In2-MeC

IBSA (ISKCON Bhaktivedanta Sadhana Asrama), Govardhana, India
12 February 2004

Yesterday I wrote in a general way about some grave philosophical problems that science has. These are problems that scientists don't seem to wish to face since they are not that concerned with philosophy anyway. . . although too often they aspire to solve all the age-old questions of philosophy and theology.

Today I'll write something about the Darwinian, neo-Darwinian and post-Darwinian theories of evolution. As you can see by reading what I wrote yesterday, I am more interested in the philosophy behind the scientific content. The measurements of sense data--which is what scientific content is all about--has to be interpreted. For example, the same evidence that Darwin had at his fingertips was interpreted in very different ways by Linnaeus and Cuvier, who were outstanding naturalists of their time. The philosophical interpretation of evolution, and its consequences--that's my interest.

Whether the science of Darwinian evolution passes the muster of scientific credibility--i. e. whether its evidence is really good enough to be called science--I will leave up to the series of articles written by "nondevotees" that will be published here starting tomorrow. I'll just drop a reminder here that I did look a little into that question on 22 December.

Yesterday I referred to Darwinian evolution as "attachment science. " By that I mean that its philosophy leaves no room for anything like "spiritual liberation" or even "life after death. " It preaches that you are this body, and that the purpose of this body is sense gratification. There's nothing else we can expect from our existence here. Oh, sorry, there is something else. And that is death. Not only death of ourselves as individuals, but the eventually death of the whole human species. Yep, sooner or later old homo sapiens has to go the way of the dinosaurs. You can see why scientists are uncomfortable with philosophy. Because philosophers tend to ask questions like, "Why is this so? Why propose such an elaborate mechanism for the evolution of the species, when it just ends with the annihilation of the species so evolved? What's the point?"

Charles Darwin wrote in his Autobiography:

Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued progress.

Well, dear Charles, that's the consequence of the philosophy of materialism: all things formed from matter shall be annihilated in the end. That's why Narada Muni told Maharaja Yudhisthira that no matter which philosophy you follow, all of them bring us to the lesson of detachment. If you find impending annihilation intolerable, Charlie, you need a method of cultivating detachment. May I suggest Krsna consciousness?

Last September I summarized an account of the philosophy of evolution that the British philosopher C. E. M. Joad gives on pages 146-187 of his book God and Evil, published in 1942. Because that summary has direct bearing on my contention that Darwinism is "attachment science," I shall present it again today.

What Joad criticizes are two forms of evolutionary theory known as Emergent Evolution and Creative Evolution. These theories are interesting because they try to make room for God and moral consciousness within the basic Darwinian evolutionary paradigm. Our scientific friend of the God of Science website, whom we met yesterday (more about him later), similarly thinks that belief in God and in evolution can get along just fine together if we devotees would just not be so narrow-minded. He wants us to be more like the Catholics, who lately are told by the Pope that "Darwin is just all right with me" (to the tune of The Byrds' "Jesus is Just All Right with Me").

Well my dear scientific friend, I for one can't accept your well-intentioned advice. And that's because I think. I learned how to think from Srila Prabhupada; but even before my life in Krsna consciousness, I tried out my thinking wings under the tutelage of persons like C. E. M. Joad. In this way my thinking soars toward detachment from this world, toward release from matter, toward liberation from birth and death. And that just isn't what Darwinians are about at all, even when they try to make room for God.

Joad relates that the theory of Emergent Evolution is based on the observation that simple elements combine to form compounds that display properties unknown in the ingredient elements. The theory calls the new properties "emergent"--meaning that they appear out of nowhere. For example, oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water. The wetness of water is not observed in oxygen and hydrogen. Thus wetness is called "an emergent property. " From such examples, the Emergent Evolutionists build a belief that consciousness and even God emerge from a certain stage of material combination.

