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:confused:

How can I deal with being an anthropologist and still be a devotee at the same time? Is that possible? I'm learning about all kinds of theories some which oppose or contradict religion.. the main one is evolution. Please give me your thoughts.

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Hello!

How you handle each situation is up to you my friend. You have to be open to understand that there may be many explanations for the things that we experience and discover about history. When you find something that may challenge your beliefs, it will help you to go deeper and try to find an explanation, thus learning more about yourself and what you believe.

 

Continue your devotion to whatever it is you believe, whether it be towards your religion, or your occupation, and I'm sure you will find things balance themselves out when an open mind is kept. Be well.

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Do not worry! I know the situation. Surprisingly the answer is simple :); you must read a few books :-

Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

and

Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory

These two books are a must for you! They've been authored by Drutakarma das (Michael Cremo) and sadaputa das (Richard Thompson)

And check this out http://www.archive.org/details/HGSataputaDasRichardLThomsonSciencefromtheVedicperspective

Lectures

mohankrishna

 

:confused:

How can I deal with being an anthropologist and still be a devotee at the same time? Is that possible? I'm learning about all kinds of theories some which oppose or contradict religion.. the main one is evolution. Please give me your thoughts.

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:confused:

How can I deal with being an anthropologist and still be a devotee at the same time? Is that possible? I'm learning about all kinds of theories some which oppose or contradict religion.. the main one is evolution. Please give me your thoughts.

 

It is possible, if you stop following the general ignorant line of thinking that evolution is atheistic. That is just religious politics set forth by some crooks to gain mileage.

 

Why is evolution a threat to religion? It does go against creation stories found in some old religious books, but why are those stories essential for theism? How many really believe Adam and Eve populated the entire world anymore? A few hundred years ago - yes, but in today's world with all the knowledge gained, rigidly holding on to such beliefs is an insult to one's own intelligence. It is no different from believing the earth is flat or is a set of alternating concentric circles of land and water as imagined by the author of the Bhagavatam.

 

No one - without exception - is 100% comfortable with his or her religion. There is always something that cannot be digested and in such case they make compromises by ignoring the disturbing elements or finding alternate explanations. As a Hare Krishna, you will find there are numerous, outdated concepts from old Indian religious books that have been compromised and tailored to arrive at present day hare krishna religion. This holds true for all religions.

 

You have to similarly make your peace with creation stories and separate them from your religious beliefs. One can still believe in Jesus without believing in Adam, Eve and the Apple. And similarly in Krishna without the dozens of embellishments.

 

Cheers

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Dude! It's the THEORY of evolution...NOT the FACT of evolution. You want to believe that your gran'daddy was a chimp, that's fine! - I'm not stopping you. But her question does not pertain to the likes of you.

 

"cheers"!

 

 

It is possible, if you stop following the general ignorant line of thinking that evolution is atheistic. That is just religious politics set forth by some crooks to gain mileage.

 

Why is evolution a threat to religion? It does go against creation stories found in some old religious books, but why are those stories essential for theism? How many really believe Adam and Eve populated the entire world anymore? A few hundred years ago - yes, but in today's world with all the knowledge gained, rigidly holding on to such beliefs is an insult to one's own intelligence. It is no different from believing the earth is flat or is a set of alternating concentric circles of land and water as imagined by the author of the Bhagavatam.

 

No one - without exception - is 100% comfortable with his or her religion. There is always something that cannot be digested and in such case they make compromises by ignoring the disturbing elements or finding alternate explanations. As a Hare Krishna, you will find there are numerous, outdated concepts from old Indian religious books that have been compromised and tailored to arrive at present day hare krishna religion. This holds true for all religions.

 

You have to similarly make your peace with creation stories and separate them from your religious beliefs. One can still believe in Jesus without believing in Adam, Eve and the Apple. And similarly in Krishna without the dozens of embellishments.

