Summary: All religious philosophies have certain deficiencies in common
such as supernatural world view, relying upon faith and belief as opposed to
reason and stubborn in their refusal to evolve. Yet they have served useful
purpose to mankind and continue to do so. This is primarily because of their
holistic character. Therefore they can’t be summarily dismissed either.
Einstein in his address at Princeton
Theological Seminary, May 19, 1939 commented about religion that religion lays
down clear fundamental ends and valuations and sets them fast in emotional life
of an individual and thus in social life of man. The only justification for
these fundamental ends is that they exist in all healthy societies as powerful
traditions, and it is not necessary to find justification for their existence.
Further, Einstein in a symposium – Science,
Philosophy and Religion at New York 1941 stated:-
“Science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”
“What
is still lacking here is a connection of profound generality but not knowledge of order itself”
Undoubtedly various religions have been
established by persons of very high intellectual caliber who not only
successfully understood themselves, essence of cosmic order and their times
even if subjectively but also prescribed ways and means of human living and
human social organization. No doubt, that they achieved all this at a
subjective level but all that they said can’t be summarily rejected for its
subjectivity. May be because of deficient material knowledge during their times
that they were unable to rationally connect things and events but that is not
sufficient reason for summary dismissal.
They were weak in reason but that did not prevent them in achieving
their goals and objectives of “GOOD TO ALL”.
So even when they had in-depth intuitive
understanding of various issues which concerned them, they were deficient in
reason. They understood things and events more at a subjective plane or
intuitively rather than an objective and rational plane. Therefore, at times
being philosophically correct was sufficient for them even if not so
scientifically. If they found themselves philosophically correct, they looked
no further for reason; neither encouraged their followers to do the same. Despite all this, many of their teachings have
been able to find scientific support even if for wrong reasons and even till
today 59% of humanity is religious minded.
In order to circumvent their deficient
reasoning, they relied upon arguments like feelings (emotions), individual
experience as opposed to collective experience, faiths and beliefs etc. To
circumvent rationalist attacks and prevent consequent distortions in their
perceptions and practices they advocated dogmatic belief in their teachings and
elevated their understanding irrespective of merits to the level of Gospel
truth not to be questioned, not to be challenged. Only to be believed and
followed. But the result of dogma and gospel truth phenomena has been both,
refusal and failure, to evolve with time and improvement in material knowledge.
They are stubborn in their faiths and beliefs and refuse to evolve with
improvement in material knowledge.
But they pretended to be rational and so had to
evolve a world view to rationalize their teachings. They had to pretend that
they know and understand everything. But because of deficient material
knowledge they often conjectured a universe which is beyond sensory experience.
They devised whole lot of Gods, Goddesses, deities, mythology etc. in order to
rationalize their sermons. They created supernatural (unreal) universe and
often relied upon dummy principles and dummy universe which was a creation of
their own illusions and delusions.
Need for evidence and reason was effectively
substituted by everything being a matter of feelings, individual as opposed to
collective experience, faiths and beliefs etc. These are their stock arguments
against non-believers in their faith.
Their intentions may have been fair and their
thinking holistic but their understanding and practices were not. They froze
their teachings in time as Gospel Truth and labeled a dissenter as ignorant. In
the matter of their core philosophy, they stubbornly refused to evolve with
time and advances in scientific knowledge. It may be partially because they
were unable to reconcile their world view and their core philosophy with
advances in scientific knowledge or they were victims of their own image.
But what is common to all religions in our
times, is seeking scientific approval of their faiths and beliefs. Church for a
long time supported scientific movement hoping that this will lead to literal
evidence in support of Biblical faiths and beliefs. This continued until there
was a parting of ways as both being different and irreconcilable. Darwin was a
devout Christian and he began his journey to collect evidence in support of
Biblical view of creation and it continued till he found evidence to the
contrary. But all the evidence that Darwin put forth did not change the
Biblical view of creation.
Scientific advancement of the past few
centuries and its consequential cultural effects have led to followers of
various religious philosophies seeking scientific approval of their religious
philosophy or claiming that their religion is scientific because their religion
has found support in scientific principles and practices, even if partially and
even for wrong reasons. But being philosophically correct is different from
being scientifically correct. Being philosophically correct does not earn
scientific status for any religious philosophy. For this they have to establish
themselves in entirety in a manner which is in accordance with scientific
method.
So the best any religion can claim is partial
scientific approval of its philosophy and its practices from scientific stand
point and nothing more. But that does not give any particular religion a
scientific status.
Summarizing, all above all religious
philosophies are based upon deficient material knowledge, have supernatural
world view, refuse to evolve with time and have primarily a historical
existence. Various religious philosophies even though holistic in character are
not rationally sound in entirety. However their holistic character has
empowered them to address several issues that concern human beings that they
are able to sustain despite scientific advances of past few centuries, even if
as a matter of faith and belief.
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