Joad points out that this belief is unscientific, since a fundamental aim of science is to predict events that are determined by preceding conditions. Consciousness is nowhere observed in dead matter. If consciousness as a completely new, unforeseen quality does indeed emerge at a particular level of material combination, then consciousness is not linked to a logical chain of causation. It just happens. "We might as well drop the language and concepts of science," Joad asserts, "and pronounce wholeheartedly for an independent creative force of life, or even for a creative God. "

Joad adds that a God who emerges from evolution cannot be the eternal and transcendent Deity who is the object of mankind's religious emotions: reverence, awe, the sense of mystery, the desire to worship. The Emergent God "is latent in the natural world and is, therefore, a part of it, changing as it changes, evolving as it evolves. . . As with the universe, so with God; He will cease to exist as the universe which has evolved him ceases to develop. . . He is certainly not the creator of the world; nor is he the loving father of us all participating in, yet apart from the sufferings of His creatures. " Another criticism Joad makes is that since Emergent Evolution sees God as a product of the evolution of the consciousness of mankind, there is nothing worthy of man's reverence that man is himself not the author of. In other words, God is just one more "fact" of the human sphere of existence.

Emergent Evolution is monistic, in that it holds that all is one: matter alone. The theory of Creative Evolution is dualistic and thus reminiscent of the atheistic Sankhya philosophy of India. The components of the dualism are the Life Force (the animating principle of the universe, similar to the purusa of Sankhya) and Matter (the stuff of the physical universe, similar to the pradhana of Sankhya). Matter behaves in accordance with the laws of physics. The Life Force associates with Matter to form the bodies of living organisms. At the earliest stage of this association, the Life Force appeared as a blind, instinctive urge. By evolution it gradually acquired consciousness and purpose. Evolution is a universal moral code. By this code, a living entity is expected to raise the Life Force, as expressed in itself, to a higher level of development. This is a code of effort and endeavor. One ought never take life easily. Rather one ought always commit oneself with full sensory and mental energy to the difficult and dangerous path in order to advance to higher levels.

Joad argues that it is a logical fallacy to speak of the evolution of "higher life," "better life" or a "better quality of life" without reference to a standard of value that is outside life in the material world. For example, one cannot measure a roll of cloth without reference to a standard of value outside the cloth: yards and feet marked out on a tape measure.

Similarly, unless there exists a standard of progress to an ultimate goal of consciousness that is outside the evolutionary process, it is meaningless to speak of advancement to higher levels of life. Another problem with Creative Evolution is that the Life Force, Matter and their scheme of interaction (the "moral code" of evolution) have no common source and thus no fundamental unity. Why should they even exist, let alone function synchronously? Writes Joad, "The unity of a single Creator using these as the basic elements from which to construct. . . His universe would be an obvious example of such a unity. " He argues that Creative Evolution has no explanation for the appearance of life's sense of purpose at the later stage of evolution. Why should life, initially a blind instinctive urge, acquire mind and intelligence to conceive of a higher goal of life? This question leads to another question: why should the mind and intelligence purposefully interact with the body (for example, when the body is cold, why is that condition perceived as distressful by the mind, and why does the intelligence therefore plan the lighting of a fire to warm the body)? Creative Evolution has no answer.

Joad takes Creative Evolution to task for its moral implausibility. "In a creative evolutionary world. . . evil would disappear at a certain stage of life's development. " But the evil of birth, death, disease and old age afflicts living beings now as much as it ever has in the past. And just as Creative Evolution offers no plausible explanation for the unity of the Life Force, Matter and the evolutionary moral code by which these two interact, similarly it offers no plausible explanation of the co-existence of good and evil within the universe. Nor can it account for moral conflict: mankind's struggle with good and evil, in which we find ourselves tempted to pursue evil while knowing we have a duty to overcome that temptation and be good. Finally, if the only real moral code is that we ought to advance the cause of evolution, then we are "good" insofar as we keep ourselves fresh and vigorous, our sensory and mental faculties at cutting edge, and our powers stretched to full capacity. This definition of good is attained by a tiger on the prowl. A criminal similarly thinks himself good if he meets these criteria. Thus the "good" of Creative Evolution is inadequate even for civilized human life, what to speak of the ultimate goal of human life: the revival of our eternal loving relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

At this point it is useful to note how some present-day evolutionists suppose God evolved. In God-The Evidence (1997), Chapter Three, Patrick Glynn tells of the thinking of Dr. Herbert Benson, a professor at the Harvard Medical School. In an evolutionary sense, Benson accepts the reality of God. His studies of patients showed him that their religious beliefs calm their minds, increase their hopes and even aid the efficacy of some medical treatments. Benson accepts God as a powerful "survival instinct" or "primal motive" within the human organism. He thinks the human mind had to construct God to cope with the rigors of the natural environment during the early stages of evolution. We are "wired for God", he says--the spiritual drive is absolutely fundamental to human physiology, as much as hunger or the sex drive. But the spiritual drive is really a biological drive.

