Buddhist Atheism and Scientific Naturalism

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From the course by The University of Edinburgh

Philosophy, Science and Religion: Religion and Science

39 ratings

The University of Edinburgh

Philosophy, Science and Religion: Religion and Science

39 ratings

Philosophy, Science and Religion mark three of the most fundamental modes of thinking about the world and our place in it. Are these modes incompatible? Put another way: is the intellectually responsible thing to do to ‘pick sides’ and identify with one of these approaches at the exclusion of others? Or, are they complementary or mutually supportive? As is typical of questions of such magnitude, the devil is in the details. For example, it is important to work out what is really distinctive about each of these ways of inquiring about the world. In order to gain some clarity here, we’ll be investigating what some of the current leading thinkers in philosophy, science and religion are actually doing. This course, entitled ‘Religion and Science’, is the third of three related courses in our Philosophy, Science and Religion Online series. The course will address five themes, each presented by an expert in the area. 1. Science, Religion, and the Origin of the Universe (Professor Tim Maudlin, NYU ) 2. Buddhism and Science (Professor Graham Priest, CUNY) 3. Evolution and Design (Dr Kevin Scharp, St Andrews) 4. Sin Suffering and Salvation: Evolutions Thorny Issues (Dr Bethany Sollereder, Oxford) 5. Human Uniqueness in Science, Theology, and Ethics (Professor David Clough, Chester) The first and second courses in the Philosophy, Science and Religion series, 'Science and Philosophy' and 'Philosophy and Religion' were launched in 2017 and you can sign up to these at any time. It is not necessary to have completed these courses to follow this course. However, completing all three courses will give you a broader understanding of this fascinating topic. Look for: • Philosophy, Science and Religion I: Science and Philosophy - https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy-science-religion-1 • Philosophy, Science and Religion II: Philosophy and Religion - https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy-science-religion-2 Upon successful completion of all three courses, students will: (1) Understand the main parameters at stake in the current debate between science and religion. (2) Have some familiarity with the relevant areas of science that feature in the debate—including cosmology, evolution, and the neurosciences—and will have begun to engage with them conceptually. (3) Have encountered key philosophical approaches to the interface between science and religion, and will have had the opportunity to engage them in practice. (4) Have embarked constructively in cross-disciplinary conversations. (5) Have demonstrated an openness to personal growth through a commitment to dialogue across intellectual and spiritual boundaries. You can also follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/EdiPhilOnline and you can follow the hashtag #psrmooc

From the lesson

BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE

In this module Graham Priest, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at City University of New York (CUNY) outlines the background and basic ideas of Buddhism. After considering whether Buddhism is compatible with science, he goes on to explain how some aspects of Buddhist thought are relevant to contemporary logic and science.

Buddhist Atheism and Scientific Naturalism16:08

Meet the Instructors

Dr Mog Stapleton
Dr J Adam Carter
Researcher
Epistemology - Philosphy
Dr Orestis Palermos
Research Explorer
School of Philosophy
Dr Mark Harris
Senior Lecturer in Science and Religion
School of Divinity
Professor Duncan Pritchard
Professor of Philosophy
University of Edinburgh

Hello again, I'm Graham Priest,

and this is the third of a series of short lectures we're making

on science and religion and in particular the relationship between Buddhism and science.

So in the last two lectures,

I told you a little bit about the history of Buddhism and its development,

and then we looked at some of the basic ideas of Buddhism in the Four Noble Truths.

Now of course there's more to both of these things than we covered.

However, at least I now hope that you have some understanding of these issues,

enough to engage with what's coming next.

And what's coming next in the rest of these lectures is

a discussion of the relationship between Buddhism and science.

And I want to start that discussion today,

by talking about in very general terms

the relationship between Buddhist, philosophy and science.

And I want to do that by talking about God.

So, Buddhism arose around

the fifth or the sixth century with teachings of the historical Buddha.

And it broke in major ways from the Orthodox Hinduism, the Vedic tradition of his time.

So, Hinduism has two important beliefs which are rejected by Buddhism.

One is the existence of God,

one is the existence of self.

Now we're going to talk about the self in another lecture,

so let's talk about God first of all.

So Hinduism is a theist religion, it believes in God,

in fact it's monotheistic religion although you might not have this impression

because you can see a sort of paraphernalia of all the Hindu gods.

In fact, there is only one Hindu Godhead and that's Brahman.

Okay, the other things you're likely to come across

are personifications or avatars of the Godhead.

So, in Hindu cosmology,

the cosmos is cyclical it comes into existence,

it's maintained for a while then it goes out of existence then it starts again.

