Turns out that it is more than just the fundy Christians who are watching developments with regard to teaching evolution and intelligent design in USAmerican schools. I was scratching my head: who on earth might be interested in it? Muslims? -I remember after the overthrow of the Shah, Iranian students at the university I attended were interested in the Christian Union bookstall, particularly the creationist pamphlets that were all the rage in some quarters of the CU. But no, the surprise is that it is Hundus, particularly the Hare Krishna devotees. Here's why:
Vedic creationists ... deny that different species of living beings, including humans, have evolved, or risen up, from simpler organisms, as Darwin claims. Instead, they claim that all species, including humans, have “devolved,” or come down from, a highly evolved, super-intelligent being, which is pure consciousness itself. Different species of plants and animals are simply material forms adopted by consciousness, Atman, as it transmigrates in endless cycles of births and rebirths over billions and billions of years. Spiritual growth is the driving force of evolution: higher species emerge when Atman trapped in all matter takes on a higher (more “subtle” and sattvic) life-form as a result of good karma, and lower species result when Atman “forgets” its purity and indulges in “gross desires.”
So there you have it. I guess since there is a certain circularity in dating rocks by fossils and then fossils by rocks then they can get some purchase on reinterpreting the fossil record in an analogous way to Christian fundies ...
Metanexus Institute:
Filed in: religion, Vedas, Hindu, Krishna, creation, science, USA
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