This is why I say that Darwinian evolution is "attachment science. " It leaves us with nothing but matter to hold onto.

The seeds of the notion that God is hard-wired by biology into the human nervous system can be traced back to Charles Darwin himself. I'll refer now to pages 481-482 of a book entitled History of Philosophy with Philosophy Since 1860 by Alfred Weber and Ralph Barton Perry, where the philosophy of evolution is discussed. Here it is written:

There were, however, certain moral and religious implications which [Darwin] drew himself, or which his teachings suggested to others. What is, in the broad sense, known as "evolutionary ethics," assumed three quite distinct forms.

The three forms of evolutionary ethics are:

1) Traditional ethics (i. e. conscience, mutual aid and sympathy) which came into human nature from self-seeking adaptation over long periods of time. Darwin himself proposed it and Spencer advanced it.

2) Huxley's notion that natural life is antithesis of moral life. In natural life, the individual exploits his superiority while the weaker around him suffer the consequences. In moral life the weak are protected by the self-sacrifice of others.

3) "Good" is defined as meaning only the capacity to survive. "Let the strong man assert his strength, and in this way guarantee the future of the race," Ralph Barton Perry explains. "It is this idea that links the teachings of Darwin with the ethics of Nietzsche. "

Regarding Darwin's thoughts on God, Perry notes:

As regards the religious implications of his teachings, Darwin began as a theist, but was led more and more to the rejection of the traditional conception of a creative and providential God. Not only did the law of nature selection, in his judgement, destroy the force of the argument from design, but it revealed nature in a light that was wholly incompatible with the supposition of benevolent authorship.

This means that as Darwin moved closer to atheism, he saw the scheme of the world as malevolent, or at least as non-moral. This means that he moved closer to Nietzche's outlook.

The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel delivered a lecture at Loyola University in New Orleans on 25 March 1965. In this talk he said:

Without a doubt, there can be no greater mistake than to say Nietzsche belongs to the past, for it is the contrary that is true. Even, and above all, for those who regard themselves as his opponents, Nietzsche is the most modern of the moderns.

Friedrich Nietzsche's take on human ethics was, "There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. " And Nietzche taught his own moral interpretation with gusto. Nietzchean morality just boils down to willful "attachment philosophy. " In Thus Spake Zarathustra he wrote:

It is true that if you do not become as little children again, you will not be able to enter that kingdom of heaven (and Zarathustra pointed to the sky). But we have no wish to enter the kingdom of heaven; we have become men--that is why we want the kingdom of the earth.

Today scientific, technological, Darwin-believing mankind is the moral offspring of Nietzche. Modern man accepts no definite right or wrong above and beyond the earthly needs of the body. Since the fulfillment of earthly needs is the only value he is confident of, modern man concludes that the public good can be best served by an industry of sense gratification. With the tools of high technology, an industry was erected that in fact is an incarnation of cold evil--a blood-spattered colossus that shrieks and clatters through a chilly desert of artificial "industriality," crushing the lives out of millions of innocent creatures.

The first symptom of Kali-yuga is the cold-blooded mass slaughter of cows and bulls by degraded, irresponsible persons who pose as leaders of society. In Vedic culture, the cow is respected as one of seven kinds of mothers. The bull represents Dharma, the demigod of religious principles. His four legs are cleanliness, austerity, truthfulness and mercy. To kill these gentle animals, gifts of God unto mankind, is a terrible sin. Yet nowadays dining on the flesh of cows and bulls is a sign of civilized respectability. From a book entitled Beyond Beef by Jeremy Rivkin:

Beef eating, in most countries, is a form of privilege, a visible sign of wealth and status. Among nations, entrance into the beef club represents power and, from a geopolitical perspective, is every bit as significant in determining a nation's status in the world as the number of its tanks and ships or the rise of its industrial output.

