[Advaita-l] Apoureshyatva - Faith or Logic?

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 6:40 AM, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 4:39 PM, श्रीमल्ललितालालितः <
> lalitaalaalitah at lalitaalaalitah.com> wrote:
>
> Also, for the scripture, creation is for the sake of jiva-s.  So a creation
> of lokas first and jivas only much later is of no use for the scripture.
> That is why we see, for example, in the BGB introduction: the Lord created
> the world and created marichi, etc. for pravrtti dharma.
>
> There is no reason to imagine  a time gap.  As I pointed out the marIchi,
> etc. were created  for pravRtti dharma at the very beginning of creation.
>

RV: If anyone says that the sastras dont teach creationism, they have to
state why. Did anyone in the past understand sastras to imply evolution?
 It is untruthful to re-interpret in the face of opposing evidence. I think
the traditional mutts are doing the right thing by holding on to their
traditional beliefs. If these beliefs are wrong, we may have to discard
them, however painful emotionally it may be to us, but not change what
people believed in the past.

Sri Lalitalalita brought up the point that evolution is not correct. If
this can be shown logically to be so, it is a path breaking achievement. I
would like to point out that Christians unsuccessfully tried both
discarding evolution theory and introducing intelligent design so that they
can protect their faith from the onslaught of reason. In ISKCON, the
position is that evolution is not true because it is opposed to
creationism. Even on cosmology, they would rather accept puranic version
and are building a 800 crore vedic planetarium in mayapur! This is in spite
of the fact that gaudiya theology does not consider sastras inerrant. Even
the Lord is not totally reliable according to them. Whatever He says
becomes true or false according to His sweet will!

BTW, if sastras are not right (from scientific perspective) about the
origin of life or universe, how can they be right about god, dharma or
atma? If I am not right on verifiable topics, how can I be considered
reliable on those that cannot be verified? I know there are traditional
views that sastras are an authority on supersensuous. But what to do when
sastras contradict scientific facts (realm of pratyaksha)? I know that
there are statements such as 1000 upanishadic statements cannot make fire
cold or a pot in to a cloth. But does mimamsa allow us to explicitly reject
sastras as incorrect if it contradicts direct experience or inference? I
dont think so but would like to know what learned members think.