Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Our world is a huge laboratory every time people test various ideas and dreams. The people are the tools in the laboratory where they assist the experimentation process of these ideals. In this world, many ideals have come and passed by having their own impact on human society. Whatever potency and vibration they were endowed they had created tremendous influence in attracting the hearts and minds of men and their survival helped and benefited in a way their originators wanted them to be. It is also important to note that they had both positive and negative effects.
With such theatrical events going on one can ask why all these dramas go on in our planet. We lived from one stage to the other, from one environment to the other, where our life starts at one point that we know and ends at a point we also know but the two points are single events which are connected by many challenges and victories we have visited in the course of our lives. At this point in time we all live in a world which is privileged and ornamented with tremendous achievements and progresses which are the reflections of the type and magnitude of the challenges it has been dealing with. In this world, to live is to die and to die is to live.
In the world we are living in there are two types of realities. The first one is a visible one where it can be felt or sense through the outer sense organs we are provided. The second one is a reality which is invisible but needs the exercise of internal faculties to understand the deep and hidden secrets endowed with. Man has discovered these realities through the instruments [organs] he possesses. What makes it very interesting is the varied experience and taste that human beings have in life, which has been flavoring our stay on earth with beauty and diversity—with same sense organs, we have different tastes and interests.
To govern these [hidden and manifested] realities there are two powerful instruments that man makes use of. The first one is science and the other is religion. In the year 400, when the inception of science came into existence that time was so difficult especially for those people who claim themselves as adherents of religion. People were and are still suspicious about where science is going to take us. Tremendous change has come about, like an explosion, since the mid 19th century. The discoveries and inventions we are witnessing are beyond imaginations. Man is indeed a supreme talisman where he proves himself that he is indeed an excellent creature.
We live in an age where great discoveries and inventions are possible. Man has reached to a stage that pens are inadequate to befittingly describe the color and depth of these glorious advancements. What a great century we are living in. What a tremendous light shining upon our world. Fabulous! Nevertheless we are swallowed by our daily silly in and out events which become a veil to appreciate and wonder such great achievements that human beings have reached. Man has never lived in such time where the products of his intellects are more than miracles we find in the Holy Writings, if we like.
These two forces have helped humanity in different ways, although the contradictions they have been through are still underway. The relationship of man’s emotions of the mind [faith or belief] and his intellect and when this relationship is enlarged to a community and institution level which can be collectively called as science and religion is such a challenge and a controversy today. Can science agree with religion, how?
When we try to overview and contemplate on how these variations came about one can reach to a conclusion that it is the people’s mentality that was contradicting. The contradiction was created in peoples thinking and there should be also a means to reconcile this thinking by another thinking as well.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá says: God has endowed man with intelligence and reason whereby he is required to determine the verity of questions and propositions. If religious beliefs and opinions are found contrary to the standards of science they are mere superstitions and imaginations; for the antithesis of knowledge is ignorance and the child of ignorance is superstition. Unquestionably there must be agreement between true religion and science. If a question be found contrary to reason, faith and belief in it are impossible and there is no outcome but wavering and vacillation.
We live in an age that scientists are followers of different religions and vice versa, which points out that these two ideals can be integrated in one’s life. The compartmentalization of religion and science should come to an end, and the harmony both scopes cherish is found in all forms of religion—but what we lack was proper perspective and interpretation. At this very time, it will be formidable to think that science is something evil but rather it is helping religions in spreading their messages. They use at microphones in their pulpits to preach about their ideals. Microphone is the result of scientific discoveries not the result of the holy water. If we can see from a different perspective we could see that science is assisting religion to be more prosperous. When we see the Internet, which helped humanity by creating networks with all the people who are using it, it is such a holistic one. When we see it in a different perspective, where people use for immoral behaviors, it is a disaster. In such a case religion should support science in a way that it should strongly teach the people to exercise human virtues. Science cannot dictate man’s freewill.
The conception of the disagreement of science and religion was originally created by the advocators of both scopes, not by the very nature of the fields. Human interpretations were the primal factors that created variations that can be reconciled again with another interpretation. To define religion by the acts of its advocators is sophistry and vice versa.
We live in an age where science is highly sophisticated and at the same time religious fanaticism is too complicated. As far as both are created for man they should help us in making our life very simple. Our life on earth is so brief in which we all seek agreement, harmony in interaction and realities and the people who are engaged in discovering realities should help us in creating proper thinking and guidelines.
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