Srila Prabhupada Supports Darwin

[Guest guest]

MDd wrote on GV and Homosexuality Thread:

 

 

 

This is proof that such people are descendants of monkeys, as confirmed by

Darwin. In this verse it is therefore clearly stated: yatha vanara-jateh."

 

 

 

>>>??????????, Srila Prabhupada is clearly supporting Darwin here!!! This

just makes the problem of Vedic and Srila Prabhupada's position even worse

Any comments?<<<

 

 

 

Hare Krishna,

 

 

 

Vidyadhar

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

> >>>??????????, Srila Prabhupada is clearly supporting Darwin

here!!! This

> just makes the problem of Vedic and Srila Prabhupada's position

even worse

> Any comments?<<<

 

Here's more, prabhuji:

>From Srila Prabhupada's commentary on Sri Isha Upanishad, Mantra 17p:

 

"... But in any case, the material bodies of all animals and men are

foreign to the living entity. They change according to the living

entity's desire for sense gratification. In the cycle of evolution,

the living entity changes bodies one after another. When the world

was full of water, the living entity took an aquatic form. Then he

passed to vegetable life, from vegetable life to worm life, from

worm life to bird life, from bird life to animal life, and from

animal life to the human form. The highest developed form is this

human form when it is possessed of a full sense of spiritual

knowledge..."

 

Hari hari!

[Guest guest]

Hari bolo Ji

pamho

 

>the material bodies of all animals and men are

>foreign to the living entity.

 

So, Is this about the soul? yes.

 

 

>They [the bodies] change according to the living

>entity's desire for sense gratification.

 

NOTE: SP doesn't say because of mutation but desire that is the symptom of the

soul. So, he obviously continues to speak about the soul changing the bodies in

the process of transmigration and not as morphological transformation.

 

 

>In the cycle of evolution,

>the living entity changes bodies one after another.

 

I doubt he would go out of previous context and begin to speak about something

else. Therefore, he speaks about the evolution of the soul through different

species from lower to higher as it is obvious below.

 

>When the world

>was full of water, the living entity took an aquatic >form. Then he

>passed to vegetable life, from vegetable life to worm >life, from

>worm life to bird life, from bird life to animal life, >and from

>animal life to the human form. The highest developed

>form is this

>human form when it is possessed of a full sense of >spiritual

>knowledge..."

 

Conclusively, the Darwin morphological evolution and the Vedic spiritual

evolution of the soul sounds so much similar that one can confuse them to be one

and the same. But it is not so.

 

Hare Krishna

ARd

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

ARD wrote:

 

 

 

Conclusively, the Darwin morphological evolution and the Vedic spiritual

evolution of the soul sounds so much similar that one can confuse them to be

one and the same. But it is not so.

 

 

 

>>>I don't think we have enough knowledge to make this statement. Vedic

position talks about the "ultimate cause" and science talks about "immediate

cause". Both are mutually exclusive.

 

 

 

Another point is "time frame". Science makes wild speculations about time of

speciation. There is no empirical data to comment anything about "age of a

species" but yet we hear scientists talking about the same. I have asked

many biologists about how the age of a species is calculated but so far no

one has given me an answer in mathematical framework. May be there is or

there isn't an answer. When I taught introductory evolutionary biology one

striking things that emerged out of comparison between many standard general

biology textbooks was there is no agreement between them on the "age of

species". The instructor for whom I was TAing, he just put a blanket over

the discrepancy and "decided" a set of numbers to be the age of species.

 

 

 

Similarly, I don't think we can comment anything on "time of speciation"

from Vedic viewpoint. The evidence from Forbidden Archeology that humans

have existed for quite sometime or co-existed with other species for quite

sometime does not in anyway suggest that "biological evolution" has not

happened. It only indicates that the "time frame" as suggested by molecular

evolution is incorrect.

 

 

 

Moreover, how do you reconcile the other statement of Srila Prabhupada from

SB 5.14.30 wherein he "explicitly accepts Darwin"?

 

 

 

Hare Krishna,

 

 

 

Your servant,

 

 

 

Vidyadhar<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Avadhuta Raya prabhu,

Hare Krishna. Prabhupada doesn't support "Darwin" (i.e., his

assumptions and theory of causes). But Prabhupada does not

contradict the apparent transformations of physical forms in

material nature. I think we have to make that distinction between

Prakrti and Purusha, and then emphasize that Purusha is the primary

cause. The Darwinians, on the other hand, want to speculate that the

ultimate causes themselves are material.

 

>From what I understand, according to the Vedas, Prakrti is actually

formless and originally has all the gunas in balance. But it is

mutable, and undergoes transformations due to the effect of Purusha,

which is full of different qualities.

 

>> NOTE: SP doesn't say because of mutation but desire that is the

symptom of the soul.

 

Prabhupada doesn't say anything about mutation, period. But mutation

may (or may not) be a part of the reactive process of Material

Nature (Prakrti) to satisfy the desires of various living entities

(souls). The primary cause is spiritual, not material. Prakrti is

subordinate to Purusha. So even IF physical mutation of Prakrti was

a fact, it does not pose any problem to the Vedic position.

Prabhupada was against the Darwinian theoretical speculation of

*ultimate causes* (which they reduced to some physical causes).

 

>So, he obviously continues to speak about the soul changing the

bodies in the process of transmigration and not as morphological

transformation.

 

Morphological transformations may (or may not) be happening. The

souls are made to enter into a particular temporary formation

according to their desire. In fact, here's a quote from Prabhupada

that seems to indicate that transformations of material nature are a

fact: From Sri Isopanisad Mantra 17p:

 

"The identity of the living entity is never impersonal or formless;

on the contrary, it is the material dress that is formless and that

takes a shape according to the form of the indestructible person."

 

So material nature "takes a shape". That's a *transformation* of an

essentially formless energy. Here's more:

 

"In the material world, material nature displays wonderful

workmanship by creating varieties of bodies for the living beings

according to their propensities for sense gratification."

 

Also, in the Bhagavatam, we have Krsna looking at the dead Aghasura

(I think) and "marvelling" at the innumerable kinds of forms that

Material Nature can conjure up.

 

Your servant,

Carl.