It’s amazing to me what I can accidentally find surfing the web. Today I was reading some technical blogs, trying to glean some additional information on the latest release of the Component UI Application Block, which we’re going to be using in the upcoming year of development (and probably beyond). About halfway down Peter’s blog I ran into this post about the Dalai Lama’s new book, where Peter quotes:
Buddhism must accept the facts — whether found by science or found by contemplative insights. If, when we investigate something, we find there is reason and proof for it, we must acknowledge that as reality — even if it is in contradiction with a literal scriptural explanation that has held sway for many centuries or with a deeply held opinion or view.
Wow.
That quote alone puts the Dalai Lama’s book on my must-read list for 2006. Religious people just don’t think that way. They stick to their dogma no matter how rediculous it seems, or how much science refutes it. After all, it wasn’t until 1992 that the Catholic Church finally admitted that Galileo was right – 350 years after he died. If that isn’t hanging on…
Anyway, it turns out that eSkeptic.com has reprinted Michael Shermer’s review of the Dalai Lama’s new book,
The Universe in a Single Atom. The review is worth the read, particularly at the end where Shermer raises the following question:
Wherever there is a gap in scientific explanation — the origins of life, sentience, consciousness, morality — this is where God, or karma, intervened. But what happens to God/karma when science fills in the gap? Are you going to abandon God/karma from your worldview?
I’ll leave the rest of the review for your reading. But… Wow.
Amazing the things people will say when they put dogma away and use logic instead.