 

Cheers

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Dude! It's the THEORY of evolution...NOT the FACT of evolution. You want to believe that your gran'daddy was a chimp, that's fine! - I'm not stopping you. But her question does not pertain to the likes of you.

 

"cheers"!

 

You mean evolution is a THEORY unlike the FACT that God waved his wand and there were Adam, Eve and the Apple in the middle east? If evolution is a theory to you, then you have 200 years of catching up to do. Evolution says your grand daddy was a chimp...but your post says you may just be one too.

 

Go back to school, sonny and pay attention in class this time. Until then - for the good of the world - refrain from spreading your high school drop-out level wisdom to others. The person who asked the question is an anthropologist and was certainly not directing his question to the likes of you... if you know what I mean.

 

Cheers

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You mean evolution is a THEORY unlike the FACT that God waved his wand and there were Adam, Eve and the Apple in the middle east? If evolution is a theory to you, then you have 200 years of catching up to do. Evolution says your grand daddy was a chimp...but your post says you may just be one too.

 

Go back to school, sonny and pay attention in class this time. Until then - for the good of the world - refrain from spreading your high school drop-out level wisdom to others. The person who asked the question is an anthropologist and was certainly not directing his question to the likes of you... if you know what I mean.

 

Cheers

 

You are ignorant of the knowledge I have...let alone the knowledge you have! I do not think it is a theory - that's what it is known as to the scientific community. Unfortunately you do not study anything and are susceptable to mass media brainwashing. Why don't you pick up some real antro and archeo books?! study the cases then you can talk!

You just know a thing or two and try to make it appear as though you know the subject - well it's not working!

 

What have you studied at school or uni (if you made it that far)?!

And quit saying "Cheers" at the end of every bloody post you make - NOONE is applauding you; so there's no need to thank them.

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really, i want proof any organism has devolved just it as evolved. bring it on and it is probably worth the mitochondrial DNA proof.

 

WHaow! Another genius - seriously though. Why do people clearly with great intelligence; like shvu and yourself hang around these Theistic forums so much? I mean why give a care about a bunch of people who're clearly ignorant toward the might of logic and all the good stuff in life?

People who posess such intelligence as yourselves should be on a scientific forum - like quantum physics for instance...or whatever your background is.

 

You'd be of more use educating people in those forums than here where noone pays heed to your time consuming posts - and I respect that. You see if you hang around here too much then people will think that you have doubts in your sciences and are leaning toward foolish religion! And that's the last thing you want! I'm sure a lot of people already think that - so you better just go before it consumes all of your dignity.

 

Good luck guys! :)

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It is possible, if you stop following the general ignorant line of thinking that evolution is atheistic. That is just religious politics set forth by some crooks to gain mileage.

 

Why is evolution a threat to religion? It does go against creation stories found in some old religious books, but why are those stories essential for theism? How many really believe Adam and Eve populated the entire world anymore? A few hundred years ago - yes, but in today's world with all the knowledge gained, rigidly holding on to such beliefs is an insult to one's own intelligence. It is no different from believing the earth is flat or is a set of alternating concentric circles of land and water as imagined by the author of the Bhagavatam.

 

No one - without exception - is 100% comfortable with his or her religion. There is always something that cannot be digested and in such case they make compromises by ignoring the disturbing elements or finding alternate explanations. As a Hare Krishna, you will find there are numerous, outdated concepts from old Indian religious books that have been compromised and tailored to arrive at present day hare krishna religion. This holds true for all religions.

 

You have to similarly make your peace with creation stories and separate them from your religious beliefs. One can still believe in Jesus without believing in Adam, Eve and the Apple. And similarly in Krishna without the dozens of embellishments.

 

Cheers

 

With all due respect mohankrishna prabhu I find a lot of truth in shvu's post and there are legitemate sp? questions raised there.

 

It is true that the mere evolution of forms doesnot challenge theism. The Supreme Intelligent Being may have arranged it that way. Now personally I do not accept Darwin's version and if I remeber right Darwin Himself believed in God. If I am wrong on that someone please correct me.