And there are aspects of Brahman,

the Godhead which correspond to these three phases.

So there's Brahma who is the aspect of Brahman in the creative phase,

there is Visnu who has the aspect in the maintenance and

then the Siva. Who is the aspect in the destruction.

Now these are not three separate gods any more than God the Father,

God the son, God the Holy Ghost are three Gods.

The three aspects of one the same Godhead.

And it's further complicated by the fact that some of

these aspects can actually have avatars,

so they manifest in human history.

So for example Visnu manifests as Krsna in

the epic poem Mahabharata and as Rama in the poem the Ramayanam.

However, there is strictly speaking only one Godhead.

Now Buddhism rejected this,

there is no God in Buddhism.

I've sometimes spoken to people who have met this view with incredulity,

how can you have a religion which hasn't got a God?

Well this is just Middle Eastern myopia.

Of course you can have religion without a God, Buddhism is one.

I challenge anyone to go to temples or services of

a Buddhist nature in Tibet or Japan or Thailand and tell me this is not a religion.

It has its rituals, it has practices,

has its sacred texts,

it has holy places, it has a priesthood,

it has a power structure,

all the sociological trappings of a religion and it's an atheist religion.

So Buddhism rejected the existence of God.

In the last lecture, I told you that

the first part of the fourth Noble Truth is right view,

understand the world in which you're living,

and the world in which you are living if you are a Buddhist is a world of impermanence.

Everything comes into existence at the appropriate time,

is maintained and goes out of existence.

Now if that's your view of the world,

there is no room for God because God is

not the kind of thing which comes into existence and goes out of existence.

You might want to say isn't this a big question begging because you know maybe after

all God isn't impermanent and so impermanence is just wrong.

And I suppose as an argument against

the existence of God this is sort of question begging.

However, it tells you something important about Buddhism,

Buddhism is interested only in those things which are in the causal flux.

Okay, in that sense,

it's a very naturalistic religion.

To summarize that bit of the argument,

then Buddhism rejects the existence of God.

Now, that's important because if you subscribe to a religion in which there is a God,

then there is room for God to tell you stuff which you have no other way of knowing.

So you can believe things because, but only because, there's

some sacred text that tells you whether it's the Bible or the Hindu Vedars or whatever.

You have no way of knowing these things unless they are revealed to you by the scripture.

That doesn't mean that you can't figure out some other things for yourself,

but there are going to be some things that you cannot know unless they reveal to you.

So, for example, in Orthodox Catholic Theology,

there is a distinction drawn between natural theology and revealed theology.

So natural theology is constituted by the things which you can work out for yourself.

So, for example it is still

Orthodox Catholicism that you can prove the existence of God by a variety of arguments.

That's something you can work out by the pure light of natural reasoning.

Whether or not that's true, is neither here nor

there, its part of the view that you can't figure out these things yourself.

Whereas there are other things about Christianity which you can't figure out yourself.

For example you can't figure out that there was going to be an incarnation,

that you only know because of revealed religion.

So, if you have a God

then there is scope for revelation and if there's scope for revelation,

then there's the possibility of a tension between what God reveals and

what we kind of know from other sources.

So, the existence of a God allows for the possibility of a tension between

what divine revelation tells us

and what we find out by science and of course the conflict

between science and religion has been a feature of

Western thought for at least 600 or 700 years now.

It might be possible to overcome this tension and many people think it is,

but the point is that the tension is there.

Okay, now if you have an atheist religion,

that tension is not there,

there's no source of revealed truth,

all you have is what you

can figure out for yourself and that's how things stand with Buddhism.

All right, so that's a very general statement of the fact that you don't get the kind of

tension between science and religion that in Buddhism that you do in say Christianity.

Now, let's look at these things a little bit more detail.

There is one of the sutras called the Kalama Sutra,

which takes up the matter in detail of why you should believe something.

So, the Buddha is talking to the Kalama.

And they say, "We've got these people telling us this,

these people telling us that. What the hell do we believe?"

And the Buddha answers the question and he says the following.

So, this is a translation of the relevant part of the Kalama Sutra.

"Don't go by reports,

by legends, by traditions,

by scripture, by logical conjecture,

by inference, by analogies,

by agreement through pondering views,

by probability, or by the thought,

'This contemplative person is my teacher.'

When you know for yourselves that,

'These qualities are skilful;

these qualities are blameless;

these qualities are praised by the wise;

these qualities when adopted and carried out,

lead to welfare and happiness',

then you should enter and remain in them."

