Religious Fundementalism and Science
The book is a fascinating read and it is exciting as it cuts through the
crap doled out by world leaders and activists. She makes a strong case for
rescuing science from religion and thus religious fundamentalism.
Deepa Kandaswamy
www.oncewritten.com
After the Cold war, there has been a rise of religious fundamentalism all
over the world. It is not confined to any particular religion or region. We
suddenly find ourselves surrounded by "new age" cures of the ancient world.
Also in the world today, we are finding many narratives passed off as facts
and worse still, scientific facts. Increasingly, religions worldwide have
been claiming science under the garb of theistic science. There has been a
global decline in scientific temper and an increasing tendency to look to
religion to solve problems, even everyday problems.
Is this a new phenomenon or is this the result of the sustained campaign of
Left leaning activists before and during the Cold War that romanticized
poverty, ethnicity and folklore wisdom as "true" development and knowledge?
Have these activists played into the common sense of religious
fundamentalists? Meera Nanda asks and answers these questions and much more
in her brilliant book, "Postmodernism and Religious Fundamentalism: A
Scientific Rebuttal to Hindu Science"
In the context of India, the rise of Hindu fundamentalist groups has been
bizarre since the early 1990s as have been the introduction of "quick fix"
cures which have gained popular acceptance but lack a scientific basis.
What is even more disturbing and dangerous is the cocktail of the two --
Hindu nationalism. Meera Nanda argues that this is not so bizarre but that
it is the result of the so called "leading" left-leaning political
"intellectuals" of Indian society who had always tried to "purify" science
to make it conform to Indian culture and Hindu ideology thus destroying
scientific logic and robbing it of its potential of cultural critique.
Starting with the early 1990s, when the time was ripe, the religious
fundamentalists of the Right have just moved in to harvest what the Left
sowed. She goes on to cite how this is a global phenomenon as Christian,
Islamic and Hindu fundamentalists worldwide are doing the same.
In a short span of time, we have managed to destroy what it took centuries
to achieve -- separation of religion from science in society and as a
result science was secular and accessible to people of all religious
affiliations. As a result, a person's identity was not based on religious
affiliation, region or nationality like Indian Hindu, Middle East Islamic
terrorist, African American Christian, etc. Now that religion has reclaimed
science, we are branded by race, religion and nationality and we don't know
the difference between nationalism and patriotism for a person's identity
is tied to religion and culture.
Meera Nanda is the author of several books including "Prophets facing
Backwards" and is a philospher of science based in the US.
The strength of the book is that the author is able to take on both
religion and religion based flaws of society, especially Hinduism and Hindu
religious fundamentalism, especially the caste system of India. It is true
"Hindu nationalism" or any other movement is doing anything to address
this. The book is a scathing indictment of Indian society which calls
itself secular but still practices casteism. There is a tremendous decrease
in scientific temper in India as most people go about looking for social
"band-aid" and religious "quick fixes" and there is a plain refusal to see
how religion is identifying the Indian though many decry fundamentalism.
The book is a fascinating read and it is exciting as it cuts through the
crap doled out by world leaders and activists. She makes a strong case for
rescuing science from religion and thus religious fundamentalism. However,
Nanda's answer to all of India's social ills and in fact global ills is to
go back to naturalism makes one wonder if her cure is not flawed.
While you may not agree with Nanda on the cure for social ills, any sane
person will agree with Nanda's argument of how the current religious
fundamentalism came about and why it is important to identify it.
Hopefully, after reading the book, we will learn that in our eagerness to
keep the East and West separate, we have destroyed what we all share --
humanity. Maybe there will be a global consensus on the need to rescue
science and scientific temper from religion which would be a good start.
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