Not all that rational. Note that he requires scientific proof before he is willing to change his beliefs. The standards should be much lower than that.
My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.
I like that. It is a bit careful, but better than everything else I saw from other religions.
Fortunately for him, Buddhism is cleverly designed to contain no scientifically falsifiable claims.
Well, maybe some of the 14 (really only 4) unanswerable questions can be answered some day. Cosmologists might prove that the universe is finite (current odds are slim), AI researchers might prove that self is both identical with the body and different from it by doing a successful upload. Would it make Buddhists abandon their faith? Not a chance.
Fortunately for him, Buddhism is cleverly designed to contain no scientifically falsifiable claims.
A Buddhist friend told me that at a class in a temple, the teacher mentioned four types of creation, of which one was spontaneous generation- like maggots spontaneously generating in meat. My friend interrupted to say that, no, that’s not actually what happens, and that people did experiments to prove that it didn’t happen. (My friend was too polite to mention that the experiments were 350 years old.) If I remember correctly, the teacher said something like “huh, okay,” and went on with the lesson, leaving out any parts relevant to spontaneous generation.
Traditional Spontaneous generation and modern abiogenesis are very different things, and comments that assume the first may be invalid if only the second is true.
I’d say “careful” would be the other way around, not believing doctrines that make complex claims about reality until he has good evidence that those beliefs are true. Giving up hard-to-test beliefs only in the extreme case where scientific research conclusively proves them wrong is just a small concession in the direction of being epistemically responsible.
That’s a bold claim. The Old Testament historical narrative post-Genesis is still controversial-to-accepted; anthropology hasn’t for example turned up any evidence that I know of for Hebrew slavery under Pharaonic Egypt, but it’s still presented as fact in many Christian circles that are not Biblical literalists. Deuteronomy and Leviticus have largely been rejected, but for cultural rather than scientific reasons. Psalms still seems to be taken in the spirit it was intended.
On the New Testament side of things, the Gospels still generally seem to be taken as, well, gospel, miracles and all. Acts is mostly accepted. The epistles are very short on supernaturalist claims, concerning themselves mostly with organization and ethics. Revelation’s supernaturalist as hell but it’s in prophecy form, and interpretations of it vary widely anyway.
Really, aside from scattered references like that odd pi == 3 thing, about the only parts of the Christian Bible that mainstream churches have widely dropped on scientific grounds are in Genesis—and these days it’s got to be pretty hard for any religion to maintain a literalist interpretation of its creation myth, if it has any regard for science whatsoever.
I underestimated how bad survey questions can be. ”Do you completely agree / mostly agree / mostly disagree / completely disagree with: Miracles still occur as in ancient times” (I shortened the first part a bit, without changing the context) Seriously, wtf? The question assumes that miracles occured in ancient times. It does not define what “miracle” means at all, and it does not ask if miracles occur at all, it asks for a trend. 79% of the answers were counted as “belief in”, I think that those were the first two groups only (but I do not see that in the study).
However, the questions about heaven and hell are fine, and the large amount of “yes” answers (heaven 74%, hell 59%) makes me sad.
Funny numbers: At least 15% believe that “good” people come to heaven, but “bad” do not come to hell. So where do “bad” people go? To heaven, too? In the group of age 65+, 74% believe in heaven, but only 71% believe in a life after death. So at least 3% believe that “good” people will live in heaven after death, without living at all.
The mormons would tell you, for the most part, yes. And they generally believe in heaven and not hell.
The question assumes that miracles occured in ancient times.
Indeed, I might have given a “completely agree” there given that miracles occurred none of the time in ancient times, and are still going strong at that rate. But maybe other respondents have less trouble with loaded questions.
In the group of age 65+, 74% believe in heaven, but only 71% believe in a life after death. So at least 3% believe that “good” people will live in heaven after death, without living at all.
Or those 3% believe in heaven but don’t believe that dead people get to go there. It might just mean “God’s house”, or be reserved for those who are raptured.
Technically true, but nice though that is, saying that scientific proof would force you to change your beliefs still isn’t a very impressive show of rationality. It would be better if he had said “Whenever science and Buddhism conflict, Buddhism should change”.
I know, it is good to hear it from a religious figure, but if it were any other subject the same claim would leave you indifferent. “If it were scientifically proven that aliens don’t exist I will have to change my belief in them.” Sound impressive? No? Then the Dalai Lama shouldn’t get any more praise just because it’s about religion.
When would you say that science and X is in conflict when there isn’t scientific proof that X is wrong?
Science is a method. In itself it’s about doing experiments. It’s not about the ideology of the scientist that might conflict with X even if there’s no proof that X is wrong.
