“Judge
a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
-Voltaire
V.Raghunathan in his essay ‘A Scientific Religion’ tackles
the often-befuddling intertwining relationship between the two pillars of
humankind – the age-old belief in Religion and god and it’s more pragmatic
counterpart, Science. However, what sets ‘A Scientific Religion’ apart from
other pieces on this complicated matter is that Raghunathan, apart from posing
his problem, also supplies the reader with a hypothesis- a potential solution
for unison between Science and Faith- A ‘Scientific Religion.’
In this piece of prose, Raghunathan discusses the
possibility of ‘marrying’ Religion with Science, and like much deliberation in
regard to any ‘marriage’, he wonders if it this union would be a ‘good match.’ In
essence, religion, which is centered on blind faith, is contradictory to
scientific temper, which is based on reason and pragmatism. This makes any such
‘marriage’ incongruous on paper. Yet, a union is not to be ruled out between
Science and Religion because the primary objective of both these conflicting
schools of thought is to help bring out the best in mankind and make our lives
easier and more comfortable, albeit with a completely difficult modus operandi.
Raghunathan these goes on to write about why people
(particularly in the Indian subcontinent) turn to a fanatic form of Religion
and put all their eggs in this particular basket. He believes that this comes
down to two reasons – a flawed education system coupled with ‘enormous
socio-economic stress.’ What worries the author more than an obvious lack of
even elementary education in most parts of our country is a lack of scientific
temper among the more educated strata of society. The answer lies in developing
a system of liberal arts to be incorporated into the school curriculum so as to
promote critical thinking, thus placing emphasis on a scientific temper. One must
also make sure that education happens in the right areas. It makes no sense for one to be educated and still treat his
wife and elders with disrespect. Education apart from teaching concepts of
Physics and Chemistry, must also teach ethics, morals and righteousness,
ensuring that every educated mind is of some use to our society.
The author’s problem does not merely lie in the structure of
our education system or the students (or a lack of them!). He is also critical
of the way that teachers today are teaching their subjects. They promote rote
learning and are killing pragmatism and questioning to this effect. He says
“Our teachers need to teach how to question; they need to make our children
curious, and teach them how to go about finding answers to those questions and
satiate that curiosity.” A formalized education that fosters critical thinking
and questioning the essence of things is the way to go forward.
Intellectually, the youth of our nation will stagnate if our
prevalent system of rote continues. One does not become smart if s/he manages
to memorize definitions of inflation and reproduce it in an exam paper.
However, if one does understand inflation in it’s essence and it’s causes and
methods of prevention – we then know our education system is revolving around
the correct axis.
- RAYHAAN IMAM
1st CEP
1313112
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