one must be carefull..[re meditation]
i have met many unfunctional buddists

see how the issue is to reach nothingness
to make your mind consiously go silent
[well thats ok if your mind is filled with negativity
but a truelly silent mind cant judge good from vile]

dont think that they are all wrong
for some mind silence is a blessing
but for many numb minded 'others'...
their true problem is getting the thing going

sorry bout going off topic
but spirituality..is an important thing..[being able to visualise perfection or even beyond the mundane..seeing the nothingness..is as bad or worse than believing after dead is nothing

we are spirits..[energy]
sciene tells us energy cant be created
nor destroyed...[but life proves energy can be moved
going from one living sperm into one living eggs...in a living body]

life is all energy
our senses...trigger activate awareness
thats too big a thing to trust to materialistic athiest's

science is and can yet be wrong
as i have proved at many topics

i was born into science
found after living half..my life god free
that there is a living loving good[god/energy]

evolution is a theory
full of flaws

much of the other stuff/evolving fluff
specificly taught as gospil science truth..is in error as well
but that lie..is embedded into our ignorances..cause were too lazey to filter lies from truth

ie ask those with opinions..
to prove their 'belief'

but..*cause were too dumb to test the science
or too numb to test the good of belief in god
we clearly get as we were given

[rubbish in...rubbish out]

thats why jesus said
by their works...will we know them
if they have good fruits..the tree of their life is good

let the tares live with the wheat
till harvest time..[where our fruit/works...get their just returning]

to save one...[not just u]..is the key..in the next realm
so wether you believe it or not....more shall be given*
your not making a contract..you made a choice

god has grace/mercy..love
for even the least of the living
look at some of the vile..he yet sustains to live
[knowing in time we all get into love/grace and mercy..to others

as well as ourselves]

Dear George,

Thank you for introducing me to Sagan's Maxim. There are however more than two possible presuppositions and I'm afraid that I subscribe to neither of those two options that Sagan presented (nor to the third, that of sitting on the fence).

Your quote from the Dalai Lama is very interesting, but I'm afraid that I cannot pass judgment on him without reading the whole book. My wild guess though, is that the Dalai Lama did not consider the possibility of science contradicting the very essence of Buddhism, such as the Four Noble Truths, but rather considered it technically possible for science to contradict some of Buddhism's subsidiary teachings (for example, what happens to our spirits after we die).

Atheists long for God just as anyone else, it's only that they feel nauseated by the CONCEPT of God, as propagated by religious establishments, so they search for equivalent concepts which they can live with. There is nothing wrong with them intuiting a sense of sacredness in nature just as Christians may find sacredness in gospel images, symbols, sculptures and buildings.

A point to remember is that "sacred" attributes physical objects (including locations and eras) whereas nothing "spiritual" can be found in the universe, or accessed objectively by science or such. While there are no spiritual objects, material objects are made sacred by the fact that people dedicate them as pointers to the spirit. God, for example, is not sacred, but God's name is!

Dear Yuyutsu,
Thank you for a considered and inspiring reply. However, some misunderstandings should be cleared.

It is I who called Sagan’s statement “the Cosmos is all that there is” (representing in a nutshell his world-view) “Sagan’s Maxim”, and in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9389#150883 I just presented this together with its logical negation, i.e. A and nonA (though I am aware that the clarity of this depends on the clarity of the definition of what Sagan calls Cosmos and what I, and many others, call “the material world accessible through science and mathematics”). So please explain what you mean by subscribing to, as it stands, neither A nor nonA.

Neither do I understand how could “science … contradict … Buddhism’s subsidiary teachings (on), what happens to our spirits after we die” if spirits are not part of the material world science has access to. (Christians believe in the soul surviving after death, however neither “soul” nor “after” in this context - as these abstractions are understood in our 21st century - are concepts available to natural science to make statements about: they are part of the model of non-material reality). So again, please explain whether or not you think “our spirits” are available to natural science to make statements about. (ctd)

(ctd)
>>they feel nauseated by the CONCEPT of God, as propagated by religious establishments<<
By religious you apparently mean mainly Christian. Again, I can understand that atheists do not accept the “supernatural” realm (Shunyata?), and Buddhists the model of it that includes the concept of God seen as a “loving father” you can communicate with. However, it is really seldom that Buddhists, even atheists, would refer to the idea of a loving father as nauseating.

Years ago I read D. T. Suzuki’s classical ”Outlines of Mahayana Budhism” (Schocken Books, 1973), so I know that some Buddhists could be rather confrontational towards Christianity. Today the majority are not: I had a friend - ethnically Chinese - who went through being a Buddhist monk, converted to Catholicism, even studied theology in Rome but decided to marry instead. He was very much convinced that Catholicism and Buddhism have a lot to offer each other. He made me understand the Buddhist perspective much better than Suzuki’s confrontational book.

I agree with your last paragraph, however I think you are confusing the adjective “sacred” as popularly understood, with the concept of “The Sacred” in the sense of e.g. Rudolf Otto’s “The Holy Other”.

Dear George,

Obviously I only related to what I read in your article, since this is the first time that I come across Sagan's Maxim.

I have no idea whether or not "the material world accessible through science and mathematics" is all that there is, or in other words whether science can potentially answer each and every material question. However, while this may indeed be an intriguing question for some, I consider it merely a material issue with no spiritual significance.

Coming back to what you wrote there (which I took to be called "Sagan's Maxim"), I reject (1) on the grounds that the material world is unreal, an illusion (so if it's all there is, then nothing is), and I reject (2) on the grounds that God is not a "something".

Relating to "spirits in the after-life", my answer is quite simple: Certain Buddhist schools (as well as other religions) discuss with detail the journey of the soul/spirit once it leaves the body (take for example the Tibetan book of the dead). I don't claim to be an expert in that matter as I retained no personal out-of-body memories, but if those descriptions are true, then it is all about some subtler realms, it's about us having subtler bodies which do remain even once our gross body dies. Such bodies would still be material - yes, of a subtler matter, but still of a matter, and therefore I cannot exclude the possibility that science will one day be able to research it.

Some atheists, BTW, do believe in the supernatural.

Atheists and Buddhists may refer to the idea of God as nauseating for totally different reasons:
Atheists- because it reminds of them of the [Judeo-]Christian establishment.
Buddhists- because it feeds and gratifies the mind with abstract ideas, which are a hindrance to Nirvana.

Buddha himself was [deliberately] ambiguous on the issue of God and gave conflicting answers, depending on whom he was talking with at the time.

I am convinced that Jesus and Buddha were in total agreement. It's only the fallible organizations of their followers which occasionally clash.