A Hindu Perspective: Science vs. Spirituality

[Aoi Magi]

Hi,

I don't need to have knowledge about it if I can reference someone that i view has having the proper qualifications to explain something. For example people talk about science, without having first hand knowledge about how it actually works or being a scientist because they reference someone they believe who has the proper qualifications. The same way I am referencing the saints and their works who talk about this reality. 

Also to define specifically what the qualifications are would be a whole other essay. As i said before the reason for this essay is to establish certain points at a very highlevel. I would be happy to post another essay in a few days about the essence of these qualifications. 
 
Thanks

No, people who talk about science can do so with confidence because they have complete freedom to actually test the validity of the claims made by scientists by repeating the experiments with predictable results and observing the results for themselves. Yes some of the more complex experiments are not so easy for an average person to perform, however the means to perform said experiments is still there.

Now regarding saints, yes you can state that following the life of a saint would lead one to spirituality, however the problem is that it doesn't provide predictable results, also there is no control mechanisms in place, and the end result is quite open to interpretations and misinterpretations.

Please don't bother! Writing essays is meaningless in this context, especially when what you are stating can be easily summarized within a few sentences, if not words, retaining the same depth as your entire essay.

If you feel that way then I won't. Sorry for taking up your time.

I am not asking you to shut up, I am saying try to be concise and to the point so that your intended audience won't have to fumble around trying to figure out what exactly it is you are trying to present.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

*yawn*

Cool story bro.

[Athene]

Fucking reality. It's always getting in the way of getting in the way of whatever nonsensical, imaginary garbage and totally fabricated bullshit any random person decides to pull out of their ass, isn't it? Not fair.

[Krishna Jaganath]

Fucking reality. It's always getting in the way of getting in the way of whatever nonsensical, imaginary garbage and totally fabricated bullshit any random person decides to pull out of their ass, isn't it? Not fair.

Interesting response. Clearly you have misunderstood the statements I tried to make. I thought that the forum would be a good place to have a healthy conversation on behalf of either "side", yet all i see are how words are taken out of context and put into a generalization that in no way shows an accurate presentation of what was actually written. 

I was very much against dogmatic people that made blanketed statements for religion with out taking the time to properly think out their arguments but yet i see the same here ... quite disappointing. 

I was planning to write a few more essays about religion and hoping to have a nice arguments on either side, but I see now that it is not clearly possible to do that. 

Thank you for the few that where able to provide nice arguments to counteract my position, I quite enjoyed reading them and i will make edits to the essay to answer some of the very valid points which where brought up.

[robvalue]

OK, cool

Good on you for listening to our points.

[Krishna Jaganath]

To clarify a few points after reading the replies:

1. In no way am I assuming that I fully understand the reality of science or the reality of spirituality. The reality of science I am basing it on what scientists have said about the material world, the reality of spirituality I am basing it on what saints have said about the spiritual world. 

2. In no way am I calling scientists stupid, in the reality of the material world it is absolutely necessary to have science, and it is a critical part of life, and i have nothing but respect for what they do. The distinction I am making is that scientists can not claim to understand the spiritual reality when they have not made the necessary qualifications to earn the right to understand it (please refer to my essay to understand what it means to get the qualifications). 

It would be a bit like an athlete trying to understand a nuclear physicist, they live in two completely different realities. An athlete can never understand a nuclear physicist till he qualifies him self to understand. I don't mean taking a few classes at your local  college I mean dedicating ones entire life to gain an understanding. This analogy no way puts "down" either reality. 

4. There is the question of show me the evidence. If you read my essay you would see that this not the right question to ask as we have established the existence of two different realities. Evidence in one reality is not the same as in a different reality, so science based evidence will never show the reality of the spiritual world. Its a bit like showing evidence to a dog about rocket science, the evidence is completely nonsensical to the dog, and we can never present evidence at the reality of a dog about the existence of rocket science. 

3. Lastly the questions was brought up why not just use the same argument and replace the spirituality reality with a totally absurd reality and ask people to qualify themselves for that reality. The answer to this question would be sure you can do that, but the made up reality does not have thousands of years of evidence from saints who have tried and succeeded in qualifying themselves and talked about a reality which is infact different than to the material world. Show me any other reality you want to make up that has that much first hand accounts of experiences and teachings.  

There is also a question of personal experience, just like outliers in science who felt the world is infact not round but there is something different, they had to have an intuition, they had to have a feeling to try and explore an other reality. This same drive and intuition is found in thousands of people to explore the reality of spirituality. Now if you where to show me the same drive and intuition arising in people to explore this made up reality than i would say by all means lets try and validate this made up reality, but that simply is not the case.

[robvalue]

We have thousands of years of people saying things about spirituality. That doesn't mean any of it is true. This is the appeal to popularity fallacy which I discuss here. I've talked to hundreds of people about it and not one has been able to define it without using meaningless metaphors.

Until I have a way of distinguishing whatever it is from nothing, then for all practical purposes it is nothing to me.

I'd like to know how anyone knows anything about it, if there can be no evidence for it. This reduces everything to personal experience only, and I'm not going to believe anything someone says they have experienced without evidence. Anything that can't be independently verified is entirely unreliable. People say all kinds of nonsense all the time. Even my wife believes in ghosts. Sorry babe. I don't even believe her. People believe what they want to believe, and interpret their experiences to fit their preconceptions.

[Alex K]

Even my wife believes in ghosts.

That is so English

[robvalue]

Lol I know, it seems to be one of our little foibles. She gets so creeped out by the idea that I can't have a long enough conversation to discuss it properly.

It's just learned from her parents. No mystery.

[Krishna Jaganath]

We have thousands of years of people saying things about spirituality. That doesn't mean any of it is true. I've talked to hundreds of people about it and not one has been able to define it without using meaningless metaphors.

Until I have a way of distinguishing whatever it is from nothing, then for all practical purposes it is nothing to me.

I'd like to know how anyone knows anything about it, if there can be no evidence for it. This reduces everything to personal experience only, and I'm not going to believe anything someone says they have experienced without evidence. Anything that can't be independently verified is entirely unreliable. People say all kinds of nonsense all the time. Even my wife believes in ghosts. Sorry babe. I don't even believe her.

You've hit the essence of the argument. In reality everything does come down to personal experience, if one has not had a direct personal experience than for sure they would not and should not believe. 

So the question comes down to, if I told you can have a personal experience if you read a few books about saints would you then do it. If you say yes great, if you say no great, its just how do you perceive what I am saying. I'm not telling you about a personal experience, I'm saying how yourself can get a personal experience. Now if you say I've tried everything and i cant feel anything then fine, you either can stop or keep trying its really up to you.

So the question one should ask is HOW can I get a personal experience, not make me believe that people have had personal experiences. The purpose of my essay is not to convince anyone anything, its just to break down the dogmatic views of atheists so they can even try and be open about sincerely exploring the question about HOW can i get a personal experience.  

If any one is interested in a few books i can for sure recommend it to you. We can try a spiritual experiment and see what the outcome is if any one is open.