By Bodhi Dhanapala, Quebec, Canada

We begin by summarizing the content of this article for those who are rushed for time. Dr. Silva has proposed a debate where he claims that he can show us God Natha” when we challenged him to satisfy the conditions of the Chulla-Hatthi-Padopama sutta by even showing some pointer readings that demonstrate the existence of such a God.
Summary
1. Dr. Silva has already converted the debate to a baka-vivaadaya by having already said that he cannot show God Natha,  even as a set of pointer readings visible to every one. Now he says he will show God Natha”,  if subsidiary conditions are satisfied.
2. The CHP-sutta does not specify subsidiary conditions like,  we show the Elephant only if you show the Gravitational field”. The Hasthi” can be seen by anyone, even if they know nothing about the gravitational field. So why is Dr. Silva now backing out?
3. He has to clear his confusion  about what he needs, viz., gravitational force, gravitational field, and what he calls the “abstract” versions of these, by going to see Dr. Valentine Joseph, Dr. Baggot  or some such non-sinhala Buddhist teacher, since  he claims that he  only learns from such people
4. As there are enough  demonstrations of  all properties  (force, potential etc.) of  the gravitational field, we can refer him to the relevant material when he specifies what he wants.
In fact, Dr. Silva claims to be a  physicist,  and can  demonstrate it to satisfy himself (ehipassiko”), after clarifying his understanding by talking with Dr. Joseph, Dr. Baggot  or his equivalent.
5. Dr. Silva should come with his Gura Jim Baggot”, or who ever.
6. Given his request to  not discuss anything anymore (මේ විවාදය …තැපෑලෙන්  කරගෙන යෑමේ අවශ්ය තාවක් නැත) electronically, one  suspects  that this baka-vaadaya” is a ruse to  to stop us exposing his errors in physics.

Main text.
Dr. Nalin de Silva has circulated the following claims about a public debate and tried to lay down the terms according to his own wishes, but  no consensus has been reached about  the terms of the debate. බෝධි ධනපාල මහතා හා මා අතර ලංකාවේ දී පැවැත්වෙන වාදය සම්බන්ධයෙන් දැනට විද්‍ය්‍රත් තැපෑලෙන් හුවමාරු වී ඇති අදහස් මෙසේ ලියා තබමි. අදාළ සියලු ප්‍රකාශ පහත පළවෙයි (නලින් ද සිල්වා, 2015 ජූනි 22). He has NOT included all the relevant statements ( අදාළ සියලු ප්‍රකාශ ) as claimed. He challenged Bodhi Dhanapala” for a debate, as he has in the past indiscriminately challenged  “sinhala-buddhist scientists” in almost every article. So Dr. Silva is a pathological  argument seeker  who challenges people who cross his path.

Even I, not a scientists but a mere science teacher, can see the elementary  errors in Dr. Silva’s physics statements. He is upset that I have questioned his “baka-paandithya” (pretense to knowledge)  position. But the painful reality is, as I will show below,  Dr. Silva’s  challenge is not genuine, and the conditions he says he will fulfil have ALREADY BEEN NEGATED BY HIM, EVEN BEFORE THE proposed DEBATE.

Seeing that Dr. Silva is getting more and more into deep water, Dr. Silva’s acolytes  are telling him that this discussion is not worth five cents, while Dr. Silva thinks it is worth thousands of dollars. His political supporters, NOT understanding that this is not a question of politics but a question of cleaning up science-fraud extremely harmful to Sri Lanka, have taken up cudgels on his behalf. This is a common phenomenon, as when Dr. Lysenko’s political supporters strongly sided with the fraudulent Soviet scientists who destroyed soviet agriculture, forcing the Soviet Union to eat humble pie and import wheat from the USA.

The Sri Lankan scientists are afraid to speak out because of the misguided  derision and “kithul polu” wielded by these people who have not even a basic education in science. But as a school teacher living outside the ambit of these Kithul Polu”, and as some one who grew up as a village boy,  I am appalled at what is happening here. While a certain skepticism about big business controlling science is justified in the West, in Sri Lanka we have no such situation. However, the upper classes in Sri Lanka who follow the California mindset blindly apply it to Sri Lanka. They  are  bed fellows of  Nalin de Silva and friends who approach the issue via  a  mis-guided  nationalism.  These people have been labeled the lunatic fringe” by Dr. Ranil Senanayake, an eco-agriculturist who seeks a sustainable form of agriculture by harnessing modern science, but himself somewhat tainted by the organic” lobby.

Sri Lanka needs to follow the lead of the rising stars of the East. The leaders of Japan, China, India, Singapore etc., have pushed forward scientific education and are rapidly coming neck to neck with the West. China and Japan have forged ahead of the West in many areas. But if Nalin de Silva and his band of obscurantists have their way, a significant number of people (like journalists and politicians who did  not make the school-science stream) will take us back to the era where, as Dr. Silva says, අපි පේන අසමු, කේන්දර බලමු, ….etc, on 16-June 2015 අපට වෙච්ච දේ – 2) and embrace  the Brahmajaala that the Buddha condemned. Dr. Nalin de Silva also says පංචෙන්ද්‍රිය ගෝචර නොවන ජීවීන් හා වස්තු ගැන විශ්වාස කරමු” forgetting that most things considered by science, like electric currents, magnetic fields, gravitational fields, microbes, atoms etc., are NOT seen by the five senses” (පංචෙන්ද්‍රිය) . They are made visible as pointer readings of detector instruments, or magnified as images using suitable instruments. This is consistent with the   Chulla-Hatthi-Padopama sutta (CHP-sutta), while Dr. Silva is not.

