Back in high school, I was lucky to have a couple of teachers of mathematics and physics who passionately taught much more that what was within the curriculum. As they ventured into the realms of the unknown, elucidating ideas and possible ideas that, in essence, went against what they were actually supposed to teach us, I used to sit mesmerized and fascinated. The world of science which they opened in front of me was a magical world of the universe where one's dreams could become realities, and fantasies could become scientific possibilities through concrete theories. And the fact that these teachers dared to teach, without any hesitation, outside the curriculum within their designated time-frames, revealed their sheer passion in their respective subjects and impressed upon my young mind the beauty and power of Freedom, the freedom to dream, think and hope.
Back home, a middle-class idea of the heavens had always existed freely in my mind since I was a child, as I grew up watching my mother spend her daily share of hours in front of photographs and idols of deities with religious and sincere regularity. I often wondered about the ambiguity that seemed to beseech my thoughts, when I wanted to believe in the Universe that I brought back from school, and in the Heaven where the gods of my mother's worship existed. Not that the ambiguity disturbed me a lot, but it definitely acted as a driving force that used to push me to know more ,about life and about knowledge itself.
It was stimulated further when the explosion of the rebel pseudoidealism (that so typically afflicts every adolescent boy) led me to read Kant, Virgil and Vivekananda, leaving me dreamily wandering in the worlds of metaphysics and theology.(I offer my unconditional apology to the highly respected female mind who might be reading this and recoiling with feminine hatred from the unintentional chauvinism that might expose itself from my boldly declared bias towards the adolescent Boy. Honestly speaking, I had no inkling of how the mind of a teenaged Girl handled the adolescent splurge of idealism,a nd I would be blatantly lying if I said I understand a Woman's mind now..)
Since these magical years, the possibility of a school of thought which could perhaps pan Science and Spiritualism from a single, unbiased perspective continued to fascinate me. I remember how the wonderful discussions about the Vedas and Einstein's dimensions, astrophysics and the Bermuda Triangle used to romanticize my dusky evenings during those early years in medical college with goosebumps and emotional gratification.
I keep wondering about possibilities, the possibility of possibilities, the moral propriety of possibilities, that might nullify one day, the prevailing anthropocentric attitude of the human race to a degree of fanaticism, about its place and importance of its existential continuity in the known universe.
A disciplined, analytical study of the history of humankind set in chronological consistency, right from the primitive trees and prehistorical caves to the densely inhabited pockets punctuating today's metropolitan high-rises, reveals One Specific Issue whose urge to be debated seems to grow from strength to strength as man evolves from one era to the next. It has been passionately discussed and exhaustively too, of course in the light of contemporary, circumstantial relevance, by the the ancient Indian sages, the Greek philosophers, the Europian thinkers of the medieval Rennaisscane era, the neomathematicians and neophysicists, and scientist-researchers of quantum science alike. The issue seems to have invaded the mind of the common man too now that theoretical physics keep on peeling the mystery of creation and its relevance layer by layer, asking, "Can Science,Religion and God share a common platform?".
The 20th.century saw a profound change in Science as a subject, a change which was qualitatively unique. From the 'discovery' of the wheel to Benjamin Franklin flying a kite in a thunderstorm, man's quest for knowledge grew by leaps and bounds by an instinct which confronted everything he saw around him with the question "HOW?"
The question, universal and unconditional, was the same when followed in Time through humankind's history, from beyond the Greko-Roman era through medieval Rennaissance period to modern times. Following the passage of history through Space too, from the Indus Valley through the pyramidal monoliths of Egyptian sands to Mayan 'East Indies', the question remained unchanged. That was how science looked unto nature and man looked upon science. In the early 20th.century, an era which oversaw sweeping changes in the basic attributes of human ego, in religions, societies and political configurations, the ontological orientation of man changed too.The Aquarian age of Neo-Consciousness had arrived. Man's initial hesitation to take up the new mantle (after all habits, 50,000 years old, were to be shed for good) had its immediate repercussions too, pitting man against man in two world-wide wars of gigantic proportions. Though the brothers in arms ultimately called truce in episodic, fortunate moments when sense and conscience prevailed, the hesitation had been an expensive one. Seemingly to absolve itself from the sin of this moral indecision and inaction, humankind, in unanimous majority, decided to live in a new world order. The trends of Science changed too.( It would be pertinent to opine here that this change of 'Neo-Science' was as much the effect as it was as the cause of things in its relationship with those changing times -a point which sociologists should never forget.)
It now asked the question "WHY?" in the face of the common and the mundane, with a bluntly dogged determination never perceived before. It even questioned in the same vein, the perspective of the very science that it had replaced.
