I've noticed that in much of western world, adhering to science while taking religious doctrine at its word is viewed as not just contradictory, but impossible. And for a reason: how can somebody believe in both creationism and evolution? In miracles and the eternal, unchanging laws of physics? In contrast, it seems to me that many Indians, at least my host family, are able to have faith in science while backing their religious beliefs with evidence.
On the rooftop of my concrete apartment building one evening, a view of the Parvati temple on one side and the most respected school in Pune on the other, my host father, brother, and I had a fascinating conversation about Hinduism and India's ancient history that explained to me the paradoxical connections between the two forces.
At the center of the small garden on the terrace was a single, shadowed stalk of corn that my host dad pointed out to me. "Maharashtra's major food staple is corn, and so we worship it. We worship what makes us strong." He then asked why Hindus worship fire. I didn't know, but I imagined it had some religious significance. Instead, "because what was there before the Big Bang? Fire." I didn't know Hinduism and the Big Bang could coexist in the same sentence, especially given my limited knowledge of gods, goddesses and monsters that seemed more to fall, for me, outside of my brain's nonfiction section.
Yet the bridges between faith and logic continued to materialize throughout the conversations I've had. NASA has ancient Sanskrit prayers written on its walls, according to my host dad. A passage in the Mahabharata, one of India's two national epics, includes the exact distance from the earth to sun, proving that Hanuman, the Hindu god, was able to jump from the planet to the star as according to traditional legend. The Veda we sing every morning at school has the highest energy level of all prayers. Water should not be drunk cold because it extinguishes the fire in one's stomach as acids and alkalines dissolve food.
A quick note: I haven't done enough research to say whether each of these facts are true, and since I'm not Hindu and I don't practice Ayurvedic medicine, I'm unknowledgeable about a lot of these concepts. Instead my point is that Indians seem to feel more comfortable describing religious customs in scientific terms and vice versa than many others.
Most of the world used to enjoy that link, the mutual reinforcement of religion and science. Ancient Mayan priests developed incredibly accurate calendars to foresee future dates. Egyptians built the pyramids to prepare for their afterlife, and in doing so accomplished ingenious feats of engineering. The pagans of Britain built Stonehenge as a giant solar calendar to aid in their worship. But in the more recent western world, science began to challenge religion, rather than contribute to it. Galileo, after championning the heliocentric theory, was sentenced to house arrest for life by the Pope. In more recent times, Ken Hamm of the Creationism Museum and Bill Nye the Science Guy fought a proxy war of this important debate. Of course there are many who take pieces of both, merging them into a personal and balanced belief system. But it still seems to me the divide is wider in the United States.
If America could incorporate both spirituality and science as effortlessly and peacefully as in India, surely both opposing groups might benefit. Otherwise we have little chance of facing today's moral and scientific challenges: of abortions, of stemming climate change, of preventing the rise of the oceans, the Noah's flood of the future.
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