The Relationship between Buddhism and Science: Secularisation

Question 1

AO3: How does the West approach religion?

Answer 1

It is post-christian, atheistic and secular.

Question 2

AO3: What did Don Culpitt write about religion in the West?

Answer 2

‘Religion today has to become belief less’.

Question 3

AO3: How is Buddhism not seen to be typically religious?

Answer 3

It rejects the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God.

Question 4

AO3: What did Buddhism reject from Brahmanism?

Answer 4

Brahman as the eternal and unchangeable constant reality.

Question 5

AO3: What does Paul Tillich believe the ultimate concern is of a theistic religion?

Answer 5

Faith in God which is not found in Buddhism.

Question 6

AO3: Historically what was the Buddha found to be?

Answer 6

Scholars such as Batchelor propose the Buddha and its originality is wholly atheistic and secular.

Question 7

AO3: What did researcher Trevor Ling discover?

Answer 7

1973 - ‘The Buddha: The Social Revolutionary Potential of Buddhism’ - stated the Buddha was not a founder of religion and his teaching was not religious.

Question 8

AO3: Why did the Buddha’s teachings flourish?

Answer 8

It came from a time of economic flourishment - a class of intellectual and wealthy came asking questions.

Question 9

AO3: What teachings did the Buddha apply to the newly rich?

Answer 9

Anatta - Not focus on the self but general welfare.
Also gave them the concept of the sangha to focus on the common wealth of society.

Question 10

AO3: What does Ling argue led Buddhism to become a religion?

Answer 10

‘Continually reoccurring human religion-making tendency’

Question 11

AO3: How does Batchelor argue against the enlightenment being mythical?

Answer 11

Instead the realisation that he could give up alaya - his place in life.
It was understanding contingency not ‘gaining a privileged knowledge into some higher truth’.

Question 12

AO3: What religion did the Buddha dismiss?

Answer 12

The priestly religion of brahmins, dismissing it as unintelligible and legitimising an unjust social structure.

Question 13

AO3: What may be seen as false reification in Buddhism?

Answer 13

The central theme of Karma.

Question 14

AO3: How does the Buddha adapt a pragmatic view of Karma?

Answer 14

In the Sivaka Sutta he outlines pain or pleasure is ‘entirely caused by what was done before’.

Question 15

AO3: What forms of Buddhism can be seen as non-theistic?

Answer 15

Therevada and the initial forms of Buddhism.

Question 16

AO3: How does Batchelor show Buddhism to be theistic?

Answer 16

During his time in Dharamsala in the 1970’s he told a story of an evil demon which was captured by monks specialising in exorcism in a triangular box, sealed with vajras and buried deep in the earth.

Question 17

AO3: What seven terms did Ninian Smart outline to recognise religions?

Answer 17

1/ Ritual: forms and orders of ceremonies.
2/ Narrative: Mythic stories
3/ Experiential: experiences of devotion
4/ Social and Institutional
5/ Ethical and legal
6/ Doctrinal and Philosophical
7/ Material

Question 18

AO3: Where does Kant say the metaphysical exists?

Answer 18

In the noumenal realm - the realm of the abstract and the Absolute.

Question 19

AO3: What is the Buddhist version of the noumenal realm?

Answer 19

The ‘other shore’ that is completely empty (shunya) of anything empirical eternally.

Question 20

AO3: How is the Buddha outlined to be aware of the two realms?

Answer 20

The Buddha’s title of lokavid meaning ‘knower of the world’ as he could see these two realms.

Question 21

AO3: Why may there be conflict over the philosophical or religious debate?

Answer 21

Academics study the religion from the outside whilst the believer follows from within.

Question 22

AO3: How did the Dalai Lama view Western academics?

Answer 22

After visiting Michigan University students doing a seminar on Mahayana he outlined that it left him with the historical Buddha bereft of his omniscience.

Question 23

Is Buddhism presented as a secular philosophy?

Answer 23

Buddhism has frequently been presented in the West as a secular philosophy: in the 19th century, Victorians such as Huxley believed there was an original ‘pure’
form of Buddhism which was entirely atheistic.

Question 24

What does Stephen Bachelor see Buddhism as?

Answer 24

Stephen Batchelor sees Buddhism as a rational philosophy and way of life in After Buddhism: ‘Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age’ published in 2015.

Question 25

What approach to the Pali canon and life of the Buddha does SB hold?

Answer 25

He applies a secular and pragmatic approach to the Pali Canon and the life of the Buddha and only focuses on the secular and pragmatic teachings he finds.

Question 26

4 Buddhist principles?

Answer 26

Buddhism then has Four Principles: Conditionality (a person should examine their present life and circumstances in order to understand their past and the possibilities for their future), a Fourfold Task (comprehend suffering, let go of reactivity to it, observe that reactivity has ceased, develop an eightfold path of completion), Mindful Awareness (having a heightened attention to everything that is being done) and Self-Reliance (living ‘a caring and care-full life, founded on personal responsibility and autonomy’).