Holy War Of Religion And Science

Keshav Niranjan

Historically, when we analyze the Indian society, we find that India was ruled by many invaders rather than ruled by self. Consequently question arises why Indian ruling class who claim themselves knowledgeable or vishwa guru, were not capable to protect themselves and surrendered before invaders, and ran away to spoil this nation. If they were really vishwa guru, then where had their knowledge gone, because valid knowledge always implies right view, right intention, right action, right effort and produce right result. Prolong slavery of this nation compels us to check whether self proclaimed vishwa guru class is really knowledgeable or just carrying the burden of vishwa guru tag, because they had failed to protect themselves and their knowledge did not provide any materialistic and ethical progress in our society. Their knowledge contributes to produce gender imbalance, misogyny, feudalism, untouchables and castes in our society. Majority of our population is suffering from hunger, poverty and our children are malnourished, and major section of society is unable to access human values such as equality, dignity of every human being, distributive justice, and social accountability by their knowledge system. So, their knowledge isn't real knowledge, it was just bundles of myths. Again, if you are so high enlightened community on earth then why India is suffering from social evils, and who is responsible for all these problems, you being the ruling class.

In past, our rulers filled with myths from nail to toe, and moved by myths and false self pride, believed in invalid knowledge and consequently got defeated. This knowledge was not factually and experimentally true. Even now the Indian ruling class is not ready to take lessons from the past, as they are adamant to eulogize the invalid knowledge systems as valid knowledge systems for sectarian benefit. It is very harmful to believe in false self glory, as it is a big hurdle in progress of our society. Perhaps, only this has rendered our society culturally, socially, educationally and economically backward. Indian ruling class is busy in spreading false claim that we invented nuclear power, aero plane, plastic surgery and stem cell, or whatever invention in science that is already present in our scriptures.

Moreover, ruling class surrounded by false self pride, such as, claiming to enlighten the world by their inventions, while the fact is that for technology, education and most of the necessary areas of human life we are dependent on western knowledge. If you ask them when did you enlighten and how did you enlighten this world by your invention, then they will give you the reference of some religious scripture and will ask you to read it. In the scientific era, only written-in-scriptures is not sufficient for claiming the ownership of inventions. This has to be supported with concrete evidence showing procedures and implementations of things.

 Indian ruling elites is inclined to live with myths. Due to prolong training in this stuff, their reason is revolving around the wheel of faith, consequently their intellectual progress has been handicapped and they have become custodian and patron of this culture. Due to their patriotism of this culture, it has flourished in Indian society. This has provided them legitimacy for their innate superiority. Habit of Indian ruling class to live with myths and spreading myths is not new. This is giving pleasure to them and making them more powerful, because when society will be uneducated and irrational, they can easily rule without any challenge. They will fear only when any stronger invader has attacked, because in this situation they are habitual of surrendering before them.

Moreover, they are using science as a tool for personal gain. Their effort is to provide scientific validity for religious myths. Their solely interest lies in preserving the religion through science rather than promoting real science. They avoid facing problems and challenges of society, instead create virtual reality in mind of masses projecting that they are culturally rich from the past and have already developed society.

Their biased attitude towards science is like Hindi idiom ‘gud khayo and gulgula se parhej' (you eat jaggery but refuse eating sweet fruits). It means you use science twenty-four hours but refuse to give credit to science. This dodgy attitude can be seen in the Indian ruling class on many occasions like praising the fatalistic myths of Hinduism, and prescribing it to the deprived masses for their self gain.

 Although India, China and South Korea got independence in the same time period, but economic and industrial growth results show that China and South Korea have been prompt in adopting and implementing science and modern education. In contrary to this Indian ruling class is not ready to change old dogma and superstitious beliefs, and not ready to easily mingle with the scientific temper based life style. Indeed, halfheartedly effort of Indian government is not producing satisfactory result in popularity of science. Still religious hymns and myths dominate the mind set of Indian people. Here science has become secondary knowledge system. This religious dominance is hindrance in producing core scientific knowledge.

All educated people are not always rationalists. Indian science professionals are living in a dilemma for the knowledge regarding the creation of this cosmos and other worldly phenomena. On the one hand they have professional view, and on the other due to cultural and religious influence they have personal view in this regard. This duality is blurring the rationality. The dominance and popularity of religious teachings have obliged them to undermine science. This is how Indian scientists and academician are suffering from prejudice and chauvinism.

Although science and religion both are claiming to unravel and explain reality, but their methodology is different in formulating this knowledge. Science uses the following process: it collects empirical facts (the evidence), applies critical reasoning (based on the evidence), and outlines a tentative theory. In case either the reasoning or the facts may be wrong, so it is submitted to a jury of peers for their agreement. On the other hand religious knowledge based on study of scriptures (believed to be God's word), accept it by faith (based on instinct, feeling, intuition), and Revealed Truth (must not be doubted). Thus science relies on empirical means such as observations, commonsense, statistics, and laboratory experiments, whereas the religious domain is evocative. Religion relies on emotions, mysteries, superstitions, miracles, prophecies, revelations.

War of religious view and scientific view about the life can be seen in different ways:

Religion always prescribes meta physical principles to any inquiry, and metaphysics leads to lack of interest in present life and to a concern for an imaginary salvation in the other world. Indian philosopher Sankaracharya says that “Brahman is the only truth, the spatio-temporal world is an illusion”. Therefore whatever your worldly behaviors, they are not important because this world is an illusion. So, it is worthless to ethically and morally develop yourself. ‘Ideological and philosophical factors, like the world-denying Mayabad preached by Sankara, contributed to the decay of scientific temper' (Ghosh, 2000:69-70).  The teaching of meta-physical principles restricted the materialistic and moral progress of society. Source of morality in theist religion is God and divine principles, whereas source of morality in science is ethical principles. Religion propagates the intelligent design theory for origin of universe. According to all theist religions origin of the universe is based on the doctrine of creation. It means that universe is created by the will of God, and God intelligently designs the world. Origin of universe in science is based on the evolution and natural selection that directly challenge the foundations of all religions.

Science is dynamic, and its claims may be changed or modified depending on the realities being studied. Scientific theory is falsifiable and scientists do research and develop theories without any prejudice. On the other hand, religions are static because their theologies are ingrained in archaic texts that are considered to be the words of God and one should not dare to change, challenge, or refute them. Theology can't be falsifiable; it is based on top-down approach.

Although, attack by French Islamic fundamentalists on Charlie Hebedo has declared starting of new war between ignorance and science worldwide and Pope Francis's statement in this regard gives evidence that except ownership, all religious fundamentalists are similar in nature worldwide; all are against rationality, love and openness. India is not exception to this phenomenon. Rome was burning and Nero was fiddling, this idiom is true in Indian context; RSS is destroying the scientific temper of the nation, and brining the old barbaric, irrational culture. Our government is luring to nation by development, and Indian opposition parties are going in deep sleep due to dishonesty and foolishness. For maintaining the spirit of science, Article 51 (A) says that “it shall be the duty of every citizen of India to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. Irreverence of Science can't be tolerated, therefore honorable judiciary must take sue motto action against enemies of scientific temper, and oppositional political parties should ready for mass movement in support of science making it a way of life.