Science explains phenomena in the physical world, while religion occupies the spiritual. But can they co-exist? Religious leaders Sengkuttuvan Kanniyappan, Kuek Yi Hsing and Rajesh R Shah share their views on how religion reconciles with science.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 You need science to prove and teach how to medicate yourself,
00:05 how to teach yourself to do things, build things.
00:10 You can't just meditate
00:12 and hope the building comes up by itself.
00:14 (upbeat music)
00:17 - Hi, I'm Sengu Tuvan from the Hindu faith
00:27 of the Inter-Religious Organization.
00:29 - I'm Quack Lee Seng, I'm from the Singapore Bahai community.
00:33 - I'm Rajesh Archa, representing the Jain faith.
00:37 Hi guys, welcome back.
00:39 Something came to my mind the other day, you know,
00:41 there is the bigger part of the world
00:45 that kind of runs on science
00:47 and yet we are religious practitioners, leaders.
00:51 So how does your faith, your faith view science?
00:56 And if science and faith are mutually exclusive?
01:01 - Religion takes various genre.
01:04 Now the optics will show you the rituals,
01:08 but if you go into the scriptures,
01:10 it'll take you to a much higher level.
01:12 And Hinduism being a very ancient and mature religion,
01:16 it has encapsulated quite a lot of concepts
01:21 that science today is verifying them.
01:26 Yes, of course, many would challenge it
01:28 when you go down to much lower levels of genre
01:31 and you say this, no, but let's not look
01:33 at the ritualistic aspect of it.
01:35 Let's look at the philosophical aspect and the explanation.
01:39 Remember, Hinduism is based on the fact
01:42 that how do you harmonize between yourself
01:45 and the cosmic order?
01:46 That's how it is.
01:48 How do you see yourself?
01:49 The Bahá'í Faith view science as a branch of knowledge
01:54 to recognize the beauty of this creation.
01:59 It actually strengthens its faith through science.
02:03 So science to us is a form of knowledge
02:06 that we all should pursue because it enlarges our vision
02:10 that we otherwise would not have without science.
02:14 - In Jainism, it's a very ancient religion.
02:17 And a lot of, as far as the scriptures are concerned,
02:20 they describe a lot of things
02:22 that may seem beyond comprehension now,
02:27 but science is the only tool that we have
02:31 that can help explain things that is unexplainable.
02:36 And we are very logical preachers, right?
02:38 We need this logic of science.
02:41 It's sometimes at complete opposites with religion.
02:45 We say, "Take this on faith or take this on trust."
02:48 Science has now been able to prove a lot of things
02:53 that were written in scriptures.
02:55 We have what we call Samansari Pratikraman,
02:57 which is asking for forgiveness from every living thing
03:01 in the planet and the universe for your transgressions.
03:05 How do you remember everything?
03:08 But the actual readings of that prayer
03:11 has the number of universes and the planets
03:15 and how far apart they are and all this type of thing
03:19 already kind of described.
03:21 And the Germans are now taking our scriptures
03:24 and slowly, slowly deciphering all of this
03:27 and finding out that, hey, can be scientifically proven.
03:31 So in a way, the scriptures that we don't understand
03:36 are only waiting for us, as far as I'm concerned,
03:39 for things to be deciphered.
03:41 And I think science will do that for us.
03:42 Yeah, actually, it does.
03:44 The fulcrum of science is logic.
03:47 But unfortunately, science cannot answer all the questions.
03:51 This is where the philosophy of spiritualism
03:54 comes into the picture to fill in the gaps sometimes.
03:57 And science tries to meet up to that philosophy.
04:01 Physics would say there's about 100 plus elements today.
04:05 In the Hindu scriptures, they look at the same elements,
04:08 but they don't look at anything without a God principle.
04:12 And they have distributed the elements into five.
04:15 Space, air, fire, water, and earth.
04:19 Now today, what science says is that matter and energy
04:24 are compatible, or rather, they complement each other.
04:27 They can either exist in matter or exist in energy.
04:31 That explains mathematically what the scriptures were saying.