Science and X are in conflict when on the whole there is more scientific evidence that X is wrong than there is evidence that it is right. Saying “I’ll change my belief if science proves me wrong” SOUNDS reasonable, but it is the kind of thing homeopaths say to pretend to be scientific while resting secure in the knowledge that they will never have to actually change their mind, because they can always say that it hasn’t been “proven” yet.
There is no “scientific proof” that there are no aliens. There is no “scientific proof” that the earth is 4.7 billions of years old. Not in the sense that there is a “proof” of Bayes’ theorem. And that’s where all the problem is. You can’t limit yourself with changing your believes when they are “proven” wrong. You should change your belief when they are at odd with evidence and Occam’s Razor.
The Dalaï Lama believes in reincarnation (or at least he officially says so, I don’t know what are his true believes and what is political position, but let’s assume he’s honest). There is no “scientific proof” that reincarnation is not possible, so he can’t bolster how much he is open to science. But yet, if you understand science, the evidence that there is no such thing as reincarnation is overwhelming.
People like Carl Sagan were pretty confident that there are aliens out there in the universe. He’s still has a reputation as a great rationalist.
The fact that you would personally Occam’s Razor away reincarnation given what you know, doesn’t mean that it’s also rational for other people to Occam’s Razor it away.
Someone who remembers a past life and who knows other people who do it can be common sense to have a prior that reincarnation exists.
If you start with a piror that reincarnation exists I don’t see the scientific evidence that suggest that you should drop the belief.
Assuming that reincarnation is true makes some things that involve working with memories of past lifes easier. Occam’s Razor is all about making things easier.
On a practical side there are scientists who believe that reincarnation into Boltzmann brains is plausible, given their current models of how the world works. If you belief that there are random fluctuation in vaccum, time doesn’t end somewhere in the future and that the existance of humans is completely accidental it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that reincarnation will happen.
If you think you “understand” science than you aren’t rational. Any good skeptic should belief that he doesn’t understand it. Human have the habit of being much to confident in the beliefs that they hold. The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb is a great book.
Has anyone taken the time to present to the Dalai Lama a list of things about Buddhism that science proves (or can convincingly demonstrate to be) wrong?
Not all that rational. Note that he requires scientific proof before he is willing to change his beliefs. The standards should be much lower than that.
Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tenzin_Gyatso,_14th_Dalai_Lama) quotes this as
I like that. It is a bit careful, but better than everything else I saw from other religions.
Fortunately for him, Buddhism is cleverly designed to contain no scientifically falsifiable claims.
Well, maybe some of the 14 (really only 4) unanswerable questions can be answered some day. Cosmologists might prove that the universe is finite (current odds are slim), AI researchers might prove that self is both identical with the body and different from it by doing a successful upload. Would it make Buddhists abandon their faith? Not a chance.
A Buddhist friend told me that at a class in a temple, the teacher mentioned four types of creation, of which one was spontaneous generation- like maggots spontaneously generating in meat. My friend interrupted to say that, no, that’s not actually what happens, and that people did experiments to prove that it didn’t happen. (My friend was too polite to mention that the experiments were 350 years old.) If I remember correctly, the teacher said something like “huh, okay,” and went on with the lesson, leaving out any parts relevant to spontaneous generation.
That’s an unfortunate example. The teacher should have amended his maggot example to ‘the first living cell’, then.
Traditional Spontaneous generation and modern abiogenesis are very different things, and comments that assume the first may be invalid if only the second is true.
They may have differences… but are they any that matter for that Buddhist typology of creation?
I’d say “careful” would be the other way around, not believing doctrines that make complex claims about reality until he has good evidence that those beliefs are true. Giving up hard-to-test beliefs only in the extreme case where scientific research conclusively proves them wrong is just a small concession in the direction of being epistemically responsible.
I meant “careful with respect to ‘admitting that religious claims can be wrong’ ”—in other words, the same as you.
Christians have given up virtually all of the bible on the basis of science. Whether or not they are still christians is another issue.
That’s a bold claim. The Old Testament historical narrative post-Genesis is still controversial-to-accepted; anthropology hasn’t for example turned up any evidence that I know of for Hebrew slavery under Pharaonic Egypt, but it’s still presented as fact in many Christian circles that are not Biblical literalists. Deuteronomy and Leviticus have largely been rejected, but for cultural rather than scientific reasons. Psalms still seems to be taken in the spirit it was intended.
On the New Testament side of things, the Gospels still generally seem to be taken as, well, gospel, miracles and all. Acts is mostly accepted. The epistles are very short on supernaturalist claims, concerning themselves mostly with organization and ethics. Revelation’s supernaturalist as hell but it’s in prophecy form, and interpretations of it vary widely anyway.
