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ABSTRACTS OF SIKH STUDIES : APRIL-JUNE 2005 / 537 NS
Religion and Science are both engaged in the exploration of
Ultimate Reality. The field of religion concerns consciousness and its
flux in moulding the destiny of man. Science explores the nature or
its manifestation through the material world. It starts from gross matter
and moves toward subtle consciousness pervading in the material
world. The modern science, namely, quantum mechanics, has brought
consciousness into the frame of reference of experimental and
theoretical physics.
RETREAT OF RELIGION AND DOMINANCE OF SCIENCE
The conflict between Science and Religion started after
Renaissance in Europe. Both moral and intellectual revulsion against
religion took place in the mind of the western man, and his mental
energies were diverted toward natural sciences. Diderot, in his
Encyclopaedia, encouraged men to follow Natural Science in
preference to Theology. Newtonian world-view gave birth to the
mechanical philosophy of Nature, and Religion was dethroned from
the realm of western man’s life. Cartesian philosophy stressed that
reality was knowable to man through senses and intuition, hence
revelation and mysticism have no role to play. Reality was considered
to be of material nature and spirituality was considered to be redundant.
Deterministic materialism, as such, was held to be the ultimate
paradigm of material reality. The Hegelian postulate that ‘the real is
rational, the rational real’ implied another ‘universal’ which ignored
spirituality and advocated historical materialism which led to the
advent of Marxism. Both these philosophies, viz., Cartesian dualism
and Marxian socialism dethroned religion from the world-view of
modern man till middle of twentieth century.
During the latter half of the 20 th century, a crisis in this grand
narrative of modern Western civilization has appeared. The myth of
reason, rationality, progress and historical materialism exploded. The
dialectic of class contradictions gave way to that of ethnic, ethnoreligious
and ethno-political contradictions in the context of growing
tensions between secular nationalism and religious nationalism. The
technological inventions and the powers placed in the hands of the
western man have been instrumental in giving him economic and
political dominance over the eastern societies. The collapse of the