I asked Dr. Silva  to follow the  Buddha’s method (as stated in the CHP-sutta) and demonstrate the existence of God Natha by making him manifest, at least as pointer readings, although that is hardly adequate. Then he said

නාථ දෙවියන ්අප බොහෝ දෙනකුට ගෝචර නො වේ….. නාථ දෙවියන් සූචක කියවීමකට හසු කර ගැනීමට නො හැකි ය (article entitled විවිධ අත්දැකීම් හා දැනුම්, 21st June 2015). However, in his bid to ignite a baka-vivaada”  he says මා නාථ දෙවියන් පෙන්වන්නේ ධනපාල මහතා හෝ වෙනත් කවරකු හෝ වියුක්ත ගුරුත්වාකර්ෂණ බලය (ක්ෂෙෙත්රය) මට පෙන්වන්නේ නම් පමණක් බව මා කියා ඇත. මම පොරොන්දු කඩ නො කරමි. That is, I have said that I will show show God Natha if Mr. Dhanapala or anyone else can show me the abstract gravitational force (field)”.

We have not been able to find this statement that he claims he said.  Secondly, why does he confuse the gravitational force with the gravitational field? Why does he want the abstract” gravitational field, when we have always said that scientists work with pointer readings of instruments. Further more, he has without prior agreement or clarification added the word ABSTRACT” in front of the word gravitational force. So Dr. Silva does not know if he wants the force of gravity, the gravitational field, or what he calls the abstract” force of gravity, or the abstract” gravitational field, or a four-fold-logic mixture of all these!!!!

The ex-professor  has craftily  created enough wriggle room for himself. Also, he has left it very vague that  I will show God Natha”, as if God Natha is a show-piece that he has under his control.

Comparing the case with the Hasthi” of the CHP-Sutta,   it is not enough to see the animal’s dropping and other  secondary signs, and primary evidence need to exist  Dr. Silva has to explicitly specify in what manner he is going to show God Natha”. For instance, can he take the light coming from, or reflected from  God Natha into a camera or spectroscope and record him? If not, please specify.

The CHP-sutta does not specify subsidiary conditions like,  we show the Elephant only if you show the Gravitational field”. The Hasthi can be seen by anyone, even if they know nothing about the gravitational field. So why is Dr. Silva now backing out of the Buddhist and scientific approach?

In fact, everything that  Dr. Silva  has written here shows that it is, as usual, a total pretence on Dr. Nalin’s  part – a  BAKA  DHARSHANA”. He is not capable of showing even a hair of the God, and he correctly admitted on 21st June that God Natha cannot be demonstrated, even as pointer readings, let alone via direct evidence as specified in the CHP-sutta.

So you see  that Dr. Silva’s debate is really  a BAKA-VIVAADA. We are not prepared to waste our  time unless these matters are clarified, and he undertakes to show us, that is any of us, or be it even his friend Carlo Fonseka, incontrovertible, verifiable, repeatedly testable  evidence for the existence of God Natha, just as we have for the Hasthi.

Dr. Nalin de Silva has challenged Dr. Amaratunga and various others, and asked me to come with Prof. Dharmawardana for this baka-vivaadaya, presumably because I used Prof. Dharmawardana’s book A Physicist’s view of matter and mind” to clarify various matters in physics. Dr. Silva has been using Dr. Jim Baggots’ book, and even repeated Bagoot’s erroneous statements in several Vidusara articles. So I suggest that Dr. Silva gets Dr. Baggot to come to this debate  on his side.

Also, Dr. Silva complains that I have written Sivala” for Silva” in my Sinhala articles, and that this is not a spelling mistake but an attempt to insult him”. I point out that Dr. Silva has distorted de Broglie’s name and written it as de Broolie”, and he did this EVEN after it was pointed out. So, was he deliberately insulting Prof. De Broglie, an icon of Western Science”? In my case, I assure Dr. Silva that when I try to write a non-sinhala name like Silva, I end up involuntarily writing sivala” because the latter is a very fine sinhala word, perhaps ironically appropriate. So, I can claim that I have used a sinhalized” version of Silva”, just as Girigoris is used by some people for Gregory”.  In any case, Dr. Silva cannot pretend that his sinhala typing is super-correct given that within 10 lines or so he comes up with words like ප්රාසිද්ධ විවාදයක්, ප්රනසිද්ධ විවාදයකට, විද්යා ත්මක ක්රාමය, අවශ්යි, සාමාන්යක පංතියේ, අවශ්යන නම්, විද්ර්නපාත්, ක්ෂෙෙත්රය” etc. Furthermore, he wants to debate about කෘෂිරසායනික වකුගඩු රෝගය”, and what ever is that? We have only heard of a ගුප්ත හේතුක චිරාපත් වකුගඩු රෝගය (chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology).

Finally, we note that Dr. Silva says ධනපාල මහතා ලංකාවේ දී හමුවිය හැකි බැවින් මේ විවාදය තවදුරටත් විද්ර්නපාත් තැපෑලෙන් කරගෙන යෑමේ අවශ්ය තාවක් නැත.” This vivaadaya” is about
any of the topics, බටහිර විද්යාාව, විද්යා ත්මක ක්රාමය, ෆෝටොනයේ ස්කන්ධය, ක්වොන්ටම් භෞතිකය, එහි අර්ථ විවරණ, බුදදහම, ආනුභාවික බුදුදහම, කෘෂිරසායනික වකුගඩු රෝගය, දැනුම හා ධනපාල මහතාට අවශ්යි වෙනත් මාතෘකා ගැන විය හැකි ය”. Hence we can only suspect  that this baka-vaadaya” is a ruse to get us to stop exposing his errors in physics and much more.

In conclusion  we can state the following:
Dr. Silva has already converted the debate to a baka-vivaadaya  as stated in the text and summarized at the start of the article.