RELIGION AND SCIENCE

The position of religion is not that of an unscientific creed. The adherents of religion must go through the same mental processes to arrive at a set of valid beliefs as the scientist must apply to his own and others’ findings. With the acknowledgement of this reality, why should it be of any special relevance whether the scientist who believes in religion has a dual personality or not? If such a person is to be described as having a dual personality, then the totally non-religious scientist would also have to be similarly described, for science accepts certain things by direct argument, ‘while accepting certain other things by indirect argument.’ Seen in this light, the position of religion is not that of an unscientific creed. The adherents of religion must go through the same mental processes to arrive at a set of valid beliefs as the scientist must apply to his own and others’ findings. There is no fundamental difference between the two approaches. I am a religious person, yet I always attach proper importance to the scientific way of thinking. Before coming to any conclusions about religion, I first collected all available data on religion and subjected it to thorough analysis. Exactly the same method is adapted in the field of science as we understand it today. By pursuing the same course, I reached a point where I found that there exists no direct link between the point under investigation and the known data. Here I employed the principle of inference. That is, on the basis of observable facts, I postulated a reality which was not observable, then judged it by the norms of logic before reaching any definite conclusions about it. I can therefore say of myself, with conviction, that on the one hand, I am a completely religious person, while on the other; my way of thinking is entirely scientific. I do not think I could be described as having a dual personality. I would say rather that my personality is well-integrated. In the light of this personal experience, I am perhaps not in error when I say that the scientists who are religious are scientists as well as men of religion in the full sense of the word. Sir James Jeans, Dr Abdus Salam and many others of that august fraternity must have trodden the same path towards belief. That is, they must have arrived at religious truth only after making a scientific survey of all available data. o