Really, aside from scattered references like that odd pi == 3 thing, about the only parts of the Christian Bible that mainstream churches have widely dropped on scientific grounds are in Genesis—and these days it’s got to be pretty hard for any religion to maintain a literalist interpretation of its creation myth, if it has any regard for science whatsoever.
Ok, I guess I underestimated how many people believe in miracles.
I underestimated how bad survey questions can be.
”Do you completely agree / mostly agree / mostly disagree / completely disagree with: Miracles still occur as in ancient times” (I shortened the first part a bit, without changing the context)
Seriously, wtf? The question assumes that miracles occured in ancient times. It does not define what “miracle” means at all, and it does not ask if miracles occur at all, it asks for a trend. 79% of the answers were counted as “belief in”, I think that those were the first two groups only (but I do not see that in the study).
However, the questions about heaven and hell are fine, and the large amount of “yes” answers (heaven 74%, hell 59%) makes me sad.
Funny numbers:
At least 15% believe that “good” people come to heaven, but “bad” do not come to hell. So where do “bad” people go? To heaven, too?
In the group of age 65+, 74% believe in heaven, but only 71% believe in a life after death. So at least 3% believe that “good” people will live in heaven after death, without living at all.
That’s one option. Another option would be that bad people just cease to exist. Or they get reincarnated until they become non-bad enough for heaven.
The mormons would tell you, for the most part, yes. And they generally believe in heaven and not hell.
Indeed, I might have given a “completely agree” there given that miracles occurred none of the time in ancient times, and are still going strong at that rate. But maybe other respondents have less trouble with loaded questions.
Or those 3% believe in heaven but don’t believe that dead people get to go there. It might just mean “God’s house”, or be reserved for those who are raptured.
No, the claim is that a scientific proof is sufficient from him to feel the need to change his beliefs. It isn’t that it’s necessary.
Technically true, but nice though that is, saying that scientific proof would force you to change your beliefs still isn’t a very impressive show of rationality. It would be better if he had said “Whenever science and Buddhism conflict, Buddhism should change”.
I know, it is good to hear it from a religious figure, but if it were any other subject the same claim would leave you indifferent. “If it were scientifically proven that aliens don’t exist I will have to change my belief in them.” Sound impressive? No? Then the Dalai Lama shouldn’t get any more praise just because it’s about religion.
When would you say that science and X is in conflict when there isn’t scientific proof that X is wrong?
Science is a method. In itself it’s about doing experiments. It’s not about the ideology of the scientist that might conflict with X even if there’s no proof that X is wrong.
Science and X are in conflict when on the whole there is more scientific evidence that X is wrong than there is evidence that it is right. Saying “I’ll change my belief if science proves me wrong” SOUNDS reasonable, but it is the kind of thing homeopaths say to pretend to be scientific while resting secure in the knowledge that they will never have to actually change their mind, because they can always say that it hasn’t been “proven” yet.
There is no “scientific proof” that there are no aliens. There is no “scientific proof” that the earth is 4.7 billions of years old. Not in the sense that there is a “proof” of Bayes’ theorem. And that’s where all the problem is. You can’t limit yourself with changing your believes when they are “proven” wrong. You should change your belief when they are at odd with evidence and Occam’s Razor.
The Dalaï Lama believes in reincarnation (or at least he officially says so, I don’t know what are his true believes and what is political position, but let’s assume he’s honest). There is no “scientific proof” that reincarnation is not possible, so he can’t bolster how much he is open to science. But yet, if you understand science, the evidence that there is no such thing as reincarnation is overwhelming.
People like Carl Sagan were pretty confident that there are aliens out there in the universe. He’s still has a reputation as a great rationalist.
The fact that you would personally Occam’s Razor away reincarnation given what you know, doesn’t mean that it’s also rational for other people to Occam’s Razor it away. Someone who remembers a past life and who knows other people who do it can be common sense to have a prior that reincarnation exists.
If you start with a piror that reincarnation exists I don’t see the scientific evidence that suggest that you should drop the belief. Assuming that reincarnation is true makes some things that involve working with memories of past lifes easier. Occam’s Razor is all about making things easier.
On a practical side there are scientists who believe that reincarnation into Boltzmann brains is plausible, given their current models of how the world works.
If you belief that there are random fluctuation in vaccum, time doesn’t end somewhere in the future and that the existance of humans is completely accidental it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that reincarnation will happen.
If you think you “understand” science than you aren’t rational. Any good skeptic should belief that he doesn’t understand it. Human have the habit of being much to confident in the beliefs that they hold. The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb is a great book.
Has anyone taken the time to present to the Dalai Lama a list of things about Buddhism that science proves (or can convincingly demonstrate to be) wrong?