The world's leading industrial nation, the United States, slaughters one hundred thousand cows every twenty-four hours. Each seven days 91 percent of American households purchase beef. Ray Kroc (1902-1984), the Henry Ford of beef restaurateurs, developed the McDonald's hamburger chain into a global empire that now spans 114 countries. "I speak of faith in McDonald's as if it were a religion," Kroc once remarked. "And without meaning any offense to the Holy Trinity, the Koran, or the Torah, that's exactly the way I think of it. " In the United States he maneuvered to get his restaurants built near suburban churches because his most lucrative clientele were families coming out of Sunday services. One can truly say Mr. Kroc purloined the halo of religion and set it over the grotesque head of cold evil. Today, in any given month, more Americans enter McDonald's restaurants than enter all the churches in the USA.

The murderous pollution of meat rots both the body of man and his moral character. Health experts warn that meat-eaters are at significantly greater risk than vegetarians of dying from cancer and heart disease. Each year the meat industry wastes millions of tons of grains that could feed the world's poor. These grains needlessly fatten livestock--which can just as well live on grass--so that killers can reap greater and greater profits in rich countries.

Insidious is this cold evil, a creeping shadow that falls across the heart of man, perverting his outward vision so that where ravenous ghouls bolt down charred hunks of their mother's flesh, he sees a jolly family table. Rivkin again:

Cold evil is evil inflicted from a distance; evil concealed by layer upon layer of technological and institutional garb. . . It is evil that cannot be felt because of its impersonal nature. To suggest that a person is committing an evil act by. . . consuming a hamburger might appear strange, even ludicrous, to most people. Even if the facts were to be made explicit and incontrovertible, the trail of evil mapped out with painstaking detail, it is unlikely that many in society could muster up the same s ense of outrage that they might extend to incidences of hot evil--an armed robbery, a rape, the deliberate torture of a neighborhood dog.

In 1960, the American pharmaceutical company Searle brought the birth control pill to market. This event sparked off a world-wide "sexual revolution. " It is estimated that at this moment sixty million women are taking the pill; at some time in their lives, almost 90 percent of Western women indulge in sex while "protected" by contraceptives. Truth be told, this is an ongoing medical experiment upon the female body, the deadly results of which have received little media attention. Nobel laureate Frederick Robbins, addressing a meeting of the American Association of Medical Colleges, admitted (and excused) the hazard this experiment represents when he said, "the dangers of overpopulation are so great that we may have to use certain techniques of conception control that may entail considerable risk to the individual woman. " In the fifties, such grim forecasts about "the dangers of overpopulation" were a media staple; since then, scientists have come round to admit that the global increase of the number of people does not in itself endanger civilization. Yet in the meantime millions of women remain at risk from the pill.

What risk? From the Vedic standpoint, people who use contraceptives are at risk of being reborn in lower species for violating the dharma of jagadvrddhi, increasing the population by religious family life. One could argue that we can't very well expect Western people to perceive that risk, since mostly they do not know and do not accept Vedic dharma. But the word dharma does not translate as "some irrelevant set of rules invented by ancient priests of a far-away land. " The word actually means "the natural characteristic of a thing. " Excessive sex indulgence is an abuse of the human form, the doorway to liberation. Abuse of the human form is adharma or self-destruction. We do not need to wait for the next life to perceive that adharma is self-destructive. Destruction is upon us now, in the present body (adhyatmika), in our society (adhibhautika) and in nature (adhidaivika).

Medical science admits that the pill increases a woman's chances of disability or death from blood clots, heart attacks, cancer, hardening of the arteries, high blood pressure, and other health dangers. Psychotherapist Sherril Sellman argues "the long-term effects from artificially altering a woman's hormonal and reproductive life bode ill for the health not only of the women themselves but also of future generations"--which reminds us of Vedic predictions that the future of Kali-yuga will see the stunting of human bodily strength, height and duration of life. We all know well one health tragedy the pill-induced sexual revolution made possible: AIDS, which was completely unforeseen in the sixties. Another incurable venereal disease, one that is a serious threat to babies at their birth, is genital herpes, which infects a half a million Americans each year. The sexually-transmitted organism Chlamydia trachomatis infects two million new victims each year, mostly women between fifteen and nineteen years of age. It can cause sterility. Studies show that women who have sex with multiple partners could be up to two thousand times more at risk of contracting cervical cancer than those who do not. Each year more babies are born with birth defects caused by sexually transmitted diseases than all the children stricken with polio in the decade of the fifties. These are just a few samples of the adhyatmika miseries associated with illicit sex.

