Science (human) is avijjaa and not vijjaa.

D.G.D.C. Wijeratna



_____

From: Pali@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Pali@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
gunnargallmo@...
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 7:10 PM
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Pali] Buddhism and science




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--- Den lör 2009-03-14 skrev Ong Yong Peng <palismith@...
<mailto:palismith%40gmail.com> com>:

"Dear Ven Kumara, Ria, Florent and James,

thanks for your interesting discussion. Firstly, I like to mention that we
be mindful when making references to science, lest that we are seen to
promote some kind of pseudoscience. Buddhists, I believe, should never
distort science to suit any particular religious belief."

I was scared to death about such tendencies in 1981 when, as a professional
translator, I had to make the Swedish version of Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of
Physics" - I needed the money, but it was some of the worst rubbish I ever
read, freely mixing up different brands of "Oriental philosophy" to fit the
author's ideas, and probably mixing up science as well (I'm not competent to
judge that, but some reviewers were quite harsh towards him on that
account).

There is also a great danger:

Today's favourite scientific ideas may be disproved tomorrow.

That's the nature of science - it is never satisfied with the present level
of knowledge. We might end up as the widows of yesterday's paradigm...

And we must keep in mind that although Buddhism and science has one
important thing in common - the basic attitude not to believe, but to look -
they are striving for different kinds of truth.

Science tries to understand how conditioned existence works.

Buddhism tries to help us to free ourselves from conditioned existence.

The Tipitaka is not a textbook about natural science, history, or any such
things. It is all about "dukkha and the end of dukkha"; everything else is
of secondary importance.

And the Buddha actually told us not to try to understand _everything_ about
the world - that is, not to devote too much time to science - because if we
do there will always be more things to learn, and we won't have time for
essential things.

Gunnar

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