Saturday, May 23, 2009

Science & Religion

Science and Religion seldom go hand in hand. There is a long history of Religious heads seeing science as something taking one away from the Divine. As someone said, "Science and Religion seldom look each other eye in eye." And the major reason for this comes from the fact that science has significantly eased our materialistic life. On the other hand, religion believes these materialistic gains to be secondary in nature and therefore tries to undermine the significance of science from our daily lives.

But the significance of science cannot be undermined. For one thing, everything science has done is for the sole purpose of knowing the "Truth". If you dig a bit deeper into the philosophy that science follows, it would seem that religion and science are just two sides of the same coin. One is trying to find the truth, the other is trying to take us to the truth. Just the paths are different.

Many of the world's greatest scientists have been believers in the almighty, a higher force which have guided them their entire lifetime. The most famous example is Albert Einstein. He once famously said, "The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness." – Merging of Science & Spirit.

And how true it is can only be comprehended by someone who has experienced this feeling. This feeling of awe, of wonder, of a higher presence that resides somewhere in this world and inside us at the same time.