Just as meat-eating erodes not only the physical but also the moral health of society, so too does loose sexuality. "A lot depends on marriage," writes William Kilpatrick, a professor of moral education at Boston College,

not least the moral health of a society. And marriage, as we are once again coming to understand, depends to a large extent on a code of chastity outside of marriage. With the coming of the sexual revolution, men began to flee their homes in droves, leaving women with the children, with double the work, and with little time or energy to provide discipline or moral guidance.

Such are the adhibhautika consequences of illicit sex. In August 1998, an American television broadcast about the Bill Clinton-Monica Levinsky scandal reported that eighty percent of all marriages are hit by adultery. Seventy percent of husbands cheat, and fifty to sixty percent of wives cheat. Fifty percent of first marriages--that is, between partners who were never married before--end in failure. Sixty-five percent of second marriages fail. Eighty percent of third marriages fail. Illicit sex results in "accidental babies" or what Bhagavad-gita 1. 42 calls varna-sankara, unwanted progeny. Children spawned from adharma are hell-bent on destruction. It is estimated that each month, American high school students commit 525,000 crimes involving violence or the threat of violence. About 135,000 students carry guns to school daily. In the last thirty years, suicides among young people rose three hundred percent. One in seven teenagers admit to having tried to kill themselves.

The steady erosion of sexual morals in society is to be expected, given that a megabusiness with earnings of ten billion dollars per year blatantly promotes sexual whimsy among the people: the pornography industry. "The U. S. adult-film industry," reports the magazine Premiere, "centered in the San Fernando Valley just over the mountains from Hollywood, is a way larger and more efficient moneymaking machine than is theatrical mainstream American cinema. " In March 1998, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood handed out the coveted "Oscar" trophies after judging three hundred seventy five feature films released in the year previous. In January 1998, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the Adult Video News magazine (AVN) held its fifteenth annual pornographic film awards ceremony. AVN handed out its own Oscar-like trophies after judging four thousand dirty movies made the previous year! Each film was an average of ninety minutes in length; it would take a year and three months of non-stop viewing for one person to see them all.

The New Harvard Guide to Psychiatry (1988) presented a great deal of evidence showing sexual freedom

. . . by no means leads to great pleasures, freedom, and openness; more meaningful relationship between the sexes; or exhilarating relief from stifling inhibitions. Clinical experience has shown that the new permissiveness has often led to empty relationships, feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness.

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1. 17. 38 lists, along with meat-eating and illicit sex, two other destructive adharmas prominent in this age: intoxication (panam) and gambling (dyutam, which includes frivolous sports). The alcohol and tobacco industries are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people each year. In the United States, boys and girls start drinking at an average age of 12. 3 years. More than half of male high school students get drunk once a month by the time they are eighteen. Two out of five get drunk once a week. Six out of ten high school students say they have used illegal drugs. Gamblers and sports fans are no less addicts who yearly squander astronomic al sums of money.

Now, one could reply here that medical doctors are busy exploring ways to counteract the health risks of modern life. But this is just a vain attempt to fight off the reactions of adharma with yet more adharmic activities. In 1995 a Hong Kong newspaper reported that in China aborted foetuses can be bought as a health food item for a few dollars at private clinics. Chinese doctors recommend they be prepared as a soup, claiming them good for the skin and kidneys. One doctor said she'd eaten 100 in the last six months, and swore that the best are first-born males from young women. Is it far-fetched to expect that Western doctors may soon likewise recommend foetus soup to their patients?

