"don't proclaim that the Buddha knows everything but proclaim the truth that nothing can block the Buddha's wisdom and that He can know everything he wishes to know"

Gnostic assumptions pervade every religion (xians "know" Jesus loves them)but its still un-demonstrable and un-falsifiable. Meditation may well have beneficial effects on the human psyche;clarity of mind, concentration, relaxation. It may even enable you to solve problems or hypothesise solutions based on information you already have but I fail to see how it can generate any true new knowledge.

Buddhism is about escaping from the series of lives (or the cycle). Whatever is irrelevant to that the Buddha didn't teach. He might not even have explored those areas. How would electricity or laser relevant to Nibbanna?

many many years of research compared to light years is nothing. the knowledge we know compared to the vastness of the universe - nothing. we're living in the "concept" of the world and the universe we have constructed. A single person's meditation can be beyond all our research.

This is simply ridiculous. You're claiming that the shared knowledge of many people working over hundreds (or more) of years is insignificant to the universe, yet that one person meditating is able to gain more knowledge than all those doing science, and on top of that it's enough to be significant?

Please.

I'm sure Buddha learned about diseases and medicine? Oh he didn't? How about electricity? No? How about computers, lasers, vehicles, cosmology? No?

Explain that with science.

It's called cold reading. It's not a secret.

You will then see the possibility that the Buddha obtained the great wisdom through meditation. But He said - "don't proclaim that the Buddha knows everything but proclaim the truth that nothing can block the Buddha's wisdom and that He can know everything he wishes to know"

Would you say the so-called "science" just started centuries back claiming to know the whole truth. Many scientists have been proven wrong by other scientists anyway. The knowledge of "science" is still under development and far from complete to compare with the wisdom of the Buddha.

Science improves on knowledge and corrects mistakes, which is a strength that gets us closer to actual knowledge of the world. Yes, it's far from complete and yes it is still under development, but it is the combined empirical knowledge of many, many people over many, many years. To compare this unfavorably to the meditations of a single person, especially trying to defend such by saying, "You can even say it's scientific. It's through research!" is absurd.

The Buddha called upon the earth to be his witness that he went through many lives for the time period of 4 incalculables and 100,000 worlds to study and research the causes of sufferings and the ways to end them so that he could tell others how to escape from the endless series (cycle) of rebirths and deaths. He wanted to explore what were the forces pushing the people and himself through one life after another. He wanted to know the link so that he could end the steam. He wanted to share it with the people. So, the intense power of his good deeds shook up the earth. (Energy cannot be created nor destroyed remember? You can say it was merely a conversion of energy.)

Neither the earth nor the fight with Mara gave him the enlightenment. He used many of his lives to live through, research and study the causes and nature of suffering. What he did under the Bodhi tree was using his zen attained through meditation - he looked back his own lives, he studied the lives of all beings - at birth, born, in existence and dying and he concluded the causes of suffering and the way out of the stream of lives. You can even say it's scientific. It's through research!

The Buddha never said He created the world. He did not believe in creation or creator. He did not claim to be a son/ messenger/ reincarnation of God or any Creator. The article even agrees that the concept of creation is flawed.

In Buddhism, we talk about beings from 10,000 universes. The Buddha talked about the beings who live millions of worlds and how they think they are immortal looking at the transient lives of humans. Look at those mosquitoes. Do you think they care they'll be dead in 7 days top? Look at us.

Would you say the so-called "science" just started centuries back claiming to know the whole truth. Many scientists have been proven wrong by other scientists anyway. The knowledge of "science" is still under development and far from complete to compare with the wisdom of the Buddha.

Learn with an open-heart. Inquire freely. Practice! Only if you find it to be the truth, then accept! that's the freedom of Buddhism. Read Kalama Sutta.

I fogot to put ;^) at the end of that sentence.

Instead of "Once again the scientists flip-flop on the issues while creationist stick to the bible"

Might I suggest:
Once again the scientists engage in heated and sometimes vicious debate over the meaning of new data while creationists consistently misinterpret interdisciplinary scientific feuding as somehow confirming the bible, in spite of any and all contradictory information.

First, there is much debate about Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 1:2. Some believe "In the beginning" refers to the start of the age of the earth. Those who feel this way are divided into three camps. Some feel the earth was created on day 1 of the seven day creation. Those who feel this way are divided between those who feel a 'day' is a literal 24-hr period, and those who feel as though 'day' refers to an age. Either interpretation has it's problems. (If it was a literal day, how did Adam name all the animals in just one day? If each day was an 'age' and death did not occur until Adam and Eve sinned, how was overpopulation of the animals controlled?) Of those who do not believe the earth was created on day 1 there are two other views. The first believe's there is a "GAP" between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 which allows for a period of 'unknown' time between the original creation of the earth and it's reshaping by God in the first chapter of Genesis. The third camp feels that Genesis 1:1 does not describe the actual event of the creation of the earth, but supplies a title to the rest of the chapter. This would follow the 'tol e dot' structure the rest of Genesis follows. In this model the reader is not clued into the original time the earth came into existence at all. We are only given the condition of the earth at the time which starts our human history.(see "charts" below)

*-------------->------->------->------->------->
Earth made followed by 7 literal days.

*-------------->------->------->------->------->
Earth made followed by 7 ages (each lasting for thousands or millions of years)

*------------||||||||||----------------------------->
Earth made___GAP___7 days (or ages) of creation follow "gap"

-------->------->
We don't know when the earth was made______God reshapes earth as what we know today

+
+
The second glaring problem with the bishop's calculation is that genealogies in the ancient near east did not always follow the pattern of european genealogies. Many accounts followed only important family members or only listed a certain number of family members (normally 10). These vertical genealogies did NOT list EVERY step of a family line. Certainly from Adam to Cain and Seth we know it was direct, but when it says "Enoch lived 100 years and became the father of..." it does not necessarily mean Enoch fathered Lamech. It means that when Enoch was 100 years old he had a child who would eventually (through 1 or 5 or 10 or 20 generations!) make Enoch Lamech's ancestor. This does not follow our western way of doing things, however there is pleanty of evidence for this type of genealogy in the ancient near east. (and in other places in the Bible as well... SEE Kings and Chronicles and Matthew and Luke)

Conclusions:

The 'young earth' creationists certainly have alot to account for. Both in science and from the text of the Bible itself. We cannot say with all certainty that the Bible tells us exactly when the earth was created (at least not from what I've seen).

Those who would try to date the time between us and Adam by calculating years have to answer the questions of 'broken' genealogies. We cannot say with certainty that the Bible claims a 6000 year period between us and Adam, let alone between us and the creation of the Earth.

I know this may seem irrelevant... but I found your article interesting here and wanted to contribute to an argument against a young earth... while at the same time stating that while this certainly argues against a young earth... it does not rule out creation or the Biblical account.

Once again the scientists flip-flop on the issues while creationist stick to the bible