The more scientific people become the more atheistic they become – is this true?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

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Is it that when people enter more and more into science they become more and more atheistic there have been many surveys done about this and overall it has been found that among the scientific profession there are the number of people who are believers and the number of people who are non-believers it is more or less same 50% Stephen Jay Gould was a scientist he said that science can be made compatible with belief in god, it can be made compatible with disbelief in god if that were not true he says 50% of my colleagues would be crazy see science is a tool for acquiring knowledge and it doesn’t look for ultimate questions and the problem comes when people don’t recognize the jurisdiction of science so when people think that through science they can answer all questions then it becomes a problem but there are scientists themselves who recognize that actually science cannot answer all questions science simply looks for material explanations for material phenomena that is the essential methodology of science we look for material explanations for material phenomena now whether there are some non-material phenomena or not or there is a non-material explanation or not that is simply beyond the jurisdiction of science I will give an example to illustrate this suppose somebody throws a fishing net into a pond to catch fish and the fishing net has holes of 1 inch by 1 inch then all fish that are smaller than the size of 1 inch by 1 inch, they will all slip out even if that person keeps the fishing net there for a thousand years, they will never catch a fish that is smaller than 1 inch by 1 inch in size similarly science it casts a net at the world, at the universe to catch knowledge but the net that it casts that net looks primarily for material explanations for material phenomena so non-material explanations slip out now whether the scientific net has to be materialistic or not that is the issue of discussion which can be done that science should also be open minded science should also look for non-material explanations that is true and that is a different discussion but the way science functions right now in the world, it looks for material explanations for material phenomena now Srila Prabhupada was very critical when science started when people started, people believed science is the answer to ultimate questions so if people believe because of science there is no God, because of science there is no soul Prabhupada would strongly criticize science for that but as far as science itself is concerned inherently that it doesn’t so if one goes deeper into science then I think it is Blaise Pascal who said that a little of science a little drink of science takes one towards atheism but immersions in science brings one back to God brings one back to God so in that sense it is possible if one does science and uncritically gets enamored by science adopt not just the scientific methodology but the scientific world view the methodology is to look for material explanations for material phenomena but the world view is to think that there is nothing non material existing on it so if one moves from the methodology to the world view and uncritically accepts that world view then people will become atheistic but there have been many great scientists who have been theistic but most of the pioneers of modern science were theistic and even now there are theistic scientists so the important thing is to not get enamored by this world view that science is offering us the methodology is something which we may use where it is necessary did I answer your question? yes