It's all down to modern man's faith in experimentation. "Don't knock it till you've tried it!" "Take a chance--you only live once!" The essential faith of modernity is, by bravely taking up the challenge of trial and error, by tinkering fearlessly with the laws of nature, we just might blunder into a better way of life. This attitude is enshrined by science as a central tenet of its process of knowledge. It is enshrined by Nietzchean ethics as the boldness that worthy of the Superman, the New Promethean.

In his book Koba the Dread (2002), Martin Amis shows us that the hallowed ideals of positivism and scientism make it hard for Western intellectuals to rid themselves of lingering admiration for brutal avatars of scientific socialism like Lenin and Stalin. He explains that Communism was a logical result of the ideology of social experimentation that took shape as science and industry rose to prominence in the West. Communism was

an experiment which the human race was bound to make at some point in its evolution, the logical conclusion of humanity's historic striving. . .

"Evolution. " "Historic striving. " Sacred articles of modern intellectualism.

An abiding faith in Darwinian evolution can be discerned in this statement of Lenin:

Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence and physical contagions. . . are far less dangerous that the subtle, spiritual idea of God decked out in the smartest "ideological" costumes.

What he is saying is that sins, filthy deeds and acts of violence are all part of the natural world. Such things may not be pretty, but good does come out of them--the survival of the fittest, for example. But no good comes out of belief in God, because it is totally unnatural.

God says "I made the world, so don't experiment with it. Just obediently listen to me how you should live in the world I made. " Against this the modern mindset is fundamentally in rebellion. Thus an ideology that enthusiastically demotes God and promotes experimentation is sure to find supporters from among modern intellectuals.

On pages 10-11 of his book, Martin Amis recounts this conversation between his father Kingsley Amis and the atheist-empericist philosopher A. J. Ayer:

Ayer: "In the USSR, at least they're trying to forge something positive. " [Positivism again!]

Amis: "But it doesn't matter what they're trying to forge, because they've already killed five million people. "

Ayer: "You keep going back to the five million. "

Amis: "If you're tired of that five million, then I am sure I can find you another five million. "

Martin Amis remarks, "And one can, now. One can find another 5 million, and another, and another. "

Millions murdered. . . well, it's a pity, but sometimes these things have to happen for the world to advance. Thus speaks the evolutionist.

And we devotees have to take lessons in morality from such people?

Through the years I've encountered devotees who seem to have gotten hit in the head by what I consider to be a grotesque parody of an "a-ha" experience. It suddenly dawns on them that, "The karmis aren't so bad after all! We've been living in a cultic cocoon all these years! Scientifically, socially, politically and morally there's a lot we have to learn from the world outside!"

At the start of this essay, and throughout yesterday's essay, I have stated clearly that all paths of knowledge yield a valuable lesson: detachment. That detachment is developed by the yukta-vairagya principle, engaging the things of this world--including "mundane" knowledge--in Krsna's service. While so doing, we must be careful to keep detachment--vairagya--as the overarching value. "Go fishing but don't get wet," as Srila Prabhupada said. So when I write above about the grotesque parody of an "a-ha" experience, I am talking about devotees who embrace the value of attachment to the material world as being superior to detachment.

"The nondevotees show more care in their relationships than devotees do! Devotees can be so unfeeling! Isn't bhakti really all about feeling?"

Srila Prabhupada writes:

Material existence means to be absorbed in the material objective, which is simply illusory. House, country, family, society, children, property, and business are some of the material coverings of the spirit, atma, and the yoga system helps one to become free from all these illusory thoughts and gradually turn towards the Absolute Person, Paramatma. By material association and education, we learn simply to concentrate on flimsy things, but yoga is the process of forgetting them altogether. (Bhag. 1. 13. 53p)

So once again: in bhakti-yoga our method of renunciation is yukta-vairagya. Devotees do engage house, country, family, society, children, property, and business in Krsna's service. But our objective should not be to care about these coverings of the soul more and more. Srila Prabhupada clearly says our objective should be to forget them altogether. . . and that is accomplished by concentrating on Krsna altogether.

