Intelligent Design is Vedic

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Intelligent Design

 

BY STOKA KRSNA DAS

 

EDITORIAL, Nov 26 (VNN) — This is a reply I sent to the Sydney

Morning Herald in response to an article about Intelligent Design, a

controversial topic in Education systems both here in Australia as

well as the US. The article was by Neil Ormerod, who is a professor

at the Catholic University of Australia and published Nov 15th.

 

 

I just read Neil Omerod's article How design supporters insult God's

intelligence. I'd like to offer a radically different philosophical

and cultural perspective on this debate. Having studied the Vedic

scriptures such as Bhagavad-Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam extensively

from a bona fide spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Prabhupada, I believe the western tradition relies too heavily on

mental speculation to delve into matters which by definition lie

beyond the purview of mundane logic.

 

Especially intriguing was the argument about the fundamental nature

of chance - that God must be intelligent enough to use statistical

causation as a means of producing deterministic outcomes. This logic

is the logic of God as the supreme clockmaker - he has created the

universe, and then left it more or less to its own devices. In

contrast to such an idea of a detached creator, the Vedic

description, given by Sri Krishna Himself in Bhagavad-Gita, is that

not only is He the supreme energetic source of all manifestation,

but that he intimately controls the minutiae of His creation. In the

Vedas this is called simultaneous oneness and difference. In

essence, God is one with his creation, at the same time He retains

His individual identity as the Supreme Being.

 

The material creation is described in Bhagavad-Gita as being

composed of two types of God's energy. Firstly, the material

elements of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and

false ego are considered the separated energy of God. Secondly, the

living entities are described as God's apara prakrti, or superior,

internal spiritual energy, which are qualitatively the same as the

Lord, despite struggling with the inferior material nature. In any

case, all these energies emanate from the supreme and are under his

complete control, Lord Krishna clearly states, This material nature

is working under my direction. (Gita 9.10)

 

Mental speculation, intellectual and logical research and so on may

be useful tools to understand innumerable material topics, however

they are useless in the comprehension of the absolute truth and the

real nature of His creation and energies. Lord Krishna empowers His

authorized representatives and disseminates the transcendental truth

in bona fide revealed scripture which can only be understood by

submissive reception of their enlightened message.

 

Endless argument and disputation between philosophers over the point

of the existence or non existence of so called intelligent design is

missing the real point - being that the absolute exists in complete

independence of any puny mundane belief system or speculative

intellectual process, and that the only real method of comprehension

is to surrender to the Lord with faith and love, in a spirit of

service. Lord Krishna describes in the Gita that an individual who

adopts this approach will be enlightened by the Lord Himself - To

those who are constantly devoted and worship me with love I give the

understanding by which they can come to me. (Gita 10.10)

 

Evolutionary theory, various watered down creation arguments and

other convoluted ideas such as Mr. Ormerod's, are all more or less

expedient means of minimizing the incomprehensible power of the

Lord. Make no mistake, according to the Vedas, He controls

everything right down to the tiniest movements of the tiniest

objects. Not a single thing happens by chance. To acknowledge

chance, the idea that God was somehow separated from his creation

and therefore leaving events and outcomes to some type of

statistical probability would have to be accepted. According to the

Vedas, this is a misconception, as much as it is a misconception to

reject reincarnation or the understanding that the soul in all

living creatures is of the same type and nature.

 

Furthermore, mainstream theologians tend to be ephemeral at best on

the question of the form and pastimes of God. The tendency to this

type of formlessness or impersonalism is the antithesis of the Vedic

paradigm, where the form, nature and pastimes of the Supreme Lord

are clearly and extensively delineated. Instead of the form of God

being described as a divine mystery of faith- (in other words, we

don't know), you can walk into any Hare Krishna temple and

immediately become acquainted with the form of the Lord.

 

When we say God, the term is actually a job description. The Vedas

tell us that God has a name, form, qualities, pastimes and

associates. He has everything we have, but to an infinitely greater

and more sublime degree. After all, if everything we perceive in the

mundane sphere is an emanation from the absolute truth, then clearly

everything must also be possessed by the absolute truth. We have a

form, pastimes and associates, yet we have the arrogance and

audacity to deny the same of Krishna.

 

Finally, whether one accepts the Darwinian theory of evolution or

not, common sense dictates that a Supreme intelligence is at work in

the creation. An unlimited number of brilliant scientists, working

without time restrictions with an unlimited budget, cannot create a

single mosquito. To argue that the simplest of the Lord's creatures

came about via random events or chance and that no superior

intervention and design was involved is simply the nonsense of fools

and rascals.

 

Stoka Krishna Das

Stephen Weir

International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Murwillumbah NSW

0402 459199

http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET0511/ET26-8874.html