Okay. So, the most obvious thing about this is

the fact that the sutra says, "Don't believe something"

simply because it's in some bit of scripture.

Simply because some priest tells you.

Simply by the fact that it's in your tradition.

Okay? These don't work.

So, in the end,

you can't depend on these things.

You have to figure it out for yourself.

That's the most obvious thing about this text.

Now, there's something about this text.

Let's take a second look at it,

which might give you some thought on this matter.

Because it also says,

"Don't rely on inference,

analogy, agreement through pondering views, property, etc."

So, that might look as though it's saying,

"You can't figure it out for yourself."

So, what's going on here?

Well, what's going on is something like this.

What does the sutra actually tell you to believe?

It tells you to believe that you should accept something if it's praised by the wise.

Okay. Now, who the hell are the wise?

Okay. Well, first of all,

you've got to figure out who the wise are,

and how are you going to do that without thinking for yourself? That's one thing.

But why should you believe what the wise tell you?

Who are the wise?

Well, let's take an example.

Suppose you're a chess player, suppose you're a club chess player,

and you want to know how to improve your play.

Who do you seek advice from?

Well, the people who are better than you.

And how do you know they're better than you? Because they can beat you.

Okay. So, you know who the wise are because you know the effects.

And you can recognize they're a better player than

yourself because of their effects, they can beat you.

And so, you take advice from them.

Now, so what the bit of text says,

"Don't do it by inference and analogy."

is actually a recommendation for modesty.

Don't think you're brighter than the chess player who can

beat you because reality will tell otherwise.

So really, this is not saying,

"Don't think for yourself."

It's saying, "Be modest about what you can achieve

and take advice from the people who know better than you."

Okay. In the case of chess, that's pretty obvious.

Now, other things are much more complicated than chess.

So, who are the wise in the case of moral philosophy?

Now, that's a really hard question,

and it's actually the one that is the Buddha's central concern here.

He says, "Does it lead to welfare, and happiness, and so on?"

Well, okay. I'm not going to discuss Buddhism or philosophy here.

The question of who the wise are when it comes to moral philosophy is

a tough question and fortunately one we don't need to go into today.

However, the topic of this talk is about science.

Science concerns the natural world.

When it comes to the nature of the natural world, who are the wise?

Well, pretty obviously, scientists.

You don't go and believe something because it's told in

some creation story or is told you by some climate change denier.

You look to science.

And how do you know that the scientists are wise?

It doesn't mean they are omnipotent, they’re not.

They get it wrong lots of times. But how do you know they're wise?

Well, because how did you know that

the chess player knows more than you? By their results.

Okay. How do you know that science is wise?

Because of the results.

So, when you go to the doctor and the doctor prescribes some drugs.

This is based on modern medicine and you know a lot of the time they work.

How do you know that next time you get in a plane it won't crash?

Well, it's been designed by engineers on the basis of science.

So, again, by their fruit, you shall know them.

If you want to know what the natural world is like,

you look to science and you will find nothing in Buddhism,

which tells you otherwise.

In fact, let me give you a quote from the Dalai Lama.

So, this is from the 14th Dalai Lama,

the current Dalai Lama, in his book,

The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.

And the Dalai Lama says this,

"If scientific analysis were conclusively to

demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false,

then we must accept the findings of science and abandon these claims."

All right. So, here is the Dalai Lama saying,

"You have to have respect for what

scientists tell you about the natural world we live in."

Okay. So, if there is a conflict between science and Buddhist doctrines,

then as the Dalai Lama says,

"It's Buddhist doctrine that is going to give way."

All right. So, there is not the same kind of tension between science,

and Buddhist thought that there is between science and say, Christian thought.

So, the relationship between science and religion is quite different in Buddhism,

and say, Christianity or any other theistic religion.

So, let me summarize what I've been saying.

Buddhism is an atheist religion.

There is no God and therefore,

there is no scope for knowledge by divine revelation.

In the end, all you have is figuring out

for yourself or better collectively figuring out for ourselves.

And it's important that there's

a certain element of individual modesty

in this because some people know a lot better than I do.

And when that happens, then of course,

I should be guarded by people who know better.

And in science, the people who know better are of course the scientists.

Like I said, they get things wrong sometimes.

But we all accept that, generally speaking,

science does pretty well because we depend on and go by the technology that it has

delivered. And so, science, a naturalistic view of the world and in particular,

a scientific view of the world is, and must be, compatible with Buddhist philosophy.

So, that's the discussion for

today of the general relationship between Buddhist philosophy and science.

Next week or next time,

we'll move on to the other thing

that the Buddhist rejected from Hinduism, which is the self.

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