How Real Is The Science-Religion Dichotomy?
By
Prof. M. A. Sofi, New Age Islam
27 December
2021
The Role
of Morality and Ethics - As the Raison D’etre of True Religious Precept - Shall
Not Remain Peripheral
Main
Points:
1. Religion and
religious fervour shorn of their real essence and spirituality are no more than
tools of exploitation and oppression.
2. It’s
pointless and even dangerous to see science and religion as irreconcilable
dichotomous entities.
3. It’s both
wise and rewarding to let the two proceed along their respective trajectories.
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Science and religion (Photo courtesy: Science and Technology)
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Over a long
period of my professional life involving interactions with a variety of people,
both from within the scientific community and without, I have reckoned that the
highest levels of critical thought and analytical skill- which are so intrinsic
to scientific enterprise - invariably happen to be accompanied by an attitude
that is largely seen to be dismissive of a design in the cosmos being shaped by
a designer behind the creation of the universe and all that resides in it. It
is not accidental that a huge section of them are least likely to be drawn
towards things which have to do stuff like religiosity or the
other-worldliness, an attitude that sometimes even borders on atheism and often
times on agnosticism.
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Has Produced Many First-Rate Scientists Who Were Also Devout In Their Religious
Observances
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On the
contrary, it has also been observed that those involved in scientific research
while being endowed with the necessary faculties to undertake such work but
having a certain amount of ecumenical/religious fervour find themselves a
trifle short on critical thought and rational approach which inevitably leads
to a situation where they are hemmed in in an effort to achieve excellence in
their professional career. So here we see a dichotomy, an ‘uncertainty
principle’ of sorts at work.
It’s not my
case to advocate the necessity for the scientific temper to coexist with a
modicum of religiosity for a balanced approach to life. All I am trying to
emphasise is that such choices are so unwittingly forced upon us that it is
only in the middle stages of our life that we wake up to a worldview where we find
ourselves espousing- and even post-facto justifying- something that has been
shaped by such fortuitous choices. It’s also true that such choices are
determined to a great extent by a host of factors that include, among other
things, the environment and the culture in which one has grown up and which
determine the priorities and preferences of an individual for the rest of
his/her life.
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Also Read: A Quranic Vision of Scientific Knowledge
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But there
is a flip side to this story too. Here, it may help to recall a lively and
spirited meeting I had had some years ago with a well-known hoary Israeli
mathematician on matters including certain non-mathematical issues involving
his views on recent political developments in the Middle East. But what indeed
was so refreshing was his observation on my question regarding the phenomenon
involving the supremacy and predominance of the Jewish scientists and
mathematicians in their respective disciplines over the past several hundred
years. His response was both revealing and thought provoking "We Jews have
been having a long tradition of engaging with our religious scriptures at a
level that demands the application of mind on the subtext of its revelations
rather than look at the text merely as a set of inane rules and rituals to be
followed blindly".
In other
words, “it is the intellectual engagement with the Old Testament that has set
them apart from other religious communities in the world and that is why the
protestant Christians are a lot more different from their Catholic
counterparts". Further that "if the Muslims were to engage with the
Quran at the same intellectual level as we do – the Jews, that’s - the
consequences would be as rewarding". According to him, the current sorry
state of Muslims, especially in education and sciences, has chiefly to be
explained in terms of how their holy scripture Quran has been misused and
(mis)interpreted by their scholars and reduced to an inane exercise bereft of
any intellectual content that is actually lurking behind the seemingly esoteric
content underlying the Quran. Said he "The need is for a scholarly
engagement with the Book as opposed to how it is approached at the
moment".
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Also Read: Science Should Be Separated From Religion: No
Point in Proving Changing Scientific Theories from Quran
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As I see
it, I couldn’t agree more with that line of thinking, considering that deep
religiosity shorn of conscious engagement with the spirit of religion could be
as drab, insipid and uninspiring a chore as irreligiosity divorced from reason
and rationale. The crux of the matter is that nothing short of a conscious and
deep intellectual engagement with either side of the dichotomy as enunciated
above and informed by a scholarly understanding of the issues involved would
deliver humanity from the state of darkness and ignorance that it’s presently
seeped in.
On this
count, the situation as it prevails especially in the subcontinent provides a
microcosm of the gigantic mess that the Muslim world at large finds itself
beset with. If anything, the abject surrender to a medieval, primitive and
regressive mindset involving the role of religion in the life of an individual
and of the society has to be pinned down to absolute contempt for reason having
any role to play in matters ecumenical. Which is why hordes of religious groups
in India and owing loyalty to forces of disruption and divisiveness have been
on a rampage against those espousing a different faith or following other forms
of worship. A similar pattern of ignorance is in witness in the neighbouring
country which is held to ransom exactly on similar grounds even as those
perpetrating such acts in the name of religion never tire of claiming of being
the inheritors of a religious faith which is supposed to reign supreme over
other faiths on the strength of it belonging to a superior genre of faith,
never mind how that particular faith is required to shape individual thoughts,
action and behaviour.
