In March 2007, I attended a talk by Dr. Steve Weinberg, the 1979 Nobel Laureate in physics for his work on electromagnetic and weak forces, on the topic "On Religion and Science" at Cornell University. Dr. Weinberg did not mince any words when he vehemently spoke about the hypocrisy and shallowness of religion, citing several evident episodes of scandals and violence in recent religious history.
At the end of his talk, he categorically stated that because of the problems that religion has created, one of the primary aspirations of science should be to cease the existence of religion. He made a strong appeal to the audience to take this seriously.
As a practitioner of Bhakti yoga, an ancient devotional school in the Hindu tradition, I was stung by Dr. Weinberg's strong comments. It felt like an assault on a paradigm that defined my outlook and the people whom I deeply loved and respected. At the same time, my rational faculties knew that Dr. Weinberg's citations were completely based on facts and thoroughly justified. Was I simply being a sentimental religionist turning a blind eye to the problems that religion has created? Or was there a deeper root to my adherence that Dr. Weinberg may not have had a chance to experience?
The key to resolving this conflict lay in one verse from the Bhagavata Purana, one of the primary texts in the Hindu tradition. The verse classifies religious faith or dharma into two categories: peripheral (kaithava) and essential (sanatana).
Gordon W. Allport, a Harvard psychologist, developed a similar scheme and categorized religious practice into extrinsic and intrinsic. The peripheral or extrinsic practice of religion refers to those expressions of faith that are motivated by self-directed desires: personal comfort, riches, power and status. The essential or intrinsic practice of religion is governed by the deep inquiry to uncover our true essence that results in profound personal transformation.
Growing up, my first experience of Hindu religion was extrinsic. I was exposed to Hindu rituals that enabled an individual's economic development and sensory pleasure, respectively known as artha and kama in Sanskrit. My parents taught me to pray twice everyday. The prayers usually were a means to please the gods to give me the best grades, good health and success in all endeavors.
I clearly recollect visiting temples of the elephant god, Ganesha, on the eve of exams, to put in "special requests" because he is an expert at taking away impediments on the path of success. On occasions, when the stakes were high, I paid good money to the head priest for special services. I got more than the expected results every time, expect for one big test where I failed miserably. That failure exposed the conditional nature of my faith.
In course of time, I turned away from the Hindu faith, much to the concern of my parents. I was old enough not to be swayed by them or other religious individuals. Episodes of communal violence fueled by Hindu fundamentalism in the early '90s further strengthened my stance.
It was six years later that a conversation with a good friend unexpectedly reopened the "religious" chapter. Manish was regarded as one of India's young scientific geniuses, but possessed a humble demeanor. In a casual conversation on a Monday evening, he convinced me to accompany him to a talk on the Bhagavad Gita. It was during that talk that I heard for the first time a clear explanation of the primary purpose of religion: deep inquiry and knowledge about our identity and the true purpose of our existence.
The talk systematically and logically pieced together the need for such inquiry and provided a deep philosophical look into the nature of consciousness and our quest for immortality. Sprinkled throughout the presentation were various scientific citations from the Hindu scriptures -- verses explaining a method of plastic surgery from the Rig Veda, the heliocentric model of the solar system from the Bhagavata Purana, and a description of time dilation and relativistic mechanics from the Upanishads.
The speaker was pleasant and humble, yet authoritative and confident. There was no trace of criticism, sentimentalism or fanaticism in his talk. I met with him personally after the presentation and I spent two hours critically questioning his paradigm.
He introduced himself as Radheshyam and his answers were deep and succinct. Although I did not fully accept his paradigm then, I deeply respected his approach and logical explanations. It was refreshing to see such a religious man. I was curious to know more.
In the next four years, I frequently visited Radheshyam's Bhakti Yoga monastery in downtown Mumbai and spent considerable time studying Hindu scriptures with him and his fellow monks. I was a personal witness to the rigor and scrutiny they applied to their scriptural study. The scriptures dealt exclusively with understanding consciousness, its source and its purpose.
