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Monday, November 10, 2014

Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions



On studying astro-theology, one can easily derive the connection between gods and planets. To the ancient people planets were more powerful than the stars, as they were brighter and could move faster. Mighty Zeus is none other than Jupiter(Zeus Pater = Zupiter), even constellations were treated as gods, e.g., Orion became Osiris, etc. This is a vast subject and can consume thousands of pages. In any case, religions are geocentric, and in spite of Copernicus and Galileo, the ancient concepts rule the world.
Mythology did inspire a few things indeed. Atom model came from solar system, a few digits came from Ouroboros, even Kekule dreamt of it before proposing the structure of benzene. Arnold Toynbee believed that Egyptian mortuarists created the concept of afterlife to enhance their business.

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 10, 2014, at 8:38 PM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

"Mythology didn't give birth to modern day science."
Dr. Das, mythological/fictional stories are imaginary; so, they are not obviously scientific, but, some of those stories can surely 'inspire' or even give birth to 'ideas' or 'seeds' of scientific developments. Some modern space  technological ideas may have been inspired by some Star Trek movies, who knows? That's the point I am trying to make.
Unfortunately, I haven't heard of such relationship between mythic characters and astronomical characters, as you presented here, but, surely, authors may have those ideas in mind while creating those fictional characters.
Jiten Roy

 

From: "Kamal Das kamalctgu@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2014 10:08 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
Mythology didn't give birth to modern day science. Those who believe in the flat earth also put their trust on flying carpet. For them, Sanjay was a TV reporter from the war field of Kurukshetra giving a running commentary to the blind Dhritarastra. To make things a bit more interesting, may I add that Ganesh is Sun God and Mother Durga is Venus while Father Shiva is Saturn. In the early days Sun might have increased in size and occasional solar flares might have looked like the nose of an elephant with one tusk. In Teutonic Mythology, souls and lesser Gods reach heaven over the rainbow bridge, but Thor has to walk across a boiling river as Wodin wouldn't transport him on his boat. Such concepts were not built on scientific imagination or reality.

Sent from my iPad



On Nov 10, 2014, at 9:02 AM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Dr. Bain, the problem with your comments, most of the time, is that you think out of context.
Here, you are judging Vedic stories against modern science fiction stories. Vedic stories were at least a few thousand years old. How much scientific sophistication do you expect from the people in that era?  Did you give a thought where rest of the world was when Vedic stories were written?
When you read something from a thousand year old books, you need to think with reference to that era. Just trashing them without careful consideration, you will do injustice to those books.  
Do you know how Ganesh got his elephant head? If you do, you can compare that to the modern day face-transplant. Many Vedic stories deal with space-travel and space-warfare. If I remember correctly, Megnad used to fight from behind the cloud. Have you thought about how did those fictional ideas came to them in those days? Now, compare the standard of the Vedic people with that of the people in the rest of the world in those days. Only then, you will realize how sophisticated they were.
You found some falsifications in my comments.  What are those false statements? If you tell them, may be I can correct myself.
Jiten Roy

 

From: "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2014 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
Here are my comments on the quoted comments (below) by Dr. Jiten Roy.