How Does Hawking'S View Affect Buddhism?

[msg362]

I'm curious to know if Hawking's view that there is no need for a god in the origin of the universe affects Buddhists teachings. Someone explained on BBC yesterday that there now seems to be a mathematical equation that unifies many disparate equations and which gives a 'unified theory'. This seems to be what Hawking was referring to. What is the Buddhist reaction to this notion? ( i'm sure i know what fundementalist Christians and islamist will say but I'm interested to hear a Buddhist explanation)

[sabaijai]

Hawking's view is nothing new. Follow the link below to the existing thread on the 'new atheists,' and add for further discussion.

[pramaprow]

Not at all (to answer your question)…since the Buddha disavowed any (one) central creator...

[msg362]

Hawking's view is nothing new. Follow the link below to the existing thread on the 'new atheists,' and add for further discussion.

http://www.thaivisa...._1#entry1670884

Thank you for his, very interesting. I take from that that thread,that, if i can call them 'thinking buddhists'- those that have read a lot, will not be troubled by any theory of the creation of the universe that does not include a creator. But I see Buddhism in action here for the majority of Thais and I'm struck by the similarities in ritual styles between them and the Catholic church. Priests are celibate/not married,fasting period, prayers in an ancient language which is not understood, rituals. Many Thais still have animist beliefs ,ghosts etc ,a belief in things 'supernatural' I suspect they may have a different view.

From what I understand ( and I could well be wrong) this new theory of 'M' cannot be proved, a bit ironic!

[Xangsamhua]

Hawking's view is nothing new. Follow the link below to the existing thread on the 'new atheists,' and add for further discussion.

http://www.thaivisa...._1#entry1670884

Thank you for his, very interesting. I take from that that thread,that, if i can call them 'thinking buddhists'- those that have read a lot, will not be troubled by any theory of the creation of the universe that does not include a creator. But I see Buddhism in action here for the majority of Thais and I'm struck by the similarities in ritual styles between them and the Catholic church. Priests are celibate/not married,fasting period, prayers in an ancient language which is not understood, rituals. Many Thais still have animist beliefs ,ghosts etc ,a belief in things 'supernatural' I suspect they may have a different view.

From what I understand ( and I could well be wrong) this new theory of 'M' cannot be proved, a bit ironic!

I'm no physicist, so if Hawking et al say M-theory is new, or an advance on the multiple universes model that has been around for - how long? (I know Paul Davies wrote about it in the 80s) - then I'll take them at their word.

With regard to Thai Buddhism, keep in mind that you have Dhamma - the Buddha's teaching - and the culture in which it is embedded. In Thailand Dhamma is embedded in a pre-existing culture that includes the sorts of things one normally finds in popular religion, and is still found anywhere in the world where an imported religion has supplanted a pre-existing one as the accepted religion of the court and the ruling elites. Popular religion and Dhamma overlap in Thailand. Some people lean toward a "purer" Buddhism; others toward their heritage of a dhamma-folk religion fusion. Many, of course, as in perhaps every country, are fairly ignorant of much of the religion's founder's teaching.

I really can't see most Thai Buddhists, of whatever type, being concerned one way or another about Stephen Hawking's views on the God-concept.

[moe666]

His theory has as much validity as the theories proposed by various religions.

[canuckamuck]

I really can't see most Thai Buddhists, of whatever type, being concerned one way or another about Stephen Hawking's views on the God-concept.

Your not exactly reaching for the stars with that assumption.

[phetaroi]

My response to the OPs question is that in practical terms, very few people even know who Hawking is. And keep in mind he was an atheist to begin with. In the grand scheme of religious beliefs, including Buddhism, this is not even a ripple.

[bifftastic]

Irrespective of whether or not anyone knows who Hawking is, what would the buddhist perspective be on the idea of a universe without a god as the creator of it?

What is the buddhist view of creation and evolution?

And everyone's an atheist to begin with

Edited September 14, 2010 by bifftastic

[yellow1red1]

Check out Richard Dawkins, a Darwinist and Laurence Krauss, a Cosmologist, their speech together and separate speeches.

It often sounds like they are proving scientifically what Buddha espoused though not likely they know they are?

especially the all is nothingness

Buddha discovered Nothing way before they discovered nothing

[canuckamuck]

Not at all (to answer your question)…since the Buddha disavowed any (one) central creator...

Is there any way you could show me that, some scripture or something recognized?

[msg362]

Thank you folks for the replies. I must admit I am impressed by one poster who simply dismisses Hawkin's ( et al) theory out of hand. That must mean he read it ,understood it and has valid arguments against it! Far brainer than me. For others tho', thank you, I've been interested in Buddhism and have even learnt to meditate, but can't get my head around reincarnation and so go no further. I'm glad that modern theories if the origin of the universe are not causing a lot of grief,they must be if you are a fundementalist Christian or muslim, but then to them the earth was born about ? 6000 years ago?

