26 AUG 2012 by ideonexus

 Empiricism in Buddhist Spirituality

Both Buddhism and neuroscience converge on a similar point of view: The way it feels isn’t how it is. There is no permanent, constant soul in the background. Even our language about ourselves is to be distrusted (requiring the tortured negation of anatta). In the broadest strokes then, neuroscience and Buddhism agree. How did Buddhism get so much right? I speak here as an outsider, but it seems to me that Buddhism started with a bit of empiricism. Perhaps the founders of Buddhism were pre-...
  1  notes

Buddhists recognize the impermanence of human existence, that we are perpetually changing. They discovered this truth, shared with neuroscience, because they gave up the ego of the self.

01 SEP 2011 by ideonexus

 Do Not Attempt to Reconcile Science and Religion

Since religion intrinsically rejects empirical methods, there should never be any attempt to reconcile scientific theories with religion. [An infinitely old universe, always evolving may not be compatible with the Book of Genesis. However, religions such as Buddhism get along without having any explicit creation mythology and are in no way contradicted by a universe without a beginning or end.] Creatio ex nihilo, even as religious doctrine, only dates to around AD 200. The key is not to confu...
Folksonomies: religion spirituality
Folksonomies: religion spirituality
  1  notes

Quote by Hannes Alfvén on religion's rejection of empirical methods.