 

However Darwin himself said the test of his theory would show up in all the fossils of the transitional forms if true and if there were no transitional forms then his theory could be considered false. There are none although according to Darwinianism there should be millions and millions of transitional forms. Darwin himself would not be a Darwinist today.

 

The real objection to the mutitude of modern scientific theories is that they believe life or the conscious self is a product of a very special combination, of otherwise inert molecules that radomly came together and out popped life. it takes much more faith , blind faith even to believe in that scenario then to believe thatthere is a Universal Intelligence directioning universal function. Life comes from Life. That we can easily show. Examples are everywhere. Yet the materialist cannot show one example of combining inert molecules and producing life. Their level of blind faith and belief in this silly myth is astounding.

 

And he is also right IMO to question the literalness of creation stories from various cultures. We as humans could not possibly comprehend the details of what goes into making a human form let alone the universe so we have been given simple stories to illustrate the basic point. In the beginning God. And from God all other things have emanated. The invocation to Sri Isopanishad covers this as well as Genesis 1.

 

I believe in Jesus and see the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor about the fall of soul into mundane duality. Apples were not the forbidden fruit. The forbidden fruit was the knowledge of good and evil, IOW mundane duality. This is the fall from transcendence as told to children ie us.

 

SHVU's ok. He has been posting here for years. And Cheers is a Eurupean way of signing off that's all, as in...

 

Cheers mate ;)

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Thanks to everyone for your responses. Although, I wasn't looking for the meaning of evolution, who is right or who is wrong, or proving other devotees wrong. Anyway, I just need some support here.

 

I did want to say that Darwin was a naturalist who on the voyage of the HMS Beagle through out South America took a few books with him one of the books he took was the Bible. So yes, he was a very religious person and so was his wife.

 

 

With all due respect mohankrishna prabhu I find a lot of truth in shvu's post and there are legitemate sp? questions raised there.

 

It is true that the mere evolution of forms doesnot challenge theism. The Supreme Intelligent Being may have arranged it that way. Now personally I do not accept Darwin's version and if I remeber right Darwin Himself believed in God. If I am wrong on that someone please correct me.

 

However Darwin himself said the test of his theory would show up in all the fossils of the transitional forms if true and if there were no transitional forms then his theory could be considered false. There are none although according to Darwinianism there should be millions and millions of transitional forms. Darwin himself would not be a Darwinist today.

 

The real objection to the mutitude of modern scientific theories is that they believe life or the conscious self is a product of a very special combination, of otherwise inert molecules that radomly came together and out popped life. it takes much more faith , blind faith even to believe in that scenario then to believe thatthere is a Universal Intelligence directioning universal function. Life comes from Life. That we can easily show. Examples are everywhere. Yet the materialist cannot show one example of combining inert molecules and producing life. Their level of blind faith and belief in this silly myth is astounding.

 

And he is also right IMO to question the literalness of creation stories from various cultures. We as humans could not possibly comprehend the details of what goes into making a human form let alone the universe so we have been given simple stories to illustrate the basic point. In the beginning God. And from God all other things have emanated. The invocation to Sri Isopanishad covers this as well as Genesis 1.

 

I believe in Jesus and see the story of Adam and Eve as a metaphor about the fall of soul into mundane duality. Apples were not the forbidden fruit. The forbidden fruit was the knowledge of good and evil, IOW mundane duality. This is the fall from transcendence as told to children ie us.

 

SHVU's ok. He has been posting here for years. And Cheers is a Eurupean way of signing off that's all, as in...

 

Cheers mate ;)

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:confused:

How can I deal with being an anthropologist and still be a devotee at the same time? Is that possible? I'm learning about all kinds of theories some which oppose or contradict religion.. the main one is evolution. Please give me your thoughts.

