Sunday, July 08, 2007

Religion and Science

Recently, Maha remarked how soft were my hands (I was spared the word 'womanly' thankfully). I, nevertheless, managed to wriggle out of this awkward situation by offering an ingenious explanation (Hyderabadis call this sort of self-aggrandisement as 'self-dabba' or simply, 'SD')--
One of the names of Shiva (please be reminded that my name is also a Shiva epithet) is 'SadyojAta'-- one who is just born. Of course you would expect that the hands of a just-born one would be soft. Sadyojaata is also very innocent and naive and we dont expect him to know the ways of the wicked world just as yet.
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Even today, Religious scholars hide behind the theory that there are no proofs for theory of evolution and they basically "disagree" with darwin... why? because it says right here, in so and so Purana that from the nabhi-kamalam of Vishnu, Brahma was born and from him were born the Vedas or that Lord God made the world in seven days right in the book of genesis. No amount of evidence offered will convince them. Most importantly, they are threatened that all that they hold dear, will vanish in a moment if they agree with modern science. It doesnt have to be so...
I can offer a simple analogy, and in doing so, I will be offering yet another theory to the mankind already suffering from a "theoretical obesity":

Imagine, you want to make nice indian curry-- what do you do? you switch the stove on, put a pan on it, put vegetables, oil, other spices and condiments in the pan, and close the lid and let it simmer for a while. There is not much else to do now, other than occasional checking and stirring, and voila! you have your curry ready after a while. Notice that all the steps after all the ingredients have been mixed together are purely scientific and explainable, though they were happening with your least intervention.

The same can be applied to God and the evolution-- all the natural processes and the organic evolution is but an ongoing process or procedure happening exactly according to science, but what actually matters is the purpose, "the kAraNa" with which the universe, and subsequently, the solar system and the planets were formed as far as God is concerned. The rest, the science can easily handle. In that sense, The Almighty can be viewed as The Master chef with a view to prepare a cosmic soup of His own taste, and he doesnt have to keep it stirring all the while-- just use the ladle once in a while to stir up things a bit and make it more interesting.

The interesting part is that religion is viewed my most sociologists as a briliant outcome of evolution-- it is a successfully tested strategy designed to counter vagaries of mother nature to ensure his survival. It offers hope, a reason for existence, gives importance to his/her life in an odd way even without him/her doing anything of any significance. It also helps a tribe to be better than the competetion.
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What an irony! The outcome of a process denies the very process that produces it, only because it feels threatened by its existence. What sadyojAtas we all make denying the very evolution that produced religion!
And when do we grow up to being YathirAjas (The Lords of all those who renounce the material world) ?

6 comments:

Pooja said...

I know you do not like to read a lot, but I strongly recommend "The God Delusion". You will find it very interesting.

Gandaragolaka said...

I do read, but only extremely relevant material. So it seems this book "explores the roots of religion and why religion is so ubiquitous across all human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful" and asks whether the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, might work to explain how religion might spread like a "mind virus" across societies."

I dont think religion is a misfiring of something useful. A misfire cannot happen across isolated societies with such consistency. And even if it happens, it cannot sustain itself unless it aids the evolution of the species.

You may deny God, but you cannot deny instinct. And instinct is but another facet of religion.

anandanubhava said...

hey, how're u?? whats going on?
interesting writing :-)
Another analogy is the dream analogy given for maya. when u dream u dont start the dream from the time u were a kid, then grow up & finally come to the state of the dream. it just starts from some place, spontaneously. exactly same way with creation! after all, the world is nothing more than a dream.

Gandaragolaka said...

Haha! In that case, the dream analogy is not applicable to the organic evolution. The world is maya in the sense that everything is finally made of quarks, but it still exists. Its outer manifestion is the only thing that isnt real. Only in that outer 'baahya' sense, it is a dream.

Ragz said...

My word!! very interesting analogy. I ve not being blogging much but whenever I visit your page,its got something very very interesting to offer. A little bit of scientiology dont you think?

Gandaragolaka said...

tanks tanks! look the new post and then decide if I am worthy of your praise!