It assumes Buddhism is true and then asks why it is. The title, Why Buddhism Is True, commits the logical fallacy of begging the question. “All I’m really saying is this: the means to the planet’s salvation is at hand” (p. He waxes messianic by saying that the scientifically established benefits of Buddhist meditation provide the way to correct “the nature distortions” of the mind that bring about so much misery in the world. In these and other books, I discern a trend for some thinkers to glean from Buddhism meditative techniques and “spiritual experiences” without making any full-bodied commitment to the worldview of Buddhism or any other Eastern religion.

Barbara Ehrenreich described a powerful mystical experience in Living with a Wild God (2014), but insisted that it had nothing to do with God or a spiritual realm. A foremost “new atheist,” Sam Harris, promotes nontheistic meditation in Awaking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion (2015). In recent years, several atheists have advocated a Buddhist spirituality. In this, Wright’s approach is similar to that of Fritjoff Capra’s influential book The Tao of Physics (1975), which advanced an Eastern worldview by showing its supposed consonance with discoveries in quantum physics.

In other words, neuroscience comes to the rescue of Buddhism.

But Darwin is ready at hand, so he invokes a problem-ridden philosophy of nature (Darwinism) 1 to explain belief in God without affirming anything supernatural.ĭarwinism, neuroscience, and his own experience meditating give Wright the basic categories for assessing Buddhism but, unlike his argument in The Evolution of God, Wright, defends certain Buddhist ideas instead of debunking the religion itself. In The Evolution of God (2010), Wright thinks that there are no good reasons to believe in monotheism. Robert Wright is a popular author whose award-winning books attempt to explain religion and morality according to Darwinian assumptions - human beliefs, morality, and culture have their only roots in the adaptive mechanisms of naturalistic evolution.

Why buddhism is true