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Also Read:
Science and Religion
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The underlying
reason for what clearly are acts of insanity and hooliganism derive from a
supremacist mindset fed to them by their ill-informed cabal of
leaders/preachers that they have the license to get away with such acts of
aggression and transgression simply because they are doing so in the name of
gods who they owe their fealty to and who they seek to propitiate, albeit in
such utterly insane and inhuman ways. Religion and religious fervour shorn of
their real essence and spirituality are no more than tools of exploitation and
oppression rather than an agency for lifting the human existence from the level
of farce and accord it the grace of spirituality and transcendence as the
apotheosis of true religious injunction.
In the case
of Quran as a divine scripture which is seen by Muslims as a guide to provide a
road map for a morally robust and spiritually fulfilling individual character,
in practice the Muslim community looks at it as a drab aggregate in chapter and
verse which is merely to be recited and memorised without the need to see it as
a dynamic, interconnected text. It’s a tragedy of startling proportions that
the Muslim masses led by their religious leaders tend to look at Quran as a
static text which is frozen in time, rather than as a beacon of light that
encourages change, evolution, progress and that exhorts its followers
constantly to adjust to change. An important aspect of Quran that is lost on a
great majority of our Islamic scholars involves an unwillingness on their part
to connect one segment of the text to the next, or to many other segments
throughout the sacred text. The underlying message becomes clearer when these
connections are probed, discovered and put in context, thus leading to a new
dynamic of the meaning which evolves, develops and changes as more and more
connections are sought and discovered. Incidentally, that is redolent of the
mathematical enterprise where the underlying unity of the huge edifice of
mathematics helps to get a view of the ‘big picture’ involving a certain mathematical
idea or a phenomenon, thus lending itself to make better sense of what’s
actually going on over there.
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Also Read: Agnostic Einstein Closer To Quranic God
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The fact
that at a point of time when the Islamic world had held sway over large swathes
of land in the Arabian Peninsula extending to Europe and elsewhere, that had
happened in the midst of a culture where Muslim scholars and scientists had
shaped the coming about of the golden era of Muslims in science, mathematics
and philosophy. And this was essentially because the message and the teachings
of Islam were being followed in their quintessential spirit rather than merely
as a set of inane, jejune rules to be followed merely as a passport for
entering the Jannat. It’s in the absence of that spirit that the institution of
religion as it exists today shall continue to wreak havoc by its otherwise
‘intrinsic’ nature to cause conflict and friction and inflict untold misery
upon the people, as is being witnessed now across countries and continents.
Sadly, that is as true of Islam today as it is of many other religious faiths
and scriptures. Here I quote Dipankar Gupta who notes in his column that has
appeared in the Times of India today (Dec.25th, 2021) “What
is sacrilege for one may appear a frivolous misdemeanour for the other; or what
is outrage for one is a hissy outfit for the other”.
The point
is that whereas there surely are structural and fundamental aspects of science
and religion being peculiar to their respective paradigms and set one
completely apart from the other, it’s pointless and even dangerous to see the
two as irreconcilable dichotomous entities within the huge gamut of a whole lot
of important human endeavours. Rather than seek to reconcile the two which
would be akin to a pie in the sky, it’s both wise and rewarding to let the two
proceed along their respective trajectories while making an effort to bring
reason- a bequest of the scientific temper – to bear upon issues arising in the
reading of and following the sacred text. In the obverse direction, it won’t
add up to much to pursue science merely as a drab academic exercise but as an
important human endeavour where the role of morality and ethics - as the raison
d’etre of true religious precept - shall not remain peripheral.
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Also Read: God-Realization and Modern Science
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I conclude
with the following pithy quote of the famous French philosopher Simeone Weil:
"To
die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive
convict who is a victim of injustice, that IS a proof of faith in God".
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Prof. M.
A. Sofi is currently NBHM Visiting Professor at JK Institute of Mathematical
Sciences, Srinagar He previously taught at AMU, Aligarh, Central University of
Kashmir, Srinagar and University of Kashmir, Srinagar Did Master’s from AMU,
Aligarh (1978) and Ph. D Mathematics at IIT Kanpur(1982) Presently living in Srinagar,
Jammu and Kashmir.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-science/science-religion-dichotomy/d/126034
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