Thanks

[canuckamuck]

Not at all (to answer your question)…since the Buddha disavowed any (one) central creator...

Is there any way you could show me that, some scripture or something recognized?

Just bumping this request, does anyone have this material?

[GarryP]

Thank you folks for the replies. I must admit I am impressed by one poster who simply dismisses Hawkin's ( et al) theory out of hand. That must mean he read it ,understood it and has valid arguments against it! Far brainer than me. For others tho', thank you, I've been interested in Buddhism and have even learnt to meditate, but can't get my head around reincarnation and so go no further. I'm glad that modern theories if the origin of the universe are not causing a lot of grief,they must be if you are a fundementalist Christian or muslim, but then to them the earth was born about ? 6000 years ago?

Thanks

There is no conflict between meditation and not believing in reincarnation or Buddhism. One without the other is fine so do not beat yourself up about it. I was ordained in the monkhood for a short period a number of years ago, but I no longer believe in any religion and certainly do not believe in reincarnation. As some posters say, I do not think that it will have any impact on Buddhism, simply because the vast majority will pay no interest in such views. It tends to be quite a selfish religion in Thailand (I cannot say for other countries as I have no experience) so in so far as it has no bearing on how they practice their religion it will be ignored.

[camerata]

Not at all (to answer your question)…since the Buddha disavowed any (one) central creator...

Is there any way you could show me that, some scripture or something recognized?

Visuddhi Magga:

"No god, no Brahma can be called

The Maker of this Wheel of Life:

Just empty phenomena roll on

Dependent on conditions all."

Bhuridatta Jataka:

If the creator of the world entire

They call God, of every being be the Lord

Why does he order such misfortune

And not create concord?

If the creator of the world entire

They call God, of every being be the Lord

Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance

And he such inequity and injustice create?

If the creator of the world entire

They call God, of every being be the Lord

Then an evil master is he,

Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!

"The Buddha argues that the three most commonly given attributes of God, viz. omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence towards humanity cannot all be mutually compatible with the existential fact of dukkha."

[IMA_FARANG]

Although I am certainly not an expert on Buddhist tachings, I would prefer to say that the Buddha did not argue against or for a supreme being, he just said that the matter is simply not relevant to the core of Buddhisim....which I would say is a method of finding understanding of the world, one's true place in it, and therefore gaining enlightenment.

In my personal view, that has nothing to do with the question of whether there is a "God" or not. That is another matter, not connected to the core of Buddhist practice (in my humble opinion).

I once stunned a fundamentalist Christian who believed that God created the earth, and therefore denied that evolution could exist. I simply asked him what the process God used to create heaven and earth. He said he didn't know. So I asked him if he had ever considered that maybe evolution was the process that God developed to create heaven and earth? That thought stunned him.

As for "dependent origination", my understanding is that all events,objects,etc have no inherent self-existance; but instead depend upon their relation with other objects to exist and be percieved. That is NOT the same as having no existance, is it? I think many who hear about "dependent origination" take it to mean that "nothing exists". That's a false assumption, in my opinion. Having no inherent self-existance is NOT the same as having no existance...it merely means that no object or thing exists without relation to the world of other objects (hope that doesn't make those who feel otherwise angry, it's just what I understand it to be).

Or as Sherlock Holmes is supposed to have said. "Lack of evidence of something is not the same as evidence of the lack of that something."

With all respect to Mr. Hawking...the same could be said of "God".

Edited September 16, 2010 by IMA_FARANG

[canuckamuck]

Not at all (to answer your question)…since the Buddha disavowed any (one) central creator...

Is there any way you could show me that, some scripture or something recognized?

Visuddhi Magga:

"No god, no Brahma can be called

The Maker of this Wheel of Life:

Just empty phenomena roll on

Dependent on conditions all."

Bhuridatta Jataka:

If the creator of the world entire

They call God, of every being be the Lord

Why does he order such misfortune

And not create concord?

If the creator of the world entire

They call God, of every being be the Lord

Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance

And he such inequity and injustice create?

If the creator of the world entire

They call God, of every being be the Lord

Then an evil master is he,

Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!

"The Buddha argues that the three most commonly given attributes of God, viz. omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence towards humanity cannot all be mutually compatible with the existential fact of dukkha."

Thank you very much, if I can just ask one more thing, what is "Visuddhi Magga:" and "Bhuridatta Jataka:"

[canuckamuck]

I once stunned a fundamentalist Christian who believed that God created the earth, and therefore denied that evolution could exist. I simply asked him what the process God used to create heaven and earth. He said he didn't know. So I asked him if he had ever considered that maybe evolution was the process that God developed to create heaven and earth? That thought stunned him.