 

Well it appears to me that you can certainly be an anthropologist and a devotee. Devotee is your eternal essence and anthropolgist a temporary occupation. Having to buck established theories and still advance on the professional side may be difficult but then again you may be able to influence your field in a more God conscious direction.

 

Hare Krsna

 

Oh and thanks for confirming that Darwin was a theist. That point is rarely understood. Most all of today's religionists accept the body to be the self without understanding the implications. Anything we can do to counter this most basic error of identity is certainly appreciable by Krsna and His devotee.

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Hare Krishna Krishna's Girl!

 

All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Everything apart from Krishna Conciousness is maya.

 

Only the Jivas and the Lord/His name are real in the material world.

The rest is just the Lords illusory energy, to fool the jiva's who want to be fooled, so that they can be like little gods, pretending to rule and understand the material universe through their limited and faulty senses.

(Most material scientists are like madmen who are busy examining their strait-jacket and padded cell, while not realising their insane position!)

 

Just keep doing your job and getting paid, like an actress in a play.

Have fun doing it, while gradually progressing in discovering the truth

about everything from Srila Prabhupadas books.

 

Eat prasadam, and chant, dance and laugh your way through the remainder of your time in the material world.

 

Meditate by chanting the mahamantra on japa beads, and gradually you will become Krishna Conscious, and not be worried about mundane speculative theories from material scientists, most of whom think consciouness is generated by matter, although when asked to replicate this feat can only give vague promises that they will do this at some point in the future!

 

My humble obeisances.

Haribol

Mahatma Dasa :smash:

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Namaste,

 

In all of my studies, I have never found Sanatana Dharma to be in opposition to modern science. I'm really surprised to see people speaking about science in the same way that fundamentalist christians do.

 

Whether or not scientists obsess over the minutae of the things they can observe, while ignoring the things they cannot, science is still real. The implications of scientific findings are certainly not written in stone, but the impirical findings are as close as anything can be.

 

While evolution is a theory-- much like gravity is-- it makes predictions which we can test. For instance, try googling "long spurred orchid", and see how Darwin was able to predict, by way of his theory, the existence of yet undiscovered moths based on the existence of certain flowers.

 

Similarly, Sanatana Dharma has made many claims which have later been confirmed by scientific findings. For instance, the cosmology of the Vishnu Purana (and perhaps it occurs in earlier scripture) is the only pre-scientific cosmology that has the correct interval of time between cycles of expansion and contraction-- it also predicted the idea of expansion and contraction.

 

As for evolution...

 

Most scriptural sources after 600 AD put the avatars of vishnu in a temporal order that is in keeping with evolution-- in a general sense.

 

Fish (sea dweller) -> Tortoise (reptile) -> boar (basic mammal) -> half-man; half-lion (transitionary state between basic mammals and primates) -> and then a series of human avatars...

 

Even the earliest account of the avatars of vishnu, the Mahabharata, doesn't put them in the wrong order, it just doesn't specify the order of the earliest avatars.

 

I personally see evolution as a confirmation of Sanatana Dharma, not a detractor.

 

People who are ignorant of Sanatana Dharma say that it is superstitious and irrational, please don't give them more ammunition by publicly displaying your ignorance of science. Learn, and you will see that the dichotomy between science and religion is, like all dichotomies, false. All is brahman; infinite and attributeless.

 

Om shanti shanti shanti

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While evolution is a theory-- much like gravity is-- it makes predictions which we can test. For instance, try googling "long spurred orchid", and see how Darwin was able to predict, by way of his theory, the existence of yet undiscovered moths based on the existence of certain flowers.

 

I saw that documentary on PBS. It does nothing to prove evolution. Darwin was very keen observer of nature and on the basis of that intelligence postulated that there must be a moth with a very long tongue to be able to reach the nectar in the flower.

 

Right answer arrived at by an incorrect assumption. But even if you accept the evolution of species the real point is there is a Supreme Intelligence setting the whole thing in motion and that everything is happening by design.

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