Interesting quote

[Evandril]

"If there is any religion that could correspond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism." - Albert Einstein

Anyone know what Stephen Hawkins believes, by any chance? :) Be interesting to see what other great scientists thought on the matter.

[Slytovhand]

I like:

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.

Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address

Says a lot... (well - to me :) )

[Boozy]

"If there is any religion that could correspond to the needs of modern science, it would be Buddhism." - Albert Einstein

Buddhism, unlike other religions, encourages inductive reasoning. Buddha himself said something like, `Don`t take my word for it; think it through yourself. Question everything.` (I`m obviously paraphrasing heavily.)

That`s one of the major reasons why I can`t bring myself to classify Buddhism as a religion. There are no creator gods, no doctrines that can`t be questioned, no leaps of faith required. Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, also doesn`t classify Buddhism as a religion. I don`t think he`s Buddhist, but he doesn`t find anything about Buddhism to be in direct opposition to scientific thought. (I don`t particularly care for Richard Dawkins, for the record, but that`s probably best left for another thread.)

With that said, I don`t like blurring the lines too much between metaphysical philosophy and science. Something that has always driven me crazy is the way some New Age religions have co-opted (and twisted) particle physics. There are too many New Age books that seriously misrepresent the findings and conclusions of physics. The concept of entanglement has been especially abused.

The one book I could recommend that doesn`t overstep is `The Quantum and the Lotus`, written by Matthieu Ricard (physicist turned Buddhist monk) and Trinh Xuan Thuan, an astronomist. It`s an interesting dialogue between Buddhism and science that finds points of similarity and points of difference.