How do we help people who hold that nature is their god?

Transcript

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So people who say that nature is my God, the beach or the mountain is what I consider as divine so how do we help them to appreciate God Yes See the word of God has been associated with a lot of baggage because of which people are put off when they hear the word of God also so different people have different conceptions of God Kalkanpur was written in that beautiful book The God Who Dances so Friedrich Nietzsche was very strongly against God but he also said if I would believe in a God if he knew how to dance so what does it mean that means his disbelief in God was not so much because he whatever be his reason but at least inferred from this statement he did not have a conception of that of God that was aesthetically appealing so if you have a conception of God as a person who judges and who punishes and who sends people to hell forever that is quite an alienating conception of God and many people may well actually prefer atheism to a conception of God like that so because the concept of God is associated with so much mental baggage so people may often have some hesitation in accepting God but if they appreciate nature then that is good it could be well in the mode of goodness and then we can take the step forward yes nature is wonderful and where does nature come from, where does the natural order come from, what is it based on now nature is, if we go at a philosophical level it is neither self existent nor self explanatory what does that mean that one of the stand Buddhism is also a system of atheism that emerged from India now Indian tradition is very broad if you consider from the 5th century BC to 5th century AD India produced more books on atheism than the whole world because India at that time was dominated by Buddhism and Jainism and both of them were what you can call as mode of goodness atheists mode of goodness atheists they practiced regulated living but they were atheists so anyways the point which I was making there is that this conception of atheism which came from India at that time Ramanacharya and other Acharyas they refuted that and the idea that nature is God it raises the question where does nature come from what is it based on and if we look at nature it is not an independent reality on its own so one of the Buddhists refuted justification of atheism was that the universe is existing as it is and if you look at the history of physics one of the popular theories of atheists was what they called as a steady state universe basically the universe is as it existed right now and therefore there is no need for any creator so eventually scientists by coming to know about the cosmic background noise which they consider as the echo of the original explosion they felt the evidence pointed towards the universe having a beginning so we may refer to the big bang theory derogatively it did not come from the big bang but actually the big bang theory was like a big step forward towards the existence of God because if the universe is existing as it is then there is no need for God but if the universe has a beginning then it needs a God so the big bang may have occurred but the point is what came before the big bang so what existed before the big bang what caused the big bang so if we look at nature what scientists do is scientists just study universe as it exists primarily but when it goes to origins it is extremely speculative there is an astrophysicist John Wheeler one of his students came and told him sir there are so many cosmological theories how do I get a hang of all these things it’s a typical materialistic reply here you know if you miss a bus a girl or a cosmological theory don’t run after it another one is soon coming so the cosmos as it functions may be well understood by science but as it is originated it is very difficult to understand so if you look at nature you look at the beauty of nature you look at the majesty of nature where did it come from evolution may be portrayed as an explanation but in the word evolution evolution can refer to three different things evolution is referring to small changes which happen in nature you can have dogs which are small which become big apples which are small which can become big those are changes, in the Krishna book also it is talked about how Krishna did plant breeding so that was one of the arts which he learned so evolution as observed changes in the species that is something which we also accept we have no problem with that the second is evolution which refers to one species leading to another and third is evolution as a magic wand that explains everything it is like considered to be alternative to god as explanation of everything now Prabhupada’s criticism is primarily for the third so now and this third is something which even scientists it is only atheists who talk about it, scientists don’t support this idea, evolution can explain only when there is something to evolve so where did that something which evolved come from that is something which is not so well known so the evidence which is often portrayed is for this first and that is true that is undeniable but this is used to boost B and C also, that evolution the evidence which we have can explain all how various species came up and not only that everything came about, so the point which I am making is even from materialistic perspective where nature with its majestic beauty came from is not explainable so if we can avoid the religious baggage that is associated with the concept of god and then we draw from nature as a inference from its majesty from its beauty, from its artistry towards god then that is a very much intellectually acceptable conception, but Einstein there are both kind of statements of it, some statements which says that I don’t believe in god and I don’t like to people to associate me with those who believe in god but there are other statements where he says I do believe in god he says I believe in intelligence manifested in the universe so he was disillusioned with the judeo-christian conception of god which he got from the religion, which he was born in but from his study of science he felt that there was in nature a manifest intelligence and he definitely strongly believed in that intelligence so if we can just, when people are nature lovers don’t bring in any conception of god but just focus on drawing from nature towards the entity, the being the source of the order the beauty, the artistry of nature, then people are much more open to accepting god thank you very much