Is Reality Secular?: Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews (Veritas Books) by Poplin Mary

Author:Poplin, Mary [Poplin, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2013-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Summary

Pantheists have varying commitments to the world as real or illusory. The Dalai Lama has a firm commitment to the real world and to science. He says,

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.13

The Dalai Lama announced that because of this he no longer believes the Buddhist holy text regarding the movement of sun and moon and their relationship to earth.14 While he understands Darwinian evolution, he has several concerns about the theory’s inability to account for altruism, the origin of sentience and karma, and its “dangerous tendency to turn the visions we construct of ourselves into self-fulfilling prophecies.”15 The Dalai Lama’s interest in science is one place where naturalism and pantheism meet. On the other end of pantheism, most orthodox Hindu doctrines claim all reality to be an illusion constructed by the mind, more similar to the Western postmodern secular humanist’s position.

The principles of the various pantheist religions morphed when they entered the West; in part, they became less distinct and their practices less demanding. The secular urge and relaxed prosperity of the West made the demanding and distinctive forms less appealing, just as it diluted some Judeo-Christian thought and theology.

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