Most of the monks had advanced graduate degrees from prestigious universities. Their simplicity and spirit of brotherhood were evident in their lifestyle. Their possessions -- four sets of clothes, some books and some rosary beads -- were neatly stacked away in 3x3 closets. They slept on straw mats on the ground. They lived by one principle adopted from a beautiful verse in the Hindu texts: "Be humbler than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree. Be ready to offer all respects to others and expect nothing in return."
In a conversation when I thanked the director of the monastery for his time to answer my questions, he looked at me with sincere gratitude and said, "I am so grateful that you have accepted me as your servant." The glimmer in his eyes clearly reflected the sense that he would not exchange his lifestyle even for $100 million.
The lives of these monks demonstrated to me a sincere search for truth and reality. Their practice completely contrasted any experience of religion that I previously had. To me, it seemed to be a compelling alternative to science in the pursuit of truth. Their axiomatic basis may be different, but their methods, rigor, logic and dedication were comparable to any true scientist. They strove to live an ego-free life, which gave them clarity and objectivity in their quest. Above all, they were truly beautiful human beings.
Dr. Weinberg's citations were correct and his frustrations justified. But his conclusion that science should destroy religion completely was probably based on his very limited exposure to the intrinsic practice of religion. They probably sprung from his experiences of narrow-minded and ritualistic religious practices that lack philosophical rigor, progression of logic and a transformative lifestyle.
Instead of rejecting religion completely, it would be wise to discriminate between substance and shadow -- and encourage the substance. The pockets where intrinsic religion is practiced may be few, but they hold deep significance especially at a time when religious fundamentalism needs to be addressed with strong action. They may also offer the unique opportunity for science and religion to have meaningful dialogues and finally understand each other.
I was a little disappointed by the claim that there is a description of time dilation and relativistic mechanics in the Upanishads. Frankly I do not believe this claim.
Moreover, the author stresses scriptural reading too much. I would think that deep religion would involve spiritual practice like dhyana, japa, puja etc. Scriptural reading is only for the beginners.
"The scriptures are a "mixture of sand and sugar," difficult to distinguish and separate. They are of no use in conveying the feeling of God: "This feeling is something very different from book-learning. Books, scriptures, and science appear as mere dirt and straw after the realization of God." ....."But seeing is far better than hearing. Then all doubts disappear. It is true that many things are recorded in the scripture; but all these are useless without the direct realization of God.''
- Sri Ramakrishna.
Deep religion is about spiritual practice and sustained effort to directly realize God.
This IS funny...there is no such thing as DEEP RELIGION.... any more than there is a deep Harry Potter story.
The increase in knowledge in consciousness would be so much farther along if they hadn't thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It's frustrating to continually hear that "the study of consciousness is still in its infancy" as an excuse for what they don't know. Yeah, it's still in its infancy because the materialists, on nothing more than a faith-based belief that mind can be fully reduced to brain stunted the growth of the field for years.
there are two great lies that I have heard,
the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him"
May you find truth in unexpected places.
Part of the problem is inherent in the words themselves. All of the discoveries of value in religion can be found without a belief in god(s.) Obviously Dr. Weinbergs criticisms were harsh, but I feel most anti-religious people would lessen their harshness if religion was more like the aspects you cite.
Whenever people visit India, they do so for its colour, variety - its like entering an overgrown jungle with myriads of different songbirds everywhere. It is a beauty of plentifulness, rather than being a barren wasteland.
So, the criticisms towards the monotheisms do not apply to Hinduism and Buddhism. One must not cast the net too widely when criticizing "religions". There have been no religious wars launched, no "unbelievers" persecuted, no 'conversions' sought and no free-thinkers/scientists given house arrest, or worse. Please remember to mark these important points, when you criticize "religions"... they are not all the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India
I can use wikipedia too!!!
Complete and utter dishonesty and lies.
