If the mechanisms of evolution are just imagination, then isn’t religion also just the imagination of some sages?

From Vinayak

A comment of yours from the article ‘atheism refuted’: “And even if somebody could imagine some mechanism involving natural selection by which certain complex features in some organisms came up, that doesn’t at all prove that it happened that day. That is imagination at work, not science at work.” – Well said, then pray tell, why don’t you say that the Bhagvada Gita and the entire Hindu philosophy was the combined imaginations of a group of really clever and intelligent sages? Maybe all the Hindu, Christian, Islamic Gods are nothing more than the imagination of clever humans!

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna question from Vinaya Prabhu based on the article atheism refuted so there is a comment, this is a response to a particular sentence in the article and even if somebody could imagine some mechanism involving natural selection by which certain complex features in some organism came up, that doesn’t at all prove that it happened that way that is imagination at work, not science at work well said, then pray tell, why don’t you say that the Bhagavad Gita and entire Hindu philosophy was the combined imagination of a group of really clever and intelligent sages maybe all the Hindu, Christian, Islamic gods are nothing more than the imagination of clever humans answer yes if we want to argue that the beliefs are imagination, then if that is the argument, then science and the theory of evolution should be taught as a religion it should not be taught as a science so it should be taught as just one of the competing belief systems and it is called as the belief of fanatical materialism, fanatical atheism one belief system and teach it that way then, but don’t claim that it is scientific, don’t claim that it is objective, don’t claim that it is based on scientific reasoning, just tell that it is one imagination, it is one group’s imagination, but actually evolution is not portrayed like that evolution is portrayed as if it is scientific when it is just pseudoscience when it is actually atheism masquerading as science so the evidence for evolution is flimsy at best as I have explained elsewhere you know, the theory talks about survival of the fittest but the theory itself is unfit to survive based on evidence, the only reason theory is surviving is because atheists are using all their intellectual power to do artificial ventilation to keep the theory alive so that they can have a bulwark against atheism so if it’s if we are going to use the imagination argument then don’t teach evolution as a science teach it as one more belief system, if that’s what we consider the religious systems to be belief systems this is also a belief system, why is it not taught like that, it is taught as if it is a science, so that’s the first point, second point is that as far as the Bhagavad Gita being the imagination of some clever sages or different religions being the imagination of certain people there is a method for verification you know, when we talk about science, science as theory and science as experiment so if we look at the theory of evolution nobody calls it as a law of evolution, why? because it has never got the authenticity that say the Newton laws of motion have got evolutionists who want to defend evolution may say that actually evolution is as sound as Newton’s laws of motion but no physicist will say that Newton’s laws of motion are as sound as the theory of evolution because they know that theory of evolution doesn’t have that much sound grounding so if we look at theory and experiment whatever experiments have been claimed to prove evolution they have all none of them have got any substantial results so in that sense it’s not scientific, I am not going to the technicalities of that because the point here is whether religion is imagination so within Vedic spirituality spirituality is presented as a higher dimensional science so there is philosophy and there is a religion so philosophy is like the theory in science and religion is like the experiment so philosophy tells us say we are not the body we are the soul and the soul is eternally connected with Krishna, the soul gets higher happiness in loving connected devotion to God then the religion is not just a set of rituals invented by someone it is a set of systematic newly designed activities meant to give us experiential verification of what philosophy has taught so in 9.2 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that it is directly proven by experience and what is the experience it’s joyfully performed so there are 9 stages of bhakti bhakti is a scientific process in the article here can faith be in the audio over here tap the power of faith I have a ppt where I describe this elaborately also initially we have faith then we come in the association of devotees we practice spiritual life mantra meditation then the impurities lust, anger, greed go away and then gradually there are many stages like that so at the level of bhava and finally at the level of prema one can directly see God one can get direct verification of God’s existence we can talk with God just as we talk with each other so the point is that there is a scientific process and even if we say that that seems to be supernatural claim unverifiable the only way we can say it is unverifiable is by doing the experiment if we see that we don’t get the result we don’t get the result so at the level of first four stages anartha nivrutti in terms of lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and selfishness and depression and negativity and irritability all these things going down they do go down for anyone who practices mantra meditation and why do they go down those who are spiritually astute they understand these are going down because one is experiencing richer, higher positive pleasures and the positive emotions that are coming from that they are driving away these negative emotions like irritability, selfishness, depression negativity, pessimism all these things so these happen and they are the experiential verification so if something were just an imagination like say Harry Potter is the imagination of JK Rowling now by being devoted to Harry Potter one is not going to get purified but by being devoted to Lord Harry one gets purified one gets transformed positively that’s why it’s not just an imagination it’s a of course that is not the only proof the ultimate proof is that we experience for ourselves spiritual level of reality but this transformation is itself an indication that it is not an imagination science with all its we are not against science by any means you know when atheism hijacks science and uses science for propagating it, misuses science misappropriates science for propagating atheism we are against atheism we are not against science per se so evolution is not science actually evolution is atheism masquerading as science it is atheistic fanaticism and that definitely needs to be refuted so actually if one is the point is that with all of one’s atheistic bravado how much can atheism bring about a positive transformation in people when people become addicted is there any atheistic mechanism to free people from addiction start chanting Hare Krishna if one does that sincerely one can break free from all bad habits millions of people all over the world have broken free from bad habits by that so science has its benefits science can improve things spirituality improves people and improves people it helps them to become better human beings and that inner transformation is one vibrant living proof that spirituality is not just an imagination it is a connection with a higher reality a connection with higher reality that is experienced through inner transformation thank you