That's ridiculous, science doesn't lead you further from the truth, science is truth. What do you meaning thinking for yourself, there's too much to science to be able to know it all by yourself. Science by nature promotes thinking for yourself and coming up with hypotheses to test for proof.
Why don't you go sell all your possessions and live with monks then, instead of using the Internet to badmouth science which in one way or another has given you everything in the room you are in now.
I think people driven to find answers in any feild is what pushes us to evolve. I do agree that there is a certain dogmatic way of thinking within the feild of science...
The advancement of knowledge is humanity's only hope of everlasting existence. Saying that is empty is empty in itself.
Yeah, OP! Don't badmouth mainstream dogma, it'll just start a war! XD But seriously; I would also be interested in hearing your defense. You can't just show up in a crowded room to tell everyone that their going to hell without at least offering your own interpretation of the scripture.
Fair enough. What is this increasing amount of knowledge doing for us and how is it helping us discover who we are? To me, this flood of information is a distraction from what we should be doing: exploring our inner nature, meditating on life, or negating the false. What these encourage is a well stabilized sense of well being, a practice that allows one to glimpse into deeper levels of reality. Yes, you can definitely say that science is a meditation in itself, but it doesn't go anywhere in my opinion. It is of such substance that is fluid and never solid, instable in essence. Science reasons through objectivity, ie through such a place that has no inherent sense of truth. Yes, things are. It explains that this causes that, if I do this, that will result. To me though, personally, I feel like greater realms of truth can be glimpsed at through looking within. Science has its limitations. It cannot possibly wander into the metaphysical, into the intangible. The science of science simply does not allow that, but it's a place in which you as a person are not defined by. There is more to reality than the physical, for nothing is solid and permanent as though we'd like to think. All I'm saying is that there is more to the picture than science, a space infinite vaster, and that we do not have to limit ourselves by believing in a limiting agent such as scientific facts and such. Scientific laws have exceptions. Nothing is as it seems.
And why can't one have grounding in both the physical and non-physical? Can't one embrace science and meditation simultaneously? I don't think they're mutually exclusive to each other. For you to say that science is empty is as unreasonable and unfair as me saying that meditation and inner knowledge is empty.
Well, if you did say that then you'd be correct. Meditation and inner knowledge are empty just as everything in this universe, with lack of a better name, is inherently empty and impermanent. To realize one's nature, to realize one's emptiness, suffering ceases to be. To sum up my previous argument in short: Science cannot explain what experience can.
Allow me to restate then. For you to say that science is empty is as unreasonable and unfair as me saying that experience is empty.
As was mentioned before if you feel that way then it's hypocritical for you to even use a computer because it would've never been possible in a world of philosophy instead of science, why not live as a monk? We don't flood your philosophy subforum with facts of the universe which you seem to abhor so why are you flooding our subforum with philosophical nonsense? True philosophy would've kept up with science and taken advantage of it, but it hasn't, so it's dead just like Hawking said. Science saves billions of lives and progresses us as a species.