How to do science with a non-science -- 1
Originally Posted by yrreg :
Is Buddhism a science? No, say the Buddhists here.
Is Buddhism scientific? No, say the Buddhists here.
No, says also Yrreg; but Yrreg has gotten the impression from the Buddhist writings in commendation of Buddhism that it is a science or at least it is scientific whatever the difference between the two attributions.
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Why then do you Buddhist folks take Buddhism seriously as to fashion your life on Buddhism? when it is neither science nor scientific.
Another question, for not being a science and not being scientific, "Can Buddhism be studied scientifically and how and what in Buddhism?"
Yes; and correct me if I am wrong: Isn't Ryokan out to prove that Buddhist meditation has scientific effectivity; otherwise what evidence is he looking for from scientists or scientific studies?
Yrreg
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Why do buddhists take it seriously and alter the way they lead their lives when it isn't "scientific"? Why do people decide whether to have an abortion or not, or to eat meat, or to steal or any one of millions of decisions that are not based on scientific theory or experiement? People don't lead lives based on strict science. Science has a limited input on matters moral and interpersonal.
One minute you guys are ludicrously talking about buddhism as an entire subject being "scientific" (which is totally meaningless) and now you are narrowing it it down to meditation. But still you don't state which specific claim made about meditation is or is not scientifically valid.
How can you even talk about science when you keep asking non-questions. You might as well ask: are peanuts scientific?
What are you actually claiming is or isn't true?
Dear Splossy, I am really mighty glad to meet you here, because you are someone up to my kind of heart and mind.
I am trying to make scientific sense of Buddhism and Western Buddhists with intellectual leanings like the Buddhists here in JREF forum. And in the process I am in my own way employing what I know to be the scientific method. But I keep getting derailed by factors which I am trying to control, human ones; just the same I am getting to know more and more about Buddhism and the Western Buddhists, specially the ones here -- scientifically.
You will now ask me what it is to know something scientifically?
Off the cuff I will say that to know something scientifically is to recognize the what and the how and the why of something, so that you can make predictions about it, and also produce or effect something similar and succeed. This applies to a human conduct like Buddhism, but it can be used also to study anything at all,
mutatis mutandis.
Emotionally from my part, I feel that the Buddhists here for being obsessively involved with Buddhism, whatever kind of and to whatever degree or depth and width and height of, like as with a new bride, cannot know themselves as Buddhists scientifically. They get angry and use harsh, uncivil language which spoils the scientific atmosphere I am trying to create here in my skeptical criticism of Buddhist beliefs and observances.
For example, in place of being scientific they react by calling people troll, cockroach, strawman; they don't want to see the big picture and make the short statement, but must go into most unwieldy highways and byways of their Buiddhist cosmos with words, in order to not face something that is staring at them before their very nose.
But that is my emotional feeling, and I must transcend that feeling if I am going to continue to pursue my scientific study of Buddhism and Western Buddhists with intellectual leanings (see? I use the word leanings not pretensions in order to be scientific and not satiric).
So, finally, one of them here, a most vituperative kind, Dancing David, like that other called Username, and to a much lesser gravity Ryokan (who is not above invoking the
f* word and the a* word, yes, finally one of them, Dancing David, hit the nail on the head with this tread:
Buddhism is not scientific!
Now we can all really who are into scientific skepticism dissect Buddhism to agree with Dancing David that
Buddhism is not scientific!
[Hahaha softly, this is an experiment.]
I am so happy to have undertaken this hobby of skeptical criticism on Buddhism here in JREF forum, for I have learned so many things in the process, like uploading images into a message, and also very useful, how to utilize Google as a search + corcordance engine; but most important my knowledge of life and human actuations has expanded an nth power.
Yrreg
