A fan of the site sent me this Buddhist exchange that I had to say something about:
Curious Buddhist:
I have an odd question which was raised by a friend, who was asking me questions about Buddhism. They wanted to know how Buddhism deals with the concept of evolution? Are Buddhists creationists? Our teachings don’t seem to deal with such matters and I was rather at a loss as to how to answer them.
Lama Shenpen:
I suppose one would have to say Buddhists are evolutionists in the sense that they do not think God created everything in seven days.
That’s not really a good start. Creationists don’t all believe in that exact nonsense. Some are far more sophisticated in their stupidity.
The Buddhist view is that everything emanates from the Primordial expanse of Openness Clarity Sensitivity and is illusion-like, never really coming into existence but the illusion is created by infinite intricate connections that are not anywhere and not in time.
Wow, the bullshit train is riding hard right now. Am I to believe that the Universe is an expanse of Sensitivity? I would argue that stars exploding in massive gamma ray bursts might not be entirely too sensitive to the feelings of nearby planets.
Time and space are part of the illusion that is emanating from that Primordial expanse – so it’s all very mysterious. From the Buddhist perspective there is no problem with life on earth having evolved somehow – but evolution is not in itself a full story or full account of life on earth – it leaves quite basic questions left unanswered.
Yes, evolution leaves tons of unanswered questions for Buddhists, such as “how did the first human exist if we’re all reincarnated”, and “how can human beings be so fucking gullible”?
In a way one might want to argue Buddhism is closer to creationism because our world is created by awareness – the awareness of the beings that inhabit it – evolution only gives a kind of history of how that illusion unfolds.
They love their whole “illusion” angle, don’t they. It’s a great way to avoid having to explain anything concrete about your stupid belief system. Hey, how do protons and electrons work? It’s all an elaborate illusion, so don’t bother trying to find out!
Buddhist do indeed share much in common with creationists: for starters, they have no desire to discover the natural world, and rely on tradition and superstition to tell them about the Universe. While they smugly assert that all the Cosmos is Maya (or illusion), this impossible to disprove condition is just another example of the nonsense of religion. If they had their way, scientific progress would end as we know it, in favor of mumbling some shitty prayers and believing that justice is handed out by an invisible force.
Isn’t religion great?
