Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine
Author: G. Clinton Godart
Publisher:
Published: 2017
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9780824858650
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Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine
Author: G. Clinton Godart
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 2018-03-31
Total Pages: 321
ISBN-13: 0824876830
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDarwin, Dharma, and the Divine is the first book in English on the history of evolutionary theory in Japan. Bringing to life more than a century of ideas, G. Clinton Godart examines how and why Japanese intellectuals, religious thinkers of different faiths, philosophers, biologists, journalists, activists, and ideologues engaged with evolutionary theory and religion. How did Japanese religiously think about evolution? What were their main concerns? Did they reject evolution on religious grounds, or—as was more often the case—how did they combine evolutionary theory with their religious beliefs? Evolutionary theory was controversial and never passively accepted in Japan: It took a hundred years of appropriating, translating, thinking, and debating to reconsider the natural world and the relation between nature, science, and the sacred in light of evolutionary theory. Since its introduction in the nineteenth century, Japanese intellectuals—including Buddhist, Shinto, Confucian, and Christian thinkers—in their own ways and often with opposing agendas, struggled to formulate a meaningful worldview after Darwin. In the decades that followed, as the Japanese redefined their relation to nature and built a modern nation-state, the debates on evolutionary theory intensified and state ideologues grew increasingly hostile toward its principles. Throughout the religious reception of evolution was dominated by a long-held fear of the idea of nature and society as cold and materialist, governed by the mindless “struggle for survival.” This aversion endeavored many religious thinkers, philosophers, and biologists to find goodness and the divine within nature and evolution. It was this drive, argues Godart, that shaped much of Japan’s modern intellectual history and changed Japanese understandings of nature, society, and the sacred. Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine will contribute significantly to two of the most debated topics in the history of evolutionary theory: religion and the political legacy of evolution. It will, therefore, appeal to the broad audience interested in Darwin studies as well as students and scholars of Japanese intellectual history, religion, and philosophy.
Hindu Perspectives on Evolution
Author: C. Mackenzie Brown
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-01-19
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 1136484671
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProviding new insights into the contemporary creationist-evolution debates, this book looks at the Hindu cultural-religious traditions of India, the Hindu Dharma traditions. By focusing on the interaction of religion and science in a Hindu context, it offers a global context for understanding contemporary creationist-evolution conflicts and tensions utilizing a critical analysis of Hindu perspectives on these issues. The cultural and political as well as theological nature of these conflicts is illustrated by drawing attention to parallels with contemporary Islamic and Buddhist responses to modern science and Darwinism. The book explores various ancient and classical Hindu models to explain the origin of the universe encompassing creationist as well as evolutionary—but non-Darwinian—interpretations of how we came to be. Complex schemes of cosmic evolution were developed, alongside creationist proofs for the existence of God utilizing distinctly Hindu versions of the design argument. After examining diverse elements of the Hindu Dharmic traditions that laid the groundwork for an ambivalent response to Darwinism when it first became known in India, the book highlights the significance of the colonial context. Analysing critically the question of compatibility between traditional Dharmic theories of knowledge and the epistemological assumptions underlying contemporary scientific methodology, the book raises broad questions regarding the frequently alleged harmony of Hinduism, the eternal Dharma, with modern science, and with Darwinian evolution in particular.
The Evolution Of Gods : The Scientific Origin Of Divinity And Religion
Author: Ajay Kansal
Publisher: Epicurus Books
Published: 2012-04-23
Total Pages: 245
ISBN-13: 9350294389
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDid gods create mankind, or did mankind create gods? Why, when and how did mankind begin to worship gods? Religious scriptures the world over claim that one or the other god made man, but science has not yet identified any supernatural power that created and governed human beings. Was it man who came up with the idea of gods to help him cope with his own fears? Could it be that ancient people attributed natural phenomena-unfathomable and frightening to them-to the working of invisible gods? What kind of sufferings or bewilderments made people bow before unseen powers or gods as we call them? When were these gods created? Who invented morals and methods of worship? Who wrote the ancient scriptures such as the Bible and the Vedas? Most crucially, have gods and the scriptures shaped our responses to the world around us? The Evolution of Gods seeks to answer these questions, and explains scientifically how, when and why religions and gods came into being. Ajay Kansal marshals anthropological and historical facts about the development of religions in a simple and straightforward manner to assert that it was mankind that created gods, and not the other way around.
