[Buddha-l] teaching creationism

[Chan Fu]

On 10/6/05, Richard P. Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 11:14 -0400, curt wrote:
>
> > Here is a tentative reading list for a class (that exists only in my
> > mind) on "Creation and Cosmology"
>
> I would wish to add to that list Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's
> thought-provoking book The Universe Story. A shorter, but no less
> thought-provoking, piece by Berry is his address to Harvard Divinity
> School in 1996 (http://ecoethics.net/ops/univers.htm) in which he speaks
> of the shortcomings of the modern university, the inadequacies of a
> legal system that has as its principal frame of reference the deeply
> flawed US Constitution, the institutionalized greed of international
> corporations and the failure of churches to address the most pressing
> issues of our time. (The churches are criticized for failing to realize
> that God's primary form of revelation is the world of nature, not a
> bunch of sentences in a book.)
>
> It's a beautifully thought out and eloquent diatribe that every educator
> on the planet Earth should be required to read. The tone is more gentle
> in many ways but every bit as compelling as Ralph Waldo Emerson's
> trenchant address to Harvard Divinity School a century and a half
> earlier.

It's a good argument for ecological understanding and the need for
legislative action in that direction, but that's all it is. The "need
for the divine to express itself", among other things, is gratuitous
and unnecessary. Certainly, the health - mental and existential - of
humanity depends on the notion and understanding of GAIA (see Gribbin,
"Deep Simplicity"), but Berry offers no realistic solutions or even
methodologies to arrive at such solutions. His silly recommendation
that the US Constitution should protect the earth is just that -
silly. A full definition of the earth as a persona would be necessary
and simply wasn't available. Perhaps educators' reading of Berry's
diatribe matters less than America's deeper understanding of the
science he proposes. Institutionalized (whatever) just doesn't work -
humanity's been on that merry-go-round long enough. But Berry doesn't
tell us how to get off it. That's something we need to figure out for
ourselves. The Constitution allows that, which is all it can do.

In any case, the situation has become obvious and no poll yet has
shown whether the incredibly (or even credibly) wealthy in America are
members of the "Fuck the planet, I need more money, let God sort it
out" genre. It would be somewhat interesting to determine whether the
Christian right, evangelical and otherwise, are the majority
caretakers and managers of this economy (read, "richest"). But that
question is probably moot.

Berry's paper serves little except evangelism for ecological thought,
and the results of greed - that's not a bad thing. But there are far
more important and useful things available for educators to illustrate
the obvious precipice and suggest means and ways to back off from it.
As for our legislature, well, that's a whole 'nother problem, in't
it...? After all, they represent...umm...who they are?

Here in my green-land, simplicity, economy and parsimony are not just
actions, but principles. You're in an excellent location for solar
power, Richard, and the technology has significantly improved. So what
are you doing about it? What's the community doing about it? A solar
UNM would be quite a wonderful thing - you could take Berry on a tour
;)  The myth of a Buddhist principle of inaction is a farce, a
coward's way of avoiding the responsibility of intelligent life.
Stepping up to karma means investing whatever you have in the right
direction. And it's not like the right direction isn't as plain as the
face in the mirror (lit by flourescent light, of course).

Oops - was I evangelizing? Sorry! ;)
cf