RE: virus: Faith, Logic and Purpose

Robin Faichney (r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk)
Sat, 15 Nov 1997 14:15:26 -0000


> From: Marie L. Foster[SMTP:mfos@ieway.com]
>
> >I must admit that the early part of the Universe's history is
> difficult
> >to conceive of, for me anyways. I don't have trouble with "life from
> >none living matter though". Why do you have trouble with that?
> >
> >Sodom
>
> I do not have any problem with it. It is creation at work. We are
> the
> best creators that we know of. I contend this is why we have defined
> God
> in our own image. Ironic.
>
Traditionally, Buddhism views the cosmos as eternal.
On a purely factual level, that may be as wrong as
seeing it as God's creation, but it seems much more
healthy to me. There's a theory that all the dualistic
Western thinking typified by Descartes derives from
this artificial distinction between creator and created,
the mechanism and the maker, body (mechanism)
and soul (what matters to the Maker). The great
advantage of the Buddhist view in this context is that
we are identified not with a transcendant God, but
with reality as a whole, outside of which there is
nothing.

Robin