The Dharma in DNA
Author: Dee Denver
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 0197604587
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"The Dharma in DNA has three objectives: 1) to share the rich but underappreciated history of biology-Buddhism intersections and surprising harmonies between the two traditions, 2) to evaluate Buddhist teachings from a scientific perspective using DNA as the focus of study, and 3) to propose a new approach to science, Bodhi Science, as an ethical and operational framework for conducting Buddhist wisdom-guided science and preventing pseudoscience. An interwoven side project examines the life journey of the author, a professor of genetics and father in a transracial adoptive family, who questions the apparent paradox of his fascination with DNA in the lab but disinterest in passing on his own DNA. Early book chapters present the core teachings and diversifications of Buddhism over the last twenty-five centuries. Subsequent chapters share stories of biology-Buddhism interactions, situated in the colonial contexts; examples derive from early 20th century Sri Lanka and Japan, and contemporary activities of the Dalai Lama and Western biological scholars. The hypothesis-guided analysis of Buddhist principles and DNA then begins, touring through classical genetic research alongside modern post-genomic insights. The investigation reveals strong support for three core Buddhist concepts - anitya (impermanence), anatman (non-self), and pratitysamutpada (mutual cause-and-effect) - as applied to DNA. Bodhi Science is proposed as a new mode of scientific inquiry rooted in Buddhist teachings. The approach is based on four qualities: selflessness, detachment, awareness, and compassion. Bodhi Science provides a path to strong science rooted in logic-based Buddhist ethics, and helps scientists avoid the deceptive and damaging waters of pseudoscience"--
Religion in Human Evolution
Author: Robert N. Bellah
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2017-05-08
Total Pages: 777
ISBN-13: 0674252934
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An ABC Australia Best Book on Religion and Ethics of the Year Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section of the American Sociological Association Religion in Human Evolution is a work of extraordinary ambition—a wide-ranging, nuanced probing of our biological past to discover the kinds of lives that human beings have most often imagined were worth living. It offers what is frequently seen as a forbidden theory of the origin of religion that goes deep into evolution, especially but not exclusively cultural evolution. “Of Bellah’s brilliance there can be no doubt. The sheer amount this man knows about religion is otherworldly...Bellah stands in the tradition of such stalwarts of the sociological imagination as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Only one word is appropriate to characterize this book’s subject as well as its substance, and that is ‘magisterial.’” —Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review “Religion in Human Evolution is a magnum opus founded on careful research and immersed in the ‘reflective judgment’ of one of our best thinkers and writers.” —Richard L. Wood, Commonweal
Evolutionary Theories and Religious Traditions
Author: Bernard Lightman
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 2023-11-21
Total Pages: 376
ISBN-13: 0822990075
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBefore the advent of radio, conceptions of the relationship between science and religion circulated through periodicals, journals, and books, influencing the worldviews of intellectuals and a wider public. In this volume, historians of science and religion examine that relationship through diverse mediums, geographic contexts, and religious traditions. Spanning within and beyond Europe and North America, chapters emphasize underexamined regions—New Zealand, Australia, India, Argentina, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire—and major religions of the world, including Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Islam; interactions between those traditions; as well as atheism, monism, and agnosticism. As they focus on evolution and human origins, contributors draw attention to European scientists other than Darwin who played a significant role in the dissemination of evolutionary ideas; for some, those ideas provided the key to understanding every aspect of human culture, including religion. They also highlight central figures in national contexts, many of whom were not scientists, who appropriated scientific theories for their own purposes. Taking a local, national, transnational, and global approach to the study of science and religion, this volume begins to capture the complexity of cultural engagement with evolution and religion in the long nineteenth century.
Darwin's Religious Odyssey
Author: William E. Phipps
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 2002-09-01
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 9781563383847
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDraws on newly available material to consider Darwin's personal religious beliefs, profiling him as a man from a specific time in history struggling to harmonize his spiritual worldviews with his scientific findings. Original.
Creationism in a South Korean Culture
Author: Hyung Wook Park
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2024-06-25
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 1040039456
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPark investigates the unexpected success of early Korean creationists, who were mostly scientists, and argues that creationism is not a product of the lack of intelligence or proper scientific education but a consequence of more profound social developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Known as the religious belief rejecting evolutionary theory, creationism has become a global issue. Although it was often known as a problem unique among fundamentalist Protestants in the United States, it has been appropriated by people with diverse religions around the world, including Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America. Many scientists and educators perceive this dissemination as a threat to modern pedagogy and scholarship, although few of them are aware of its historical and cultural contexts. Through an intensive study of the birth and growth of the anti-evolutionary movement in South Korea during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, this book traces an important part of this worldwide movement against evolution. The author argues that South Korean creationism started from the country's past as a developmental state during the Cold War but proliferated further amid subsequent democratization and globalization. Creationism reflected the new identifications of some Korean scientists and engineers with evangelical faith, who actively formed their own domain outside of the state hegemony and authority. This book is a valuable reference for scholars interested in the dynamic interaction between science and religion in East Asia.
Why I Am a Buddhist
Author: Stephen T. Asma
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
Published: 2011-01-01
Total Pages: 194
ISBN-13: 1612830412
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProfound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism. There have been a lot of books that have made the case for Buddhism. What makes this book fresh and exciting is Asma’s iconoclasm, irreverence, and hardheaded approach to the subject. He is distressed that much of what passes for Buddhism is really little more than “New Age mush.” He asserts that it is time to “take the California out of Buddhism.” He presents a spiritual practice that does not require a belief in creeds or dogma. It is a practice that is psychologically sound, intellectually credible, and esthetically appealing. It is a practice that does not require a diet of brown rice, burning incense, and putting both your mind and your culture in deep storage. In seven chapters, Asma builds the case for a spiritual practice that is authentic, and inclusive. This is Buddhism for everyone, especially for people who are uncomfortable with religion but yearn for a spiritual practice.