Mathematics and Physics have always shared an uncomfortable coexistence, a certain dialectical relationship. I don't know who once said,"Mathematics is the language of Physics", but now in 2013, when one can look back on human history to observe how man and his science has evolved, I would like to agree with him. Before philosophers got formally divided into 2 distinct groups-Mathematicians and Physicists, the great thinkers and men of wisdom walked upon our planet, helping human evolution whenever required. After this radical divide, physicists have long claimed that mathematics is a part of physics,and vice versa.
The debate has always been there, but the early 20th.century saw a symbiotic marriage between the two schools, and newly discovered data about us and our surroundings could now be expressed in clear and more comprehensible theories. The concept of the quantum world opened up a world where 'things' followed a radically different set of laws who seemed to nullify the tenets of classical science. Man opened up a new theological concept of himself and the forces of nature around him. This was when the exact status of God and His very relevance began to be questioned by science even though most scientists did not primarily intend to start the process. Man tended to reject mythological religion to embrace a religion of subatomic particles, curved space-time and a seemingly ever-expanding universe whose age was recalibrated, off the pages of religious books. It had a definite impact on the non-scientist common man's beliefs deeply rooted till now in remote antiquity and hazy traditional lineage.
But this temporal landmark in history did not result in creation of subsequent generations with atheist principles and agnostic perspectives. I have often wondered why. The fact that I am personally an atheist does not impact my commentary here as I do not wish to intrude upon the reader's personal beliefs and spiritual orientation - something which is an exclusive right every man posesses by the right of Living, as elemental as his right to Freedom.
Religion is not an aberration.I t is a norm of human society and it has always been so. But it is here I would like to stress upon an opinion (which I believe is a fact which even the deepest religious person cannot evade). We have witnessed genocides in the name of religion. Not to repeat oft-repeated emotions about 'the riots' India has witnessed and been a victim of time and again, and phases of militancy (that has become synonymous with terrorism) which again has,and is proving to be too expensive for India and her citizens. Religion has been historically used to justify waging heinous wars and performing unspeakable atrocities on fellow men. The sheer ferocity of religious fanaticism of holy wars rivals the worst crime man has ever committed.
Believing sincerely in a religion bestowes upon man a responsibility which most of us do not realize or choose to keep silent on. Every religious person has to see that religion does not become an instrument to divide and kill where religion was 'devised' by the prehistoric man to sustain, survive and let live. Though religion, over the millenia, has been carried ahead to signify something totally different from what it was in prehistory, and assume predominant spaces of one's life to influence thought and action, the religious person Has to account for every crime that has been committee in the name of his religion. While the right to believe in religion has never been questioned or even opposed, it is by no means irrelevant to step in and point out when religion as a right encroaches upon a far more fundamental and significant right, the right to Live.
From what I have seen and learnt from life,I have always experienced a discomforting problem as far as religion is concerned. While priests can continue to chant incantations in Sanskrit and Latin that the common man hardly understands, the word "God" perhaps means many things to many people, and usage of words loaded with hidden, abstract symbolism only serves to mystify the issue more, and against the background of today's world order where genocides in the name of holy war has become a part of life, the existence of abstract cloudy concepts in the human psyche is more detrimental in the long run than whatever good things it serves a purpose for. There seems to be two Gods, and perhaps the time has come to differentiate between the God of Miracles and the God of Order. While the God of Order can reside personally in individual families, it is the stepping out of the God of Miracles into the streets of society that messes with man's right to personal peace and happiness.
Scientists mean the God of Order when they use the word "God". The atheist scientist would happily want to happily compromise with the idea that there Is a cosmic order that exists in Nature and the Universe - if it is Divine, so be it.
The upholders of Religion act around a God of Miracles, a God destroys the wicked Kauravas and the Pharaoh's troops, and avenges the True, thePure and the Noble. Well 'destruction' and 'avenge' should not principally be associated with a God that preserves life. This is perhaps the dilemma why religion and science, along with their illustrious representatives, fail to coexist in harmony. Also Science is based on a foundation of rationality that explains the occurence of reproducible events. Miracles, on the other hand, are rarely 'reproducible' and occurs only once in a lifetime, if at all.(I do not intend to hurt the religious-minded by saying so. Miracles do happen BUT they are outside the domain of Science).
I still haven't found out an interface where Science and Religion coexist symbiotically. Science has got the right to know why the God of Miracles favours victors in bloody wars, where it strives to prevent occurence of bloody wars, while it should not have, in principle, any dogma about accepting the presence of a Divine Order in the scheme of things. The God of Miracles has got one powerful advantage over That of Order. It explains all the mythology behind the purpose of man's existence on earth. On this question, the God of Order has remained silent, at least till date.
I am still searching.
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