SETI & METI: An Indian Perspective

Critiques consider Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) immoral for various reasons. This article is a response to SETI-METI from an Indian perspective, both classical Hindu and Roman Catholic. The article begins with a brief account of what the space programme in India looks like today. Then this article makes two claims: (1) the existence or non-existence of extraterrestrials is not a threat to the Indian mind as the Indian worldview provides sufficient tools to accommodate extraterrestrials; plus (2) Roman Catholic moral theology should reframe its ethical thinking with an inclusive cosmic paradigm to embrace the extraterrestrials.     

Pluralism and Ambivalence in the Evolution of Morality

Much good work has been done on the evolution of human morality by focusing on how “selfish genes” can give rise to altruistic human beings. A richer research program is needed, however, to take into account the ambivalence of naturally evolved biopsychological motivators and the historical pluralism of human morality in religious systems. Such a program is described here. A first step is to distinguish the ultimate cause of natural selection from proximate causes that are the results of natural selection. Next, some proximate causes are suggested as possible conditions of biological and emotional valuing as well as of customary social morality and individual rational ethical thought. Finally, different moral perspectives of Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are briefly presented in order to illustrate how one might inquire about the selection of a variety of biopsychological and cultural proximate causes that enable the evolution of a plurality of religious moral systems.     

CLIMATE ENGINEERING FROM HINDU‐JAIN PERSPECTIVES

Although Indic perspectives toward nature are now well documented, climate engineering discussions seem to still lack the views from Indic or other non‐Western sources. In this article, I will apply some of the Hindu and Jain concepts such as karma, nonviolence (Ahi?sā), humility (Vinaya), and renunciation (Sa?nyāsa) to analyze the two primary climate geoengineering strategies of solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). I suggest that Indic philosophical and religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism offer ethical concepts to call for humility in all acts of climate engineering leading to a favoring of CDR over SRM and a favoring of lifestyle changes (particularly vegetarianism) over both. I demonstrate these concepts by introducing the five great elements from the Hindu philosophy, two Hindu legends from Hindu mythology, the Indic ethical ideas of karma, renunciation, and humility, and the moral authority of Gandhi.     

Gendered contours of contemporary South Asian religious practices in the context of migration: second-generation Jain women and men in Britain and the US

Viewing religion through the social constructionist lens and adopting the methodological approach of ‘lived religion’, this article draws attention to the gendered contours of contemporary Jain practice. Although Jain dharma is a non-theistic, non-institutionalised religion, gender differences are embedded within lay practice in India. In contrast, analysis of qualitative data (interviews conducted with 50 second-generation, middle- and upper middle-class Jain women and men in Britain and the US) reveals a gender convergence in patterns of everyday religious practice and performance. I argue that the social turn in late modern societies, together with the dominance of a neo-orthodox approach among diasporic Jains, facilitates this convergence. Further, shifting patterns of religious practices suggest that religion is an important site for the negotiation of gender identities in the context of migration. The construction of Jain religious selves enables young Jains—both women and men—to navigate multiple and contradictory femininities and masculinities and to display more affective, relational, and compassionate selves in late modern societies.     

What Is Buddhist Transhumanism?

Abstract

The meeting of ancient Buddhism from Asia with modern orientation towards science and technology in the Western world has led to a burgeoning movement that combines these in new and innovative ways. Lacking much institutional structure, but with many shared goals among its adherents, this movement seeks to attain the traditional Buddhist goals of reducing suffering and realizing Awakening, but with the assistance of scientific knowledge and technological means.     

Advaita Vedanta and the Repositioning of Subjectivity in the Life-writing of Christopher Isherwood, "Homosexualist"

Abstract

For British critics, Christopher Isherwood went off the literary radar when he declared himself a pacifist and de-camped to California on the eve of WWII. Nothing he wrote after the Berlin Stories (1939), when his life was barely half over, until Christopher and his Kind, in 1976, when he emerged as a kind of gay literary icon, was accorded much serious attention from Britain's literary establishment. Furthermore, what he published during his long relationship with a guru in the Ramakrishna Vedanta tradition—which culminated in the classic My Guru and his Disciple (1980)—has scarcely been taken seriously, and only a few of the more astute literary critics have detected the influence of Vedanta philosophy in his later work (e.g. Nagarajan, 1972). Yet there have been calls for Isherwood to be re-evaluated as a serious religious writer (Wade, 2001).

If such calls are to be taken seriously there are several issues that need to be addressed, not the least of which would be the dominant cultural expectations surrounding the (im)possibility of a spirituality not predicated on the denial of sexuality. "My personal approach to Vedanta was, among other things, the approach of a homosexual looking for a religion which will accept him," he wrote in 1970 (Bucknell, 2000: ix).

There is also the problem of an unreconstructed colonialist prejudice towards religious practices associated with a subject people. Here, I review important aspects of the non-dualist philosophy of his Advaita training that allowed Isherwood to integrate his sexuality and his writing with his religious practice.

Isherwood was inclined less to approach ideas as abstract principles and more as they were embodied in particular people. With this particular Swami, an exponent of the Ramakrishna Vedanta tradition, Isherwood found his lifelong guide, and the narrative of his spiritual journey is the history of a relationship that deepened over 40 years. That relationship is the other focus of this article.     

What's in a List?:A Rule of Interpretation for Hindu Dharma Offered in Response to Maria Hibbets

The study of South Asian ethics presents a variety of problems for the comparative ethicist. This response focuses on one such problem relating to Hinduism: the pervasive use of nonsystematic lists as a source of ethical injunctions and guidelines. The author demonstrates how an indigenous hermeneutic may unpack a list that contains the gift of fearlessness among other gifts. The source of this interpretation is Purva Mimamsa, an ancient Indian school of philosophy that specialized in language and the application of sacrificial logic to law and ethics. The same principles that allowed ritual specialists to sort out a huge array of rules into proper injunctions also allow us to make sense of ethical principles embodied in puzzling lists of concrete items.