For a pretty long time the dogmatic religious organisations held society tight within a steel frame of work of rites and rituals. No body could go against the tenets of religion except on peril of excommunication and even tormenting death. For centuries together science religion were at loggerheads with each other. They early pioneers of scientific research who had the guts to observe things as they are and to speak them out on the very face religion were burnt at the stake. To religion they were heretics, to science they were noble martyrs. Galileo was imprisoned by the Italians at the command of churchmen because he held that the Earth and other planets revolved round the sun.
Bruno and Copernicus had to pay dearly for exploding their scientific theory that the sun is stationary and the earth moves round the sun. The German scientist Robert Mayor was thrown into a lunatic asylum for his discovery of the 'insane theory' of the conservation of Energy. In more recent times, Darwin had to face a storm of anger and contempt from the church for his theory of evolution-tracing the origin of man to monkey and not God' but never gave in.
It was in this context that antagonism between science and religion needed a probe. At the end of middle Ages some burning souls realized that the so called body of religious knowledge was nothing but mental jugglery adapted for purposes of intellectual gymnastics. It was felt that the logic of medieval theologians was merely a conjuror's entertainment rather than any useful contribution to the bettering of human life. The early savants of science thought that if mankind was to be rescued from this awful fraud or hypocrisy of rites, rituals and superstitions, the book nature must be studied as it is. The controversy between religion and science continued right upto the end of the 19th century. The theologians considered that science was consigning the soul of man to perdition. But soon the view changed when the powers of steam and electricity were utilized in the service of man. By the first quarter of 20th century science went to the hearts of men.
Scientific method became a craze, for knowledge, with modern men. The process has advanced with the passage of time. The inventions of telegraph telephone, the steamship, the aeroplanes; the electric devices, the labour-reducing industrial equipment, the miracles of 'wonder drugs' in medical science, and what not-have convinced man of the utility of science and the futility of religious opposition to this organized branch of systematic knowledge-that is, science. As a matter of fact science has done no wrong to religion with passage of time, religion degenerated into fanaticism, fatalism and superstition Superstition- a perilous, persistent and pestilential lie, responsible for exploitation and barbarities in the history of human race, could be dispelled not by rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the law of nature. If science has done anything to religion, it is that it has exposed and destroyed superstition. Man's stepping on the surface of the moon has shattered threadbare thousands of superstitious myths.
But the devastation caused by the scientific warfare during the two World Wars has convinced us that science without conscience is the ruin of nations. And it is religion that keeps our conscience clean. So the point at crux is whether science or religion is going to be the saviour of mankind it seems to be foolish indeed to maintain the age old antagonism between science and religion. It is easy to see that science and religion are interwoven at the top Wars of aggression are caused not by economic or political or military reasons but by the narrowness, the callousness, greed and the moral turpitude of human heart. Religion is the only cure for the ills of the heart of all the impurity of hatred, greed, violence, jealousy and selfishness; the man of science will provide him with all the comforts and conveniences of life.
Religion and science are the twin forces that can make earth the paradise of paradises. There is no antithesis between the two, if science is not fundamentally associated with materialism creating spiritual vacuum, and if religion is not confused with superstition, bigotry and orthodoxy. We should study and love both science and religion. To usher in the kingdom of God on earth, science and religion must meet. The West, the stronghold of the former must embrace the East, the nursery of the latter. In the words of O.W. Holmes, "Science will adorn and enrich religion, and religion will enable and sanctify science."
[ Part 1 ]
Bruno and Copernicus had to pay dearly for exploding their scientific theory that the sun is stationary and the earth moves round the sun. The German scientist Robert Mayor was thrown into a lunatic asylum for his discovery of the 'insane theory' of the conservation of Energy. In more recent times, Darwin had to face a storm of anger and contempt from the church for his theory of evolution-tracing the origin of man to monkey and not God' but never gave in.
It was in this context that antagonism between science and religion needed a probe. At the end of middle Ages some burning souls realized that the so called body of religious knowledge was nothing but mental jugglery adapted for purposes of intellectual gymnastics. It was felt that the logic of medieval theologians was merely a conjuror's entertainment rather than any useful contribution to the bettering of human life. The early savants of science thought that if mankind was to be rescued from this awful fraud or hypocrisy of rites, rituals and superstitions, the book nature must be studied as it is. The controversy between religion and science continued right upto the end of the 19th century. The theologians considered that science was consigning the soul of man to perdition. But soon the view changed when the powers of steam and electricity were utilized in the service of man. By the first quarter of 20th century science went to the hearts of men.
Scientific method became a craze, for knowledge, with modern men. The process has advanced with the passage of time. The inventions of telegraph telephone, the steamship, the aeroplanes; the electric devices, the labour-reducing industrial equipment, the miracles of 'wonder drugs' in medical science, and what not-have convinced man of the utility of science and the futility of religious opposition to this organized branch of systematic knowledge-that is, science. As a matter of fact science has done no wrong to religion with passage of time, religion degenerated into fanaticism, fatalism and superstition Superstition- a perilous, persistent and pestilential lie, responsible for exploitation and barbarities in the history of human race, could be dispelled not by rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the law of nature. If science has done anything to religion, it is that it has exposed and destroyed superstition. Man's stepping on the surface of the moon has shattered threadbare thousands of superstitious myths.
But the devastation caused by the scientific warfare during the two World Wars has convinced us that science without conscience is the ruin of nations. And it is religion that keeps our conscience clean. So the point at crux is whether science or religion is going to be the saviour of mankind it seems to be foolish indeed to maintain the age old antagonism between science and religion. It is easy to see that science and religion are interwoven at the top Wars of aggression are caused not by economic or political or military reasons but by the narrowness, the callousness, greed and the moral turpitude of human heart. Religion is the only cure for the ills of the heart of all the impurity of hatred, greed, violence, jealousy and selfishness; the man of science will provide him with all the comforts and conveniences of life.
Religion and science are the twin forces that can make earth the paradise of paradises. There is no antithesis between the two, if science is not fundamentally associated with materialism creating spiritual vacuum, and if religion is not confused with superstition, bigotry and orthodoxy. We should study and love both science and religion. To usher in the kingdom of God on earth, science and religion must meet. The West, the stronghold of the former must embrace the East, the nursery of the latter. In the words of O.W. Holmes, "Science will adorn and enrich religion, and religion will enable and sanctify science."
[ Part 1 ]
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