“It is natural that doubt should arise in your minds.
I tell you not to believe merely because it has been handed down by tradition, or because it had been said by some great personage in the past, or because it is commonly believed, or because others have told it to you, or even because I myself have said it...
... But whatever you are asked to believe, ask yourself whether it is true in the light of your experience, whether it is in conformity with reason and good principles and whether it is conducive to the highest good and welfare of all beings, and only if it passes this test, should you accept it and act in accordance with it.”
- The Buddha
Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya.
In the western world there are two opposing views of the
origins of the species - theological (creationism) and scientific (evolution).
Creationism
Creationists believe that species are unchanging and derive
their forms by reference to a divine blueprint. Theology has long been
dominated by the ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato, who taught that the
species were invariant, deriving their characteristics from reference to
'essences' or 'ideal forms' which were fixed, eternal and inherently existent.
To a Creationist a rose is a rose is a rose, and would smell as sweet by any
other name. There is no way a rose bush could fade into a strawberry plant, or
a cherry tree, or a tangle of brambles, or a mountain ash, or a raspberry cane,
or a hawthorn bush, or an apple tree. These are all totally distinct and
immediately recognisable species - separate types of plant with nothing in
between. Theologians base their time reckoning on the chronology of the Bible which
states that the world all its species were created in six days of a single week
around 4004 BC .
Evolution
Evolutionists believe that species arose by gradual change
from simpler forms. Strawberry plants, cherry trees, blackberries, raspberries,
hawthorns and apples all have a family likeness because they all arose from a
common ancestor, which resembled a primitive rose. Hence botanists call this
plant family the Rosaceae.
Similarly, all primates (including humans and apes) have a
common ancestor. Going back further, all species of mammals diverged from a
common ancestor, and so on into the dim and distant past until we reach one
common ancestor of all lifeforms, which originated the DNA coding which is
universal for all plants, animals, fungi and bacteria on earth.
Consequently, to evolutionists the biological species
concept does not reflect any underlying reality. A species is purely a snapshot
of an interbreeding population of organisms at a particular epoch in time, and
as time progresses the characteristics of that population will gradually change
in response to selective pressures.
Buddhism
Buddhist philosophy is evolutionary and thus agrees with the
scientists rather than the theologians. Buddha taught that all things are
impermanent, constantly arising, becoming, changing and fading . Buddhist
philosophers consequently rejected the Platonic idea of production from 'ideal
forms' as being the fallacy of 'production from inherently existent other'.
According to most schools of Buddhism there is nothing whatsoever that is
inherently or independently existent.
The two main creationist objections to evolution are:
1 Disagreement with Genesis
2 Blurring of the theological distinction between human and
animal
Neither of these pose any threat to Buddhist philosophy. The
first objection is based on the need to maintain the truth of a particular
creation story in order to preserve the underlying basis for all Biblical
truth. This is not a worry to Buddhists because there is no corresponding
Buddhist creation myth, and Buddhist philosophers have always accepted that the
universe is many hundreds of millions of years old.
The second theological objection is that evolution states
that there is a continuum between ape and man, ie human and animal.(A favourite
anti-evolutionary slogan is 'Don't let them make a Monkey of You!). This is not
a problem for Buddhists, who believe that both humans and animals possess
sentient minds which survive death.
However, it is a major problem for theologians. The church has always
taught that only humans have immortal souls, whereas animals are automata whose
minds cease at death. Humans and animals were created separatedly and hence are
totally different types of being. But if there was a gradual transition between
animal and man, as the evolutionists claim, then such theological beliefs fall
apart.
The theologians are left with three alternative unpalatable
viewpoints:
- Both humans and animals are and always have been automata
(the materialist's position).
- Both humans and animals are sentient beings whose minds
survive death (the Buddhist position)
- At some arbitrary date in the past the apemen were
suddenly equipped with souls.
The undermining of the doctrine of the distinction of human
from animals is probably an even greater threat to the theological viewpoint
than doubt about the literal truth of Genesis, and does much to explain why
theologians of any persuasion have never been able to come to terms with what
Daniel C. Dennett [REF 1] has described as Darwins's Dangerous Idea.
Evolution and dukkha
No matter what philosophical knots the theologians may be
forced to unravel, from the Buddhist viewpoint the theory of evolution has
considerable explanatory power, in particular demonstrating why dukkha (the
sensation of unsatisfactoriness) is a pervasive experience of all sentient
beings throughout the evolved biosphere.
- Sean Robsville
Source: Transcultural Buddhism
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