Meditations Of A Buddhist Skeptic: Epilogue.pdf

The prologue comments that grasping onto one's views as uniquely true is a fundamental delusion in Buddhism, and this dogmatism is common among scientific materialists and religious believers. Christian belief is rooted in history, with the New Testament and ecumenical councils guiding the faith. In contrast, Ludwig Feuerbach, a German philosopher, rejected this view, arguing that God is an outward projection of human qualities. He believed that attributing human qualities to an external divine being withdraws these qualities from humans. Feuerbach's projection theory influenced European atheism, and his ideas impacted Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The establishment of the Church Scientific in the late 19th century aimed to replace Christianity with a new vision of reality, relying on scientific discoveries to explain the natural world. The scientific worldview developed through revolutions in physics, biology, and the mind sciences, leading to the conclusion that all mental phenomena emerge from biological processes. The reductionist view of human existence has become dominant, with materialists declaring that understanding physics and chemistry is sufficient to fully understand living organisms.