Hi Ted!

It’s natural for people to cynical about faith/God with so many cheaters around – such as the creeps at Westboro and their ilk.

The fact is lots of ‘people of faith’ are well educated – even by their faith pursuits and – to insinuate that people who beleive in God are somehow narrow minded and chronically bereft of scientific thinking – is unfair.

We should consider that it’s possible to judge a thing on it’s own merits and not be inclined to narrow minded thinking so as to never explore ‘truth’ and – the universal expression of truth.

All faith traditions can offer great truths for those with eyes to see them…

Ancient India’s scriptural tradition [for instance] offers a tremendous wealth of information about God, the soul, material nature, everything we can imagine – it’s there.

Here is an example of primitive and ‘unscientific’ religious thinking, LOL:

“The material manifestation’s ultimate particle, which is indivisible and not formed into a body, is called the atom. It exists always as an invisible identity, even after the dissolution of all forms. The material body is but a combination of such atoms, but it is misunderstood by the common man.” [Srimad Bhagavatam 3.11.1]

“One can estimate time by measuring the movement of the atomic combination of bodies. Time is the potency of the almighty Personality of Godhead, Hari, who controls all physical movement although He is not visible in the physical world.” [Srimad Bhagavatam 3.11.3]

“In Life Comes From Life (page 43), Srila Prabhupada has stated, “Living beings move from one bodily form to another. The forms already exist. The living entity simply transfers himself, just as a man transfers himself from one apartment to another. One apartment is first class, another is second class, and another is third class. Suppose a person comes from a lower-class apartment to a first-class apartment. The person is the same. But now, according to his capacity for payment, or karma, he is able to occupy a higher-class apartment. Real evolution does not mean physical development, but development of consciousness.” Within every species of life there is consciousness, and that consciousness is the symptom of the living entity, who is the superior energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Without understanding this essential point of the transmigration of the conscious living entity throughout 8,400,000 species of life, one cannot possibly understand the words [...] “the human body is very rarely achieved.” People are now being cheated of this essential understanding. They are completely unaware of the danger of slipping back into the eight million species that lie below the human species. It is natural that a human being think in terms of progress. We want to feel that our life is progressing and that we are advancing and improving the quality of our life.”

The part that is noteworthy here is how the ancient Vedic texts speak of 8,400,000 species of life and modern science has fixed a recent number of “8,700,000″ species of life. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm]

There are ‘stories’ in the Vedic texts that speak of ‘relativity of time’ as well:

“Even thousands of years ago, India’s scientific understanding of the universe was highly advanced. It was common knowledge that the world isn’t flat but round, that our planet isn’t the center of the universe but a mere speck within it, and that the earth wasn’t suddenly created on May 23, 5478 B.C., but had existed for billions of years. This is remarkable when we consider that in the West, these facts have been accepted for only the last few hundred years.

Fortunately, modern science has been catching up and continues to make further progress every day. One of the greatest achievements of this century is Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which, among its postulates, describes the behavior and measurement of time under factors such as gravity and velocity. Surprisingly, even such advanced concepts of physics are also found in the Vedic literature, India’s ancient books of wisdom.

In the Ninth Canto of the Srimad-Bhagavatam there is a revealing story on the workings of the theory of relativity. It is about a king named Kakudmi and his daughter Revanti. When the king was planning for his daughter’s marriage, he decided to go see Lord Brahma, by whose influence, he was sure, an ideal husband could be found. Lord Brahma is the chief demigod and occupies the post of the engineer-creator of this universe. His life span encompasses the duration of the entire universe. His abode, the planet Brahmaloka, is the highest in the universe. The inhabitants there are endowed with mystic powers; evil, pain, and anxiety are practically unknown; the potential for enjoyment is thousands of times greater than on earth; and spiritual advancement is easily attainable.

King Kakudmi took Revati with him and traveled to Brahmaloka, where he found that Lord Brahma was hearing a musical performance and for the moment could not talk to him. Therefore Kakudmi waited, and at the end of the show he approached Brahma, offered obeisances, and presented his request. After listening to Kakudmi, Brahma laughed loudly and said. “O king, all those whom you might have thought of as candidates for your daughter’s hand died already a long time ago. Millions of years have passed since you left your kingdom. They are all dead and forgotten, and so are their sons, grandsons, and other descendants.”

