Science and religion: brother and sister

By Md Rezaul Karim, 21st Dec 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/3hk_zw6a/
Posted in Wikinut>Writing>Essays

There are philosophical differences between the Western society and Eastern society, Indian culture a little bit further more.

Typology of Knowledge in the East and the West

Science and religion are knowledgeable subjects. Knowledge is basic to the understanding of both science and religion. Far more than speculative thinking, both science and religion demand varying degrees of rational judgment and ratiocination. Rather, for successful score in any of the two, higher learning is called for and ever readiness to accept the objective truth and factual evidence is prerequisite.

Yet, the basic view-point of religion is holistic, whereas the underlying attitude of science is analytic which needs be elemental, partitive and smallest possible unmixed single-cum-simple material objects. Moreover, in the process of judging both religion and science, the capacity of the subjective element has to be taken into consideration, because, human mind, like the minds of other animals, is discursive in behavior, which requires of religion to proceed from wholeness of the holistic standpoint to the partitive concrete situation involving analytical exposition of its doctrines for proper understanding. Likewise, science is required to proceed from partitive experiential or experimental findings through generalization towards estimation of the wholeness for proper understanding since human understanding is dependent on the conceptual process of knowing that requires in its turn a conjoined meeting point or clicking of the particular and the universal for the comprehension of anything whatsoever. Science being thus somewhat centripetal in gait and religion resembling a sort of centrifugal force, the two can neither be mutually conjugated nor can be fused with one another.

Nevertheless, for the survival of the human life on the earth and for the progress and development of human society, science is indispensable; so also, for the peace and happiness of the human spirit and for the well-being of the human entity in the next world, in the life after death through eternity, religion is essential. The two, therefore, ought to be mutually adjusted and suitably balanced for the well-fare of human life. In fact, religion proposes to accomplish the task of balancing science and religion on ethical morality, and science proposes to do it through proper education. In presence of this educational perspective, we propose a basic discussion on the typology of knowledge.

In the East, particularly amongst the Hindus, Buddhist and Muslims, knowledge is sharply distinguished from learning. `Knowledge’ to the Aryan Hindus and Buddhists is gnana (Ávb) which stems from `gn’. Like as gn of Greek gnosis. Similarly, the opposite terminology of `gnana’ is `aggna’ and that of Greek `gnostic’ is `agnostic’. Both sets of terminologies carry deeper meaning and significance verging on spirituality.

Gnana and gnostic refer to creative learning, which emanate from deeper realization as against ordinary learning which is acquisitive and largely imitative and emulative. This latter category of acquisitive learning is called `bidya’in the East, meaning `learning’. As such , in the English language, the terminology of `knowledge’ generally comes to mean `bidya’, equivalent to the verbal sense of learning : whereas the Sanskrit term `gnana’ is

often referred to in English as `higher learning’. Thus, the word `knowledge’, which stems from `kn’ like `gn’ (Greek) and `gna’ (Sanskrit), in reality gives the meaning of the opposite pole of deeper knowledge. However, philologically considered, to know is deeper than to learn; so also, knowledge could have been placed higher than learning. But in the conventional English usage `higher learning’ seems to stand above knowledge. In other words, in the substantive sense, knowledge seems to conventionally mean learning (bidya) and learning (qualified with `higher’) means knowledge.

Meet the author

Md Rezaul Karim
I am a teacher engaged with the Southern University Bangladesh. I Like to use my spare time by writing and reading. I take it as a fun and source of inspiration in pursuing knowledge.