Interesting thoughts to ponder on

July 16, 2004

- Hindu Press International Thu, 15 Jul 2004 16:31:19 -1000 "Hindu Press International" HPI, July 15, 2004 3. No Conflict Between Science and Spirituality

http://www.newindpress.com/ July 11, 2004: An HPI reader sent us this article, but we have neither the author nor the original URL, except that it appeared on the Newindpress.com website.

Some educated Indians think that science is at loggerheads with religion, relegating science to the laboratory and denigrating religion to the level of superstition. The attempt to propagate this ideology has far-reaching political and religious implications. It does a disservice to all Indians, alienating them from the high respect for the spiritual culture of India that is held by scientists and people of all persuasions all over the world. Such ideologues are found to be well informed neither about science, nor the Vedas. An American born and educated seeker studied both science and Hinduism. He experienced the experiments in American universities which attempted to bring arts and humanities -- including religion -- together with science. In the early seventies, he listened to Swami Chinmayananda, and discovered Vedanta, then studying it under Swami Dayananda Sarawati for several

years. Four years ago, he moved to India, where the spiritual culture further nurtured his wonder at this world. On finding the cynical, to him deeply anti-Indian, ideology spread by some Indians, he culled some interesting viewpoints from the world's leading scientists on the topic of religion and science. For example:

Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976), Nobel Laureate in physics "... one cannot always distinguish between statements made by Eastern metaphysics based on mystical insight, and the pronouncements of modern physics based on observations, experiments and mathematical calculations."

Dr. Carl Sagan, (1934-1996) astrophysicist, "The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. A millennium before > Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions."

Erwin Schroedinger (1887-1961), Nobel Laureate in physics wished to see: "Some blood transfusion from the East to the West to save Western science from spiritual anaemia."

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), the developer of the atomic bomb, studied Sanskrit and called the Gita "the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue . . what we shall find (in modern physics) is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom." The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley, California, has involved over 120 distinguished senior scientists in its dialogues, demonstrating that scientists of Nobel caliber can also be people of faith, and that those who are not traditionally religious can offer insights of great value to religion.

Secularist ideologues who seek to create a conflict between science and religion project an imaginary world that is quite different from the natural world that exists. Even if such a world were possible. Nobody could live happily in it. All previous experiments of societies towards that end have failed dismally. India's ancient wisdom has inspired the world's scientific community, which contradicts this bleak secularist ideology.

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