Srila Prabhupada's explanation is clear enough to me. I understand that he isn't saying yoga gives a person license to ignorantly abuse house, country, family, society, children, property, and business. But what Prabhupada states here and in similar passages does seem to worry some members, doctrinal believers and sympathizers of the Krsna consciousness movement. They go searching for other quotations that seem to soften the blow of Prabhupada's dictum above that "yoga is the process of forgetting them altogether. " Some of the worried members, doctrinal believers and sympathizers of Krsna consciousness remain worried wherever they look in Srila Prabhupada's quotations, so they seek reassurance in outside ideologies. And so they open themselves up to the "a-ha" experience of

"Wow! I just realized: to be better devotees, we need to become more attached to the material world! In nondevotee society, people are nicer, more open, more caring. . . "

And so we hear from some quarters that the more ISKCON takes on characteristics of karmi society, the better it will be.

Now in my opinion, this is cultic and close-minded because it ignores the very obvious "detachment" lesson that is to be had from studying the material world. That's a lesson so obvious that even many nondevotees see it. And that's why I quote them here. To perceive the material world as having really no joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain--as Matthew Arnold did--is not dismissable as only the pessimistic vision of narrow-minded religious fanatics.

It's a universal perception that all suffering arises from attachment to the impermanent. Knowledge is letting go of such attachment. This is Narada's teaching to Yudisthira. Many sages of the West have taught the same basic insight.

Old Charles Darwin found the prospect of annhilation "intolerable. " Ergo, he was in ignorance. He was in ignorance even of the philosophical consquences of materialism, which says, "Get with it, Charlie, nothing lasts. "

But our scientific friend with his "God of Science" website doesn't get it. I mean, he really doesn't get any of it. He can't understand that we are misled by our senses. He can't understand that the science and philosophy of material attachment sets us up for suffering. He believes in the siren call of material progress. He thinks our ancestors, the apes, did a good job of experimenting with new ways of doing things, and we devotees should make them proud by evolving even further. He writes:

Many of us are in denial about our ape ancestry. We are upset to find apes in our family tree. But we should not be ashamed of our ancestors just because they were apes. They must have been open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, or we wouldn't be here. They did a good job, and we should be very proud of them. Now it is time for us to earn their pride. Let use use our God given gift; our minds and our God approved free will to do the right thing.

What if we could start our own education system where children and adults could learn the truth, where the teachers could speak the truth when asked about science and the physical origins of our material bodies?

We have had some good, positive reforms in our movement, such as stopping the sending of our kids to the abusive boarding schools. What if we could reform our false scientific theories, and publicly recognize the truth, that evolution is a fact and we evolved from apes?

How can we preach Krishna consciousness to the public and expect them to believe that we are speaking the truth about the nature of God and the soul if we at the same time we promote false theories about the material universe? The people we try to preach to often end up thinking that we are just trying to brainwash them into a mundane belief system. How can we expect people to change their entire view of reality if we refuse to correct a few simple, obvious, easily corrected factual errors?

Shouldn't we go through the pain and confusion of correcting our societies mistakes, not just pass the problem onto the next generation? Do we want our kids to have to struggle with this problem, just because we couldn't face it? Do we think it's going to be any easier to fix 20 years from now? Do we want some of our children to assume that our religion is false, just because of a few simple, obvious, easily corrected factual errors?

Many devotees have grown beyond forced, materialistic interpretations, but progress has been painfully slow so far. Our movement is only just now admitting that the sun is farther away from the earth than the moon is. There are now devotees speaking out publicly against our movements bizarre claim that the moon landing was a hoax.

Come on, devotees, we can do it! We can use this issue to mature as a movement, to admit that we make mistakes and are not always right, but that's ok because when we see we are wrong, we don't just go on decade after decade saying the same thing and doing nothing to fix the problem.

People 300 years ago would have given anything to be able know what we know about science, and to have modern technology and medicine reduce misery to a fraction of what it was. Many people worked their whole lives to find out the truth about where we come from. We can't really want to just throw it all away and go back to the dark ages.

Krishna is the absolute truth. Let us do what we all really want to do; serve Krishna by promoting the truth.

Reading his words over, it seems like he's making a joke. Maybe he is. Maybe his website is a put-on of the "liberal" attitudes he seems to espouse. But from other things he writes, I doubt it.

Well, as I said yesterday, Lord Krsna is all-attractive. Even the apes of the forests of Vrndaban love Him.

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