How to deal with doubts about God’s existence coming from the study of science?

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Transcript

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we can come up with an intelligent course of action Hare Krishna I have to touch this Am I audible now? So the question is that sometimes we may have doubts about God’s existence and the existence of anything spiritual these doubts also come from the mind how do we deal with them so doubt is a function of the intelligence Bhagavatam which is an important devotional classic states that doubt is the beginning of intelligence the first function of the intelligence is to doubt that’s why many countries advertisements to children who are very small are legally banned because the children don’t have the intelligence to evaluate what is this they can’t doubt if they are shown something they just think this is right I just get this doll, I get this and I’ll be happy so doubting is a sign of intelligence but doubting is not the only sign of intelligence we can and we should doubt there are things which should be doubted in life but one of the things is we should learn to doubt doubt also doubt can tell us what is wrong doubt can never tell us what is right actually if you study philosophy, somebody starts studying philosophy as an academic discipline then within a few years one can become trained as soon as someone presents this philosophy you can start pointing holes in it this problem, this problem then it becomes more like an intellectual game whatever argument you give I’ll find faults in it now using doubt to acquire knowledge is like using immobility for transportation for motion they are two opposite so when I said we should learn to doubt doubt that means we need to know that doubt can tell us what is wrong but doubt itself will never tell us what is right so if we want to know what is right, eventually we need to go beyond doubt so now with respect to doubts about the existence of God the existence of God can be understood in various ways the very existence sometimes you say, some people think that science and science has disproven God or this scientific theory or that scientific theory, there are many atheistic scientists there is one atheist who wrote quite a well known book he said how everything came from nothing science has proven that God does not exist we don’t need God for the universe the book was how everything came from nothing now if you read that book the nothing is quite a thing now basically to have nothing produce everything, the scientists have had to redefine nothing so that it is something quite a thing in fact that nothing is a complex quantum mechanical vacuum which requires pages upon pages of the most abstract mathematics to describe so the point is that science and quite often many doubts come from science about the existence of God but science and God can seem contradictory if we do not understand what science rests on science offers explanations for things but science how does science offer explanations that means if everything just came from a bag everything was so if we just remove God entirely remove spirit entirely and assume a purely materialistic world view then what is the story of the universe nothing existed because of nothing then because of nothing something happened to nothing and because of that something from nothing everything came and not only that not only the question of origin there science has been able to explain many things but it has been able to explain things because of its ability to observe and find patterns in nature so millions of people before Newton saw a fruit falling most of them picked up and ate the fruit Newton thought why did this fruit fall and now this can point to the intelligence of Newton and yes intelligence has to be given to you credit but the very question why did the fruit fall indicates an assumption that there is an answer to the why if I got just a scribble of paper which made no sense to me then I would just throw it away but if I saw this scribble of paper and I started thinking maybe this is a message written in some language I don’t know and I start comparing this script with various scripts that I know and I start taking the labor to find out what it means which language it is written in that taking that labor itself assumes that there may be some meaning over there so the very quest of science rests on the assumption that there is order in the universe the question comes where did this order come from and not only is there order in the universe there is order of mathematical precision now f is equal to g m1 m2 upon r squared that is what Newton came up with based on his observation and the principle of gravity now if everything had just come without any higher intelligence anywhere involved just by the random changes in matter then our brain is just a random a random collection of stardust and the world around us is also a random arrangement that has come from stardust and on top of that mathematics is just a concept within the biochemical patterns in my neuronal cells so why in the wild world should the behavior of objects outside correlate with the patterns of the ways in which the electrochemicals in the brain cells fire I hope this point is clear ok I will put it in a different way science offers explanations God offers the explanation for explainability science offers explanations God offers the explanation for explainability why is the universe explainable there are stars moving in the cosmos there are atoms moving around correlate with mathematics which is just a concept in my head when both my head and the stars have just come from stardust so it is so God is the explanation for explainability so it is not that science and God are contradictory they offer explanations at different levels science functions with the premise of looking for material explanations for material phenomena and it does a great job in giving material explanations but material explanations are not necessarily the complete explanations for example I came for this program in a car if somewhere someone was observing the car the wheels of the car started moving now I can give explanations for this at two levels one level is why did the wheels start moving oh because the wheels are connected to a crankshaft and they go to the ignition and there was a spark in the ignition now why was there a spark in the ignition you go back oh you go back there was a key which was in the vertical position and the key moved to the horizontal position and that’s why the wheels started moving is it a complete explanation now I decided to come here that’s why I entered the car and I moved the key from the vertical to the horizontal and the wheels started moving so science by definition looks for material explanations for material phenomena and because God is non-material by definition science does not find God directly but that does not mean science and God are contradictory they are explanations at different levels so science explains material phenomena through material causes whereas God is the explanation for the explainability at the material level there was a famous Indian mathematician Srinivas Ramanujan so he said an equation for me has no meaning unless it represents a thought of God F is equal to G E is equal to MC squared how did that equality come about so that equality is a fact which is there in nature but how did it come about we have discovered it but how did it come about so if it is because of thinking that I am being unscientific by believing anything spiritual, that is the cause of our doubt in understanding how spiritual and scientific correlate that can clarify the doubts sometimes the doubts may come because of some problems that come in our life we think okay I am worshipping God I am devoting myself to God maybe then that should mean that God should protect me or problems should not come in my life then if problems come that may cause some doubts so now when that happens again if we study scripture carefully the Bhagavad Gita tells us that this world is a place of misery what it means is that here our bodies are going to age they are going to grow old, there are going to be problems in the world so quite often to the contrary materialistic propaganda tells us you just buy this and you will be happy you get this and you will be happy so actually when we face problems rather than that causing us doubt you know the spiritual wisdom literature told that this world is a place of problems and now I am experiencing problems so it’s true but this is not a pessimistic but the Bhagavad Gita also tells us that there are problems but we can rise above problems by our connection with God machittaha sarva durgani mat prasadat karishasi Krishna says if you become conscious of me you will pass over all obstacles by my grace so then we can think rather than doubting does God really exist I am having so many troubles it’s not helping God has told through scripture that there are problems in this world I am experiencing this to be true so one part of scripture I have found it to be true now let me see the other part of scripture what is the other part scripture gives us a process by which we can raise our consciousness to the spiritual level and we can experience relief the problem itself will not go away may not immediately go away but the mental burden because of the problem anyone anywhere if we turn towards prayer if we say participate in spiritual music and pray to God, meditate we experience relief that is at our level experience of the reality of God bhakti paresha anubhava viraktiranyatra bhakti devotion is the process that gives us paraeesha anubhava experience of God who is the higher reality so when our baby is very small at that time the baby is newborn the baby doesn’t even know that there is something called a mother all the baby knows is I just put my mouth over here and I get milk and say the baby is cold at night, the baby is shivering then the mother puts a blanket the baby doesn’t know there is a mother who loves me and puts the blanket but the baby the baby experiences warmth and as the baby grows up the mother who loves me then when she feels the blanket oh my mother has put the blanket so that understanding happens when she grows up similarly at our we are like in spiritual infancy right now so we can’t really perceive the existence of God but when we turn to Him in prayer and meditation we can experience I said the blanket we can experience the relief from the anger and that is the experience of the reality of God