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Orissa-bishop-slams-forced-conversion-of-Catholics-to-Hinduism-19456.html
http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/DD19Df04.html
QM is a non-deteminisic theory and our best description of how things are. As such, it destroys determinism. But then if we hadn't found QM to be true, it would be case that determinism would be correct. This would mean that everything they have been writing here was already predestined to be written by them - at the big bang. Now, they are free to believe this, and even free to doubt their own free agency, but it doesn't make it a scientifically valid view. Therefore, they are making faith-based, superstitious assertions.
To the materialists: I can only employ rhetoric, I am not an exorcist. You will have to do that part yourselves. I can provide a soft landing, but whether you land on your head or your feet is up to you... but your perch IS slipping away into the abyss.
Very specific scientific studies on human behavior are against your translation of Quantum behavior to human behavior. TMT details the determinism you deny. And Death Salience shows your motive to hold to such a belief system rather than except your mortality.
Also, your tone is extremely condescending. So apparenlty, religion does not work even if it is correct.
Which is what most atheists tend to do when confronted with these issues, admit that they're hard and difficult problems rather than pretend to have a certain answer. Which makes atheism no more a matter of faith than liberal religion, which is equally about the questions rather than the answers.
Everyone can feel deeply and thus act upon the GNOSTIC knowledge that we are free agents. The problem of not being able to fit the concept of choice onto the metaphor of mechanism is what is taught by QM. Thus, we learned that we must let go of the metaphor of mechanism to describe ourselves. QM destroyed Newtonian Mechanics. That the new scientific view is called Quantum "Mechanics" is a historical accident, in that QM actually destroys the metaphor of mechanism, in seeing that determinism is not an accurate description of how things are. This is only surprising to those who had thought that the whole world moves forward as if preprogrammed, predestined by the forces of electro-magnetism etc.
It is impossible, even in theory, to predict the timing of the next radioactive decay event. But even then, we hold onto the FANTASY of someday making a model to describe fully ourselves. NO model will do it, because a model implies prediction, which is impossible... because we are free agents. Everyone knows this.
In the past science told us that animals feel no pain, but the general public thought that was crazy and didn't go along with that. Fact is, there are only a handful of academics in the world who are wondering if indeed we are free agents.
If by core, you mean they all have some valid and perhaps "evolved" ideas for the time, I might agree, but since it is a human construct religion is only as good as the people using it and they would be equally good without it, so in the end it really only servers to centralize power, the primary problem with humans.
Gandhi was pacifist, and followed the Gita. But do you think if the British had not left quietly that Indians would have not risen up and thrown them out? There is a limit to pacifism, and that too is an important lesson.
I think religion has had all the opportunity in the world to show itself to science. It fails to show anything but regional traditions. There may be some personal value to practicing meditation (If that's what you do) and it may be possible to experience transcendence, But The real problem with religion is that it takes a non-methodological path to 'truth', and it usually requires the devotee to be constantly thinking of the deity, worshiping him, etc. I just don't think that is a healthy way to live your life. As someone else posted, your 'shallow and deep' metaphor is nothing more than a No true Scotsman fallacy.
The fact is, that no religion of any stripe has been able to be coupled with science. Because there is no evidence that any of them are more than complex regional social traditions and have no intrinsic connection to the universe.
Unfortunately my knowledge of Hinduism is not what it should be, so If I am wrong, feel free to correct my thinking. If you're going to claim it as some universal truth, please provide evidence.
There are no Hindu protests against the theory of evolution, stem cell research etc., for example.
http://nirmukta.com/2010/06/27/pseudoscience-in-the-stars-an-indian-rationalists-experiences-with-astrology/
and is rooted in religion
http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Hindu%20Primer/hinduastrology1.html
who would that thought that!!!
Theologies are vast and complex structures built on an imaginary foundations.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/sandalwood/what-does-it-mean-to-be-r_b_833987_80603671.html
Make up your mind. And just because Hinduism has been around a long time, proves nothing. In fact Hinduism is not a thing at all. It is a conglomarate of varying opinions, cultures and traditions very loosly slung together. Many with contradictory points.
Are you suggesting enlightenment is only available to those who study their whole lives or have some special talent for it?
You'll need to buy my new micrometer sounding rope. Reads accurately for all relevant depths, from an oil film to a sidewalk puddle.