Hi Everybody,
Happy Xmas and all that. It's blowing a gale and a half outside so instead of browsing the shops for last-minute Xmas presents I'm in here in the warm at the keyboard composing blog number 7 in this The Case for Buddhism series. So in the past couple of posts I've said something about my personal journey from profound scepticism about the value or relevance of a Buddhist practice in the midst of the rush and bustle and competitive pressures that define our modern western way of life, to this deep and enduring commitment to and great gratitude for a practice that has enriched every aspect of my life and relationships...no question...and I'm sure the lives of those whom my life touches.
So now I want to put that on one side for the moment, and move on to the other key dimension of this journey we're on, the science. And the key question at this point is where does the science fit into the argument? Or, what has science got to do with a Buddhist practice? Let the book take up the story; (p27)
' The answer to that question is slightly more circuitous. Over recent years there has been something of a movement to link together the words Buddhism and science, as if to imply that in some way, not often explained in detail, they occupy to some extent the same or similar territories. I believe that approach to be profoundly misleading on many counts. Buddhism is not and doesn't claim to be in the least scientific in its approach to resolving the deepest issues of life. But then it doesn't need to be. On then one hand Buddhism doesn't need in any way the justification or the validation from modern science for its philosophical insights into the nature of human motivation and behaviour. They have been tested and proven over many centuries, as I've said, in the toughest laboratory of them all, the trials and tribulations of daily human life.
And on the other hand, science simply isn't equipped, even if it were interested, to deal with the area of religious belief. many scientists do of course have strong and active religious lives, but that tells us little about the relationship between science and religion, except that they can clearly co-exist. It is simply testimony if you like to the enduring power and support provided by religious thought. But the basic fact is that science doesn't do religion. Issues like faith and belief and fundamental spirituality lie beyond the range of scientific tools. You can't put courage and compassion and faith and belief into a test tube and weigh and measure them. This issue was most eloquently dealt with by the late great Stephen Jay Gould, the brilliant American palaeontologist and writer on science, who famously coined the definitive acronym on this subject. That acronym is NOMA. It stands briefly for ' non-overlapping magisteria' which is simply a somewhat academic or high-flown way of saying that science and religion occupy quite different dimensions in our life.
However academically off-putting and inaccessible that particular definition might be, we know instinctively that it's accurate don't we? It makes complete sense on a sort of workaday pavement-level basis. We know full well that we live in a world that is dominated by science and technology, and we know the colossal benefits we derive from that situation. No one would want in any way to question that. But we also know, if we give it a moment's thought, that academic science is only a very small and highly specialised part of what we all know. Most ofm our knowledge about ourselves and our relationships comes from our own experience of life. We learn about life you might say, from life itself.
We also know that we don't turn to science when it comes to some of the biggest and most puzzling questions of all. Questions such as why are we here? Or is there a fundamental purpose to life? Or what is the meaning of suffering? Or what happens to an item called me after death? We may not ask those questions very often, but that's not the point. The fact is that when we do, we don't turn to science for the answers, we turn to a completely different dimension of our experience. And we happen to call that dimension religion...which does attempt to give us answers.
So, I would argue, we have a clear need for both kinds of inspiration and illumination, if we are to make the very most of this remarkable universe that we inhabit. As several great philosophers have commented, science is the organisation of knowledge, but wisdom, in the sense of spirituality, is the organisation of life. Indeed I would argue that we need to stand up and take serious issue with scientists, when they choose to argue that in some way our lives would be richer and truer without the religious bit. It wouldn't !!'
I'm never quite sure how long to make these episodes. But let me leave this argument there for the moment. In the next blog I will take up the thread and look at the extraordinary new insights that are being offered to us by some of the latest findings in fields such as sociology and psychology, and how they might relate to some of the teachings that lie at the heart of Buddhism.
Many thanks for reading thus far.
See you again soon.
Best wishes,
William Woollard.
The Case for Buddhism is available on Amazon.
scientific in its approach to resloving the deepest issues of human life. But then it doesn't need to bre
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