins in that the physical characteristics of the mythological beings in question change due to environmental changes and interactions, as well as a description of how the universe began, so evolution definitely isn't inconsistent with Buddhism. That being said, I agree with Prof. Gombrich that, taking the context of DN 27 into account, this sutta is a lively and ingenious parody that was actually meant to make fun of the very need for a cosmology as a foundation for religious development.
Personally, I see Buddhism as dealing exclusively with mental stress and its cessation (i.e., psychology), not biology, or physics, etc. And while some people get excited when they discover Buddhism contains teachings which seem to be in accord with modern science, I think they can be misleading and shouldn't be taken too seriously, or at least, too literally. This is especially true considering that recent observations of cosmic background radiation indicate the universe is actually expanding at an accelerated rate, hence there may not be any contraction or 'Big Crunch.' Lawrence Krauss mentions this in his talk at the 2009 AAI Conference.
'In spite of this remarkable ability, most Turritopsis medusae are likely to fall victim to the general hazards of life as plankton, including being eaten by other animals, or succumbing to disease."
Nothing is permanent.
But I guess the jellyfish doesn't have anything to worry or be attached about.
@ShiftPlusOne: Do you have a link to that text? I'm particularly interested in it as a student of biology! (:
Yes, I agree. At the very least, the creation myth in DN 27 attempts to give a naturalistic explanation of the origins of life and the universe.
DN 27 = the Aggana Sutta referenced above.
Oh, yeah, I completely misread that. I should really slow down when I read these things.
Too bad Gombrich's paper about DN 27 isn't online, that might be helpful.
Hm, now that I think about it, this is mentioned in his book, How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (pg. 81-82). You could also try looking for his paper, "Why is a Khattiya called a Khattiya? The Agganna Sutta Revisited." There might be something about it in there too.
On a micro, individual level, many scientists assert that the chemical and electrical processes in an embryo transform into the experiencing of things, with the physical basis coming first. But again, Buddhism refutes this position. The electrochemical transformations in a network of neurons do not create or transform into the individual, subjective experiencing of things. A succession of moments of electrochemical processes and a succession of moments of experiencing things constitute different continuums, because they are continuums of different categories of phenomena. Nevertheless, the two continuums have a relation with each other.