From Andy Lawrence
It was fascinating to see an article on the antagonism between scientists and religion (18 November, p 8) in the same issue as an article by Paul Broks describing the “bundle theory” of self (p 56). The latter seemed to be an almost perfect description of the Buddhist teaching that the Self is an illusion caused by memory and fear of death.
Of course, many would sidestep Buddhism by declaring it to be not a religion, even seeing it as a route to a special kind of atheism. Without getting into semantic tangles, perhaps it is fair to say that a desire to think about spiritual issues is not of itself inconsistent with a rational and empirical approach to life.
It’s just that in practice most religions are primitive fairytales, and what is worse, fairytales embedded in repressive social structures. Even Buddhism in practice seems to descend into ritual and magical thinking, and the philosophy of the Vedanta seems to shore up the Brahmin class tyranny. Of course science could never be used to justify a repressive social structure… could it?
Edinburgh, UK