Generally that topic brings out more heat in Christendom than 'Red shirt VS Yellow' on this forum. I am surprised you found someone who hadn't been in on that discussion.

[bifftastic]

So I asked him if he had ever considered that maybe evolution was the process that God developed to create heaven and earth? That thought stunned him.

Maybe he was trying to figure out how evolution could have happened in 6 days?

[camerata]

The Visuddhi Magga and Bhuridatta Jataka are Buddhist scriptures. The first is a Pali Commentary, the second is part of the Pali Canon.

[rockyysdt]

There is no conflict between meditation and not believing in reincarnation or Buddhism. One without the other is fine so do not beat yourself up about it. I was ordained in the monkhood for a short period a number of years ago, but I no longer believe in any religion and certainly do not believe in reincarnation. As some posters say, I do not think that it will have any impact on Buddhism, simply because the vast majority will pay no interest in such views.

From time to time I observe myself daydreaming or visualizing achievement of enlightenment and achieving reunification with Nibhanna.

Being attached to ego and, of course, averse to eternal death (when it comes) the thought of re birth & enlightenment can help sustain hope beyond.

However, when mindful, my observer notes my thoughts without attachment and then moves on.

As you say, lack of belief in re birth or reincarnation won't necessarily impact on ones progress provided they maintain practice, but I find, in the early part of ones journey, it can assist in motivation.

If its not too personal, did your experience as a Monk have any influence on your current beliefs and your parting from the Monkhood?

It tends to be quite a selfish religion in Thailand (I cannot say for other countries as I have no experience) so in so far as it has no bearing on how they practice their religion it will be ignored.

Did you mean that Buddhism as practiced by Thais is a selfish religion in Thailand as apposed to Buddhism as taught by the Buddha? I've met very special personalities in Thailand who practice regularly and appear very gentle and mindful towards others in terms of honesty benevolence & kindness, all selfless qualities. But then perhaps they were in the minority.

Edited September 16, 2010 by rockyysdt

[canuckamuck]

Thanks Camerata

[Xangsamhua]

I don't think the God question is ever going to go away. A blog I was reading this morning invoked Liebniz's argument that natural laws, such as gravity, themselves require an explanation and that, fundamentally, the contingency of the universe demands a first cause. Full stop.

The writer pours scorn on Hawking's quoted statement that "...it is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going" and says that

[t]his argument confuses the one, true Creator with the mere creature known as the God of the Gaps. This creature was invoked by Newtonians to explain all the physical phenomena unexplained by current science. This idea is very much like the ancients, who would evoke deities to explain lightening, volcanoes and other natural phenomena. Such a being has been called a demiurge and is simply another creature. The demiurge is not God. God is the creator not just another physical cause.

http://www.cathnews....aspx?aeid=23217

It may well be that, in rejecting the need for a deity to set the Singularity off, Professor Hawking is in fact rejecting the need for a God of the Gaps. Likewise, the Buddha, in referring to Brahma, the creative principle, one of the three members of the Trimurti, may have been rejecting a God of the Gaps rather than God as the Ground of Being. In questioning the possibility in the face of dukkha of a God who is omnipotent and omniscient and benevolent, the Buddha is not in fact rejecting the possibility of God as creator or ground of being, but the attributes cultures give to this supreme and ineffable Deity. There's no guarantee that an omnipotent and omniscient God is benevolent. God could well be quite vicious, indeed supremely evil, by human standards.

As long as one believes that there must be a first cause and thinks of this as the "ground of being", i.e. that which gives rise to being itself, then there will always be a God. And if by logical deduction one explains the non-possibility of this Supreme Being/First Cause, then a prior divine entity will be put forward as the Ground. There's an infinity of possible First Causes - that's the meaning of infinite regress - but people like "closure" and so they'll settle on God as the first cause to give them a sense of order and accountability in the cosmos.

The Buddha was right to stay out of the argument when he did. It goes nowhere, or it goes on and on and on, ad infinitum (and that's more than just a very long time).

[fabianfred]

Irrespective of whether or not anyone knows who Hawking is, what would the buddhist perspective be on the idea of a universe without a god as the creator of it?

What is the buddhist view of creation and evolution?

And everyone's an atheist to begin with

Buddhisam teaches that the past is infinite as is the future....so there was no creation or beginning point...we have all been trapped in Samsara since beginningless time.

Evolution, similar, but not exactly like Darwin's theory, occurs at the beginning of each new aeon (mahakappa) when the earth is ready to support life forms.

