Thanks Prudence, I know you are far more familiar than me with the Eastern philosophies and scripture, so I gladly accept that criticism. What I was referring to was the numerous references that I have read that explain how the Aristotelian view supported by Aquinas and the biblical revelation of a transcendent and immanent Creator-God was a necessary element leading to the approach to science developed in the Enlightenment. The authors of the book I just read, God and the Cosmos, made a strong point of this while reviewing other major religions and their approach to nature. I need to have a better understanding of the teachings of the Vedas and Upanishads to determine if their conclusion is unwarranted. However, the fact that science primarily and initially grew from the Western worldview tends to confirm that.

On the issue of proximate and ultimate causes I totally agree. However, my study of Bohm, Eddington, Bell, Pauli and other suggets a blurring of such distinction in the ideas of dual aspect monism and the possible spiritual/conscious underpinning of mind and matter. That would make much of what is subject to the proximate cause of something like "active information." I'd be curious about your thoughts on that.