Science and Faith - Not a Conflict

Science and Faith - Not a Conflict




This idea that faith and science are in conflict does not fit the demographics. Belief in God among top professional scientists is about the same as the general public.




The list of Noble Prize Winners in science who believe in God is extensive.


Many great scientists believed God and/or the mystical. They include Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, Nikolai Tesla, and, today, many Nobel Prize Winners in science, and many more.


The book below concludes that about 50% of scientists are religious, and, additionally, many more, while not religious, believe in God.




from this book:


Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think
by Elaine Howard Ecklund


http://www.amazon.com/Science-vs-Rel.../dp/0199975000


Quoting from the article: "In the course of her research, Ecklund surveyed nearly 1,700 scientists and interviewed 275 of them. She finds that most of what we believe about the faith lives of elite scientists is wrong. Nearly 50 percent of them are religious. Many others are what she calls “spiritual entrepreneurs,” seeking creative ways to work with the tensions between science and faith outside the constraints of traditional religion…..only a small minority are actively hostile to religion."


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And here's A professional scientific study proving that prayer works:


http://www.1stholistic.com/Prayer/hol_prayer_proof.htm


"There is ample proof that prayer works. Many scientific studies have been conducted that validate this observation.


A 1993 Israeli survey following 10,000 civil servants for 26 years found that Orthodox Jews were less likely to die of cardiovascular problems than
"nonbelievers." And a 1995 study from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., monitoring 250 people after open-heart surgery concluded that those who had religious connections and social support were 12 times less likely to die than those who had none."


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The Vatican science council, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, has a long list of Noble Prize winning scientists who believe in God...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifi...my_of_Sciences


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Namaste,

Very nice post. Recently I heard someone exclaim, "While so many % of non-believers turn to believers by the time of old age (or death), not so many believers ever turn towards disbelief". There is only 1 direction when it comes to faith in god, and that is upwards.

The only problem with religion and metaphysics seems that, as an old adage says, "Those who have seen never speaketh; those who have speaketh have never seen" (Kandavar vindilar, vindavar kandilar), the problem is it is seen a social taboo to speak of one's spiritual experiences clouded with disbelief, and accusations of fraudulence surface, that not many want to share their experience.

Totems, omens, signs, they all exist. With some genuine sadhana, people do realize some paranormal things from time to time. It is nearly quite common, in reality.

Thanks for this post and it feels so endearing to see many good links you have shared today, reminds of good old times when this forum was as vibrant and I wish it comes alive as much in near future!

Warm regards,

Viraja

The entire OP has an Abrahamic bent to it, because it comes from within the Abrahamic world. A religion is something to believe in, something that may or may not be true. That is NOT Sanātana Dharma. The problem IS that science is empirical evidence (which is all it is in the West - merely physical and nothing of the metaphysical sort, and they even try to explain the latter with "deeper science" while being wilfully ignorant of what is beyond the physical world), while religion is mere beliefs. Dharma is knowledge, not mere beliefs. I'll put it like this:

Someone had once said:


"Science prefers everything to be verified and quantified. This does not mean that what science has not verified and quantified is untrue. The law of gravity has operated ever since creation. It has been in existence since Existence. Otherwise the sun and planets would not move as they have always moved.

"Yet, Newton discovered gravity only a few centuries ago. Society and religion didn’t accept this fact until then. The Earth has always been round. That is the truth. Yet this truth was bitterly contested with people being put to death over the argument. It’s only in the last millennium that some agreement was finally reached.

"Science is limited in perception. It is like exploring a dense and dark forest with a tiny lamp. The lamp illumines only a few feet ahead and science proposes a theory based on what it sees within that limited space. Next, science advances forward with the light and sees a few more feet ahead. What they see is quite different from what they saw earlier. So they propose a new theory and discard the former one. This is how [western] science operates.

"Imagine if the whole forest was visible in one flash of lightning! This is how enlightened masters see the whole truth! This is the difference between science and mysticism."

two good books on the relationship between Quantum Physics and mysticism:


The Dancing Wu-Li Masters

and

The Tao of Physics...