21 Science and Religion

Science teaches us to take a purely objective view of life; it is free from personal bias or passions. The problem of science have a universal value; therefore, the scientist who has to tackle them soon crosses the barriers of race, creed or colour and takes an objective, dispassionate attitude. For instance, in Pakistan which is still in the main an agricultural country, the problem of manures and protection of grains and cereal against insects and other destructive agencies are of the highest importance in Agricultural Chemistry; they may well attract the best chemists of Pakistan and of America, for similar difficulties confront the American and the Pakistani peasant. In Pakistan, as every one knows, agricultural products are as varied and numerous as are the minerals. When the Pakistani scientist works in his laboratory, deeply absorbed in the latest methods of improving the growth of Pakistan cereals or minerals, he feels that he is no longer an Pakistani but a cosmopolitan, one of the worlds band of researchers who have set out in quest of the unknown. If faith is the stronghold of religion, knowledge is the scientists passion. To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. These lines occur in Tennysons Ulysses. They might well serve as the motto of life of every scientist, whether he is Lord Raleigh of England, Compton of America, and Einstein of Germany. As the scientist follows ceaselessly the sinking star of knowledge, every day new inventions and discoveries are added to the worlds stock of knowledge. A scientist is therefore, a futurist; he believes in a future when the whole life of man will be thoroughly mechanised and regulated according to known laws of action and reaction. Organic Chemistry has given us many synthetic substitutes for natural products such as indigo, alizarin and rubber and hopes to give us many more; it is now a handmaid to pharmacy and helps the pharmacist or manufacturer of drugs to prepare many synthetic substitutes for glands in man. The present age is an age of communication; and the physicist uses electrical energy in cinematography and television. Wireless and television, the motorcar and the aeroplane and the thermonuclear bomb, computer etc. as we all know, are some of the wanders of modern science. Again, remarkable advances have been recently made in both medicine and surgery. Diseases like pneumonia and diphtheria are, in most cases combated with success. Even such a fell diseases as cancer is treated by specially trained surgeons of Cancer Institute with great confidence, while there have sprung up numerous sanatoria in our country on the model of famous Leysin Institute in Switzerland where successful cures are made. All such discoveries and inventions fill the heart of man with joy and his mind with faith in the possibilities of science. Man repeats the words of Hamlet with pride: What a piece of work is man! It is often said that science is opposed to religion. At. first sight and to a great extent the opposition between the two appears to be real. Science is founded on reason; it is born of the sense and is bounded by facts. Religion, on the other hand, is founded on faith in dogmas; it believes in things that lie above and beyond the senses. Science is a thing of the mind: religion is a thin of the spirit. Many poets and philosophers have underlined the fundamental difference between science and religion. Lucretius, the great Latin poet in his poem On the Nature of Things of religion. Voltaire, the great French thinker of the 18th century, called religion an infamous thing that must be crushed out of existence. Again, we may call to witness poets and philosophers who praise religion and condemn science. Young, an eighteenth century poet of England wrote Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next. - Night Thoughts

Another English poet, Lewis Morris sings: Call no faith false which eer has brought Relief to any laden life. (Songs of the Two Worlds) , Emerson and Carlyle, Ruskin, Newman and Tagore have all condemned in different accents the spirit of science. Matthew Arnold in his Culture and Anarchy attacks science, because it develops in man an essentially materialistic outlook on life, and makes him forget all the sweet and true things of life of the spirit. It is easy for one first to draw up a list of scientists who attack religion and then to count up a number of idealistic thinkers who defend religion and condemn science. This of course leads us nowhere and the conflict between Science and religion would appear to be a yawning chasm, which no moral can ever bridge. Cardinal Newman in his Idea of a University makes a spirited defence of religion and religious knowledge. It is a mistake to suppose, so he argues, that religious knowledge narrows the mind or makes one superstitious. True religious knowledge, continues the same writer, enlarges and illuminates the mind; and Newton and Goethe, though they were not theologians, were, in the Cardinals view, deeply religious-minded.

The fact seems to be this that science and religion have different meanings for different minds and, therefore, have different effects on different temperaments. To some weak minds, science is nothing but a means of material gain and comfort; such men believe in coal and electricity and expansion of trade and mistake them for eternal joy, peace and happiness - in Europe, their name is legion. To some equally weak minds. Religion is nothing but correct observance of rites and ceremonies: they believe in increasing the number of places of worship and would be happy to see the whole world converted to one or other particular form of religion - their number, in Pakistan, is legion. Both the scientific materials and the religious fanatics have been sharply rebuked byBernard Shaw. As Shaw says, if science solves one problem today, it raises ten others for tomorrow; therefore, every scientist should in humility believe in the mysterious Life-force that governs everything on earth. Again, as Shaw adds, if science tells different lies in different ages, religion sticks to one lie and repeats it in all ages. By this statement, he, of course, means that while in science one theory is constantly replaced by another, every religion is uniformly loyal to its dogmas; therefore, no single religion should claim to be the only religion of the world. Edgar Snow, author of The Red Star over China once wrote that if opinion is the religion of China, religion the opinion of Russia. This is of course a humorous way of expressing that while every Chinese is addicted to opium, every Russian fights shy of religion. In days of the Russian Revolution on the placards in the streets it were written in bold type, Religion is the opium of Russia. After the Second World War, science is felt all over the world as a necessity. But religion is differently felt in the different parts of the world. In Russia, it is taboo; in Europe, it is an indispensable luxury.