The West is presently suffering from extremism which comes in two forms. One is scientific materialism. We might even call it fundamentalist science. Everything comes from some kind of matter (we still haven’t found it) even life, itself, and certainly our brains protected by our skulls. There is no such thing as a soul, mind or consciousness. Mind or consciousness is only an epiphenomenon of the material brain. When the body dies that’s all.
The other extreme is religious fundamentalism. Everything the Bible says is true—I mean, it’s the word of God! Perish the thought that the words in this holy book are from mortals who had writing skills. And while, in some instances, their words are profound, overall this holy book does little or nothing to relieve man of his suffering except preach that he must please God who brought good and created evil (Isaiah 45:7)!
These extremes have a few things in common. One is don’t look within. Introspection is not permitted. There is no absolute to be found within; certainly no absolute which transcends birth and death; being and non-being which is the teachings of the Buddha. Also don’t believe that your future life is restricted and influenced by your present actions. Karma is not permitted nor rebirth in which each life we live is more like a way station as we try to reach the Isle of Jewels (nirvana).
Right now the battle lines are slowly being drawn. We have the scientists on one side and the religious fundamentalists on the other. One side has never actually seen so much as a black hole or a tiny electron. Thomas S. Kuhn reveals a dirty secret.
"We do not see electrons, but rather their tracks or else bubbles of vapor in a cloud chamber. We do not see electric currents at all, but rather the needle of an ammeter or galvanometer."
We want to believe these little particles are there. But not a single one has been seen except that certain trace effects are seen which depend upon certain preconditions. But how precisely these traces are made is still not exactly known.
On the other side of the battle line we have clergy who have never seen God. But they are quite certain he is real and will judge us if we don’t obey his rules. After all, who wrote much of the Bible? It couldn’t have come from a mortal, or could it?
Excellent blog post; I like the parallelism: just like we've never observed the particles but "presume" them by the traces supposedly left by them; just the same the Abrahamic faith-follower presumes the existence of God by the trace supposedly left in the "inspired" Scriptures.
In both cases it's an indirect way of knowing an absent object. The Zennist points to introspection as a way towards direct gnosis.
Posted by: M | January 20, 2015 at 07:41 PM