[camerata]

According to Ven Dhammika, the Buddha "rarely addressed questions concerning the existence or nature of God but this was only because such questions were not being discussed by the leading religious thinkers of the time. Neither Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, Pȧrana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesalambalã or the Buddha himself gave the concept of a supreme being any place in their philosophies."

The nearest they had to a creator god at the time was Brahma, but this idea IMO is negated by the Buddhist cosmology of multiple brahma realms populated by many brahmas. In the Brahmajala Sutta the Buddha mocks the idea that a being - in this case the first brahma in a new world system - could be considered the Creator. And by way of example (a brahma reborn in the human realm with a memory of the deluded "Maha Brahma" Creator) he demonstrates how wrong views of a creator God can enter the human mind.

The modern conception of God is a being who has always existed and was therefore around before the creation of the universe. In the bible he is "unbegat." But in the Pali Canon the only thing mentioned to be Uncreated, Unconditioned, etc, is nibbana. So that pretty much rules out any possibility of an eternal Creator God of the Christian type.

[phetaroi]

Evolution, similar, but not exactly like Darwin's theory, occurs at the beginning of each new aeon (mahakappa) when the earth is ready to support life forms.

Your evidence for this? Or is it based on your personal faith?

[phetaroi]

According to Ven Dhammika, the Buddha "rarely addressed questions concerning the existence or nature of God but this was only because such questions were not being discussed by the leading religious thinkers of the time. Neither Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, Pȧrana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesalambalã or the Buddha himself gave the concept of a supreme being any place in their philosophies."

The nearest they had to a creator god at the time was Brahma, but this idea IMO is negated by the Buddhist cosmology of multiple brahma realms populated by many brahmas. In the Brahmajala Sutta the Buddha mocks the idea that a being - in this case the first brahma in a new world system - could be considered the Creator. And by way of example (a brahma reborn in the human realm with a memory of the deluded "Maha Brahma" Creator) he demonstrates how wrong views of a creator God can enter the human mind.

The modern conception of God is a being who has always existed and was therefore around before the creation of the universe. In the bible he is "unbegat." But in the Pali Canon the only thing mentioned to be Uncreated, Unconditioned, etc, is nibbana. So that pretty much rules out any possibility of an eternal Creator God of the Christian type.

Thank you for this explanation.

[GarryP]

There is no conflict between meditation and not believing in reincarnation or Buddhism. One without the other is fine so do not beat yourself up about it. I was ordained in the monkhood for a short period a number of years ago, but I no longer believe in any religion and certainly do not believe in reincarnation. As some posters say, I do not think that it will have any impact on Buddhism, simply because the vast majority will pay no interest in such views.

From time to time I observe myself daydreaming or visualizing achievement of enlightenment and achieving reunification with Nibhanna.

Being attached to ego and, of course, averse to eternal death (when it comes) the thought of re birth & enlightenment can help sustain hope beyond.

However, when mindful, my observer notes my thoughts without attachment and then moves on.

As you say, lack of belief in re birth or reincarnation won't necessarily impact on ones progress provided they maintain practice, but I find, in the early part of ones journey, it can assist in motivation.

If its not too personal, did your experience as a Monk have any influence on your current beliefs and your parting from the Monkhood?

It tends to be quite a selfish religion in Thailand (I cannot say for other countries as I have no experience) so in so far as it has no bearing on how they practice their religion it will be ignored.

Did you mean that Buddhism as practiced by Thais is a selfish religion in Thailand as apposed to Buddhism as taught by the Buddha? I've met very special personalities in Thailand who practice regularly and appear very gentle and mindful towards others in terms of honesty benevolence & kindness, all selfless qualities. But then perhaps they were in the minority.

My experience as a monk did not influence my current beliefs. Like I said I was only in the monkhood for a very short time (a matter of weeks). I thoroughly enjoyed my time (perhaps not a good description but it gets the picture across) and really respected the Abbott who I thought of as extremely strict but with a heart of gold. It was a Thamayut temple on the border with Laos and very rudimentary. The experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Yes, I probably worded my earlier post poorly. I have nothing against Buddhism, in fact as religions go I would say to me it seems one of the better ones - being less confrontational and not forcing views down your throat. What I should have said is "Buddhism as practiced by the majority in Thailand". A lot of giving in Thailand is not for the benefit of the recipient but rather the merit of the giver, including alms in the morning, giving to charity etc,

[fabianfred]

Evolution, similar, but not exactly like Darwin's theory, occurs at the beginning of each new aeon (mahakappa) when the earth is ready to support life forms.

Your evidence for this? Or is it based on your personal faith?

no evidence...just my own belief based upon scriptures I read somewhere....unsure where now..

[Trickcyclist]

'There was an old man with a beard.

Who said: "I demand to be feared.

Address Me as God,

and love Me, you sod,"

And Man did that, which was weird!'

Roger Woddis