04:35 This matter that I'm composed of is the energy
04:38 that the cosmos has.
04:40 We are no different from what has science proven today.
04:44 Are there any teachings in your faith
04:45 that are at odds with science?
04:48 Well, I will put a very emphatic no.
04:53 If we look at the very low level genre,
04:56 where the rituals and the religious level, of course,
04:59 everything will be conflicting to what science has to say.
05:02 But that's not where the actual soul of the faith is.
05:06 When you evolve to the higher level of understanding
05:09 the faith, that's where the scriptures
05:12 quoted what is out there.
05:14 When you compare me as a human being looking into the cosmos,
05:19 there must be some relationship.
05:21 One thing is for sure, science and religion,
05:24 we are moving towards the same objective.
05:27 That objective is called the ever-advancing civilization.
05:32 The faith is providing the relationship
05:37 among men, men and men.
05:39 Science cannot provide that kind of relationship.
05:41 But the relationship is contributing
05:44 to that ever-advancing civilization.
05:47 Science is giving us technology,
05:51 giving us the foundation to truth-seeking.
05:54 So we see these two entities as not only complementary,
05:58 but in harmony.
06:00 Because if they are not in harmony,
06:02 then we are going to suffer.
06:04 Without the backing of the morality from religion,
06:08 it's going to be a disaster.
06:10 But religion without science is also going to be a disaster.
06:15 Because it will sink into being superstitious,
06:19 sink into very deep ignorance.
06:21 So we say that all knowledge must be rooted in science.
06:25 Just like we are here on this planet as a soul within a body,
06:30 the soul needs spirituality and needs faith
06:33 and it needs that little belief in something beyond
06:38 that can be explained.
06:40 But as long as you are here on this particular planet,
06:44 in this particular universe,
06:46 you need science to prove and teach
06:49 how to medicate yourself,
06:52 how to teach yourself to do things, build things.
06:56 You can't just meditate
06:58 and hope the building comes up by itself.
07:01 To be able to decipher and kind of make sense of what,
07:05 if you want to say God has given or the universe has given us,
07:08 we don't have the formula,
07:09 but we are discovering the formulas.
07:12 The soul and religion and faith
07:14 is the spiritual discovery process.
07:18 Science is the physical understanding
07:21 of how things work and operate.
07:24 My personal opinion, they can all coexist.
07:27 And in fact, they don't need to coexist.
07:30 They are already one in that sense.
07:33 You see a seed that germinates and then becomes a tree,
07:37 part of it is above ground.
07:39 And the leaves, they make food.
07:42 The part that is below the soil, the roots,
07:46 they also enable the tree to grow and produce fruits,
07:50 but by different methods.
07:51 So it's a symbiotic relationship.
07:55 Doing different things, but they have the same aim, same goal.
07:59 The way religion is practiced has to evolve,
08:05 but the fundamental itself is telling you
08:08 that I've already said what is the fundamental truth.
08:12 Now you guys just need to catch up.
08:14 The traditions, the culture, that morphs with time, you see.
08:17 But the truth that the religion is founded for,
08:21 that part of it has already been well tested through time
08:25 and showed itself, it is still relevant.
08:27 The ritualistic and the religious portion of it
08:31 has to move with time.
08:32 We have to change.
08:32 We cannot keep with the same ritual practices
08:35 because we've got to accommodate everybody together.
08:37 But the fundamentals has not changed.
08:39 The fundamental is existence.
08:42 Whether you look at this existence
08:44 from the faith perspective or religious perspective,
08:47 there are scriptures that are written for you.
08:48 Whether you look at it from a scientific perspective,
08:51 that also is written in another form.
08:53 It's only the perspective that changes,
08:55 but the existence is one.
08:57 Alright guys, so thank you very much.
08:59 I think we had a very wonderful discussion.
09:02 If any of you have any questions or comments,
09:05 please leave them below and have a nice day.
09:08 See you. Bye bye.
09:10 (upbeat music)
09:15 (upbeat music)
09:20 (upbeat music)
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