When I had gone back to my village, I had an argument with my family over existence of god. A line of reasoning that they (more precisely, my mother) took was
- there are gazillions of people who have faith in god,
- Faith is equal to science
- there is a scientific reason for believing in god
Though I seldom tried to breach their faith, this time I took a hard stance and tried to show them the error in their logic. A central concept in the philosophy of science is empiricism, or dependence on evidence. Any scientific experiment can be replicated by anyone who cares to undertake it, and any theory is based upon sound experimentation and/or observation. The same cannot be said about religion and god. Are their experiments to prove the existence of god ? I agree that there are no experiments to disprove his existence too, but that does not automatically proves god's existence. Another line of argument they take is "Appeal to Authority" i.e. how Newton, C.V.Raman and some other scientists believed in god. With all due respect to these great names, I do not think they have been able give experiments to prove the existence of god, and hence taking their words at the face value is not a scientific process. At this point they stopped arguing with me any further
Comments
My main problem with the theists is their incessant hammering that we should take things based on faith and how their faith is based on sound scientific reasoning (most give the same logic that I have written above). These are also the people who believe in telekinesis and mind reading. Maybe someday I will make them sit and read the "Cargo Cult Science", by Richard Feynman (http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html)
A discussion is an attempt by two persons to argue their points of view using mutually agreeable reason(aka logic).
Faith, by its very definition, is the exact opposite of logic (even though the proponents of faith try their best to show otherwise).
Therefore there is absolutely useless to discuss logic with followers of faith. Sooner or later, any proponent of faith will end the discussion saying - it is correct because "I/or the book/or god/or some saint" says so, and therefore you should accept it as a matter of faith. And you are back to the beginning of the argument.
And no, science is not just not just based on empirical evidence. A large body of science (and perhaps mathematics) is based on theory. Theoretical science has been practiced for ages.
Empirical science is : fact->observation->theory
Theoretical science is: Theory-> observation -> "fact". Observation in a lot of cases is made so as to just somehow support the theory. How else could earth have been flat all along for a large period in european history?
And about the existence of God, a new related pseudo-scientific term being used worldwide for this is called "intelligent design".
I will leave you with the simplest of question that neither faith nor science have been able to answer. Simply because the question is beyond the comprehension of most of humanity.
"What was there at the very beginning of time?"
For science followers, the question is "if universe was created by say the big bang, what was there before it, and before that and before that ... and so on?".
Normal logic says "something cant be created out of nothing". So how could the universe suddenly just .. be? Does time extend infinitely into the past? Did time have a beginning - cant be, otherwise what was there before that?
For the faith followers, the question is "who created your god or what was there before that".
God said let there be light. And there was light. What was there before he said that? How could God just be? But ofcourse, if you belive in faith, you cant answer these questions. You just take it on faith that God just was.
If brahma created the world, who created brahma? And who created that person?
I am not that much a well-read-person on these matters. But I still have the feeling that much discussions have happened in these matters. But with current state of human logic, there is no way a definite answer could be found - by science or by faith.
Religious: The Bible is the word of God!
Atheist: Who said it?
Religious: It's written in the Bible!
But, nowadays I avoid bothering people with this subject. I realized that the inexistence of God is something many people are not prepared to live with, and I feel I've no right to inflict this difficult reality on them. And even if I tried, it'd be to no avail.
Thnk about this.
1. What about going to temple? The Fact I would say related to this.
There is no God.I admit.But read this.
The earth has it's own magnetic field. So where the earth consists of concentrantion of ORE/MINERals the magnetic field converges.That's the spot where we build TEMPLES(place not good for permanent staying).Now when you go to a temple , the lamp invokes your eyes, the bell invokes your ears, the nose by the smell of agrabathi, the tongue by the prasad, and the skin by sandal. So when all the five senses are incoked or provoked your sixth sense gets a bit of initiation and you find youself at peace.
2. Why do you take 'shayana namaskara at the temple?
It is beacuase the earth magnetic sin effect is absorbed or aligned with the parallel body which has the blood flowing in it and the Haemoglobin made of iron oriented.
3. Why we say do not sleep keeping your head towards north?
It is becasue the blood having iron in haemoglobin gets magentically oriented and if head is lying towards north it leads to concentration of a partial layer og blodd composition in brain nerves which cannot handle this much pressure and slowly it leads to other diseases.
Though these things have been said by the rishis but if the people have to follow this (which is good for them only) a religious flavour is given.
So, I am not a atheist's as even though i am not a orthodox believer and as Krishnan itself says the believer and non-believer is equally dear to him , i do not want to miss the good things that our tradition has.
{ Coutesy: to the researches done by some of the American Universities in some of the concepts )
Nuclear Reactor : have you thought of its capacity to generate enough power.have you thought of how it is controlled and power generation controlled.Have you ever thought of the structure that gives it immense strength to hold the power within.
Think about it atleast at this point and then do you come across anything that is similiar.If not and if yes you can read ahead.
Simple : Think of shiva linga. THink of the nuclear reactors dome structure and shiva linga dome.Thing od the pot above the shiva linga that keeps milk or water falling over linga as if it symbolises the coolant in a nuclear reactor.
Doesn't this point to something.OUrtradition has lot of science within it.But, I believe it was the history of slavery(of 1000 years +214 years ) that took us off the track.I am not a manuvadi but I do believe that the rishis were the xtreme atheists if you try to find out.The lord Krishna the first in the queue who said the believer and non-believer is dear and near to me.Giving atheists the recognistion it required but it should be on points and corrections not propagate blunders.
This I have wrote , not to hurt anyone nor I am tryingto make myself having a point.But, it would be great if the reader finds me reasonable.