When the king heard this, he returned to what had been his domain and found it vacant. Just as modern archeologists discover the sites of ancient civilizations and determine the cause of their demise, such as famines, invasions, and natural disasters, Kakudmi returned to find that his descendants had long ago abandoned the kingdom because of the threat posed by their enemies.

While King Kakudmi was still in Brahmaloka, Lord Brahma advised him to offer his daughter in marriage to Lord Balarama. According to Vedic theology. Lord Balarama is an expansion of the Supreme Lord, Krsna, and assists Him in His mission to purify the entire world. After returning to his former kingdom, Kakudmi gave his beautiful daughter in marriage to Lord Balarama. Then he renounced worldly life and retired to Badarikashram in the Himalayas, where many ascetics go to achieve spiritual perfection.

King Kakudmi experienced the influence of time in a way that agrees with Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Normally we tend to regard time as absolute and constant throughout the universe. But the theory of relativity states that there is no absolute time: rather, each one of us is influenced uniquely, depending on our location and the speed with which we are moving in the universe.

To illustrate this point, there is the classic example of the twins. One twin goes off in a rocket to the nearest star outside our planetary system. Traveling at speeds near that of light (186.000 miles per second), the traveler will make the round trip in twenty-two earth years, but because of his high speed, time will affect him only partially, and upon his return he will find himself twelve and a half years younger than his brother!

Even on earth the same principle applies. A twin living at sea level will be after sixty years, six seconds younger than his brother living high in the mountains, because of the way the earth’s gravity affects his own measure of time. But this variation is so negligible that it goes unnoticed.

King Kakudmi experienced the principles stated in the theory of relativity. On his journey to Brahmaloka, time influenced the king in a different way than it did his subjects and acquaintances back on earth, to the extent that he outlived generations of his descendants.

Histories like this. as found in works like the Srimad-Bhagavatam, aren’t simply for supplying us with facts for a trivia game, nor are they armchair scientific statements. The overall purpose of these scriptures is to promote an existential understanding of life and to teach one how to act accordingly.

If we could make a trip in time similar to King Kakudmi’s, disappearing from home and suddenly reappearing in the same place a few thousand years later, we would see everything so changed that we would be forced to see our lives in a completely different light.

During such a journey, many nations would have been created and destroyed; whole dynasties and clans would have lived and died; life styles and popular notions would have come and gone; geological and ecological upheavals would have taken place repeatedly.

Witnessing these changes, we would naturally ask, “What is there in life that is worth pursuing because it doesn’t fade away with time?” [BTG magazine article published in 1988]

So religion and science aren’t incompatible…

Westboro claims that “God hates” – but that isn’t true:

“The Lord neither hates nor likes anyone, though He appears to.” [Vedānta-sūtra 2.1.34]

“I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a friend to him.” [Bhagavad Gita 9.29]

What about God’s relationship to our ‘collective’? Here are two more nice quotes about God:

“God is God. Just like gold is gold. If gold is handled by Hindu, it does not become Hindu gold. Or the gold is handled by Christian, it does not become Christian gold. Gold is gold. Similarly, dharma is one. Religion is one. There cannot be Hindu religion, Muslim religion, Christian religion. That is artificial. Just like “Hindu gold,” “Muslim gold.” That is not possible. Gold is gold. Similarly religion. Religion means the law given by God. That is religion. So God is one; therefore dharma, or religious system, should be one. There cannot be two.” [A.C. Bhaktivedanta]

“One who has got real conception of God, they have no quarrel with each other. All the history of religious fight, Hindu-Muslim or Christian-non-Christian, they are all ignorant. They are all ignorant. One who is in the knowledge, he knows that God is one. God cannot be Hindu. God cannot be Muslim. God cannot be Christian. God is God. He has no material qualification. It is our conception that “God is such and such. God is such and such.” That is imagination. That is called iconographer. They are not man in knowledge. Man in knowledge is different. He knows that God is transcendental.” [A.C. Bhaktivedanta]

God says:

“A person is said to be still further advanced when he regards all—the honest well-wisher, friends and enemies, the envious, the pious, the sinner and those who are indifferent and impartial-with an equal mind.” [Bhagavad Gita 6.9]

How could we find a more inclusive understanding?

So in any case – faith in God isn’t necessarily compelling one to be narrow minded nor ignorant.

This and more at:

http://prabhupadabooks.com

Oh and it was Steve Jobs’ who contributed to the technology that bring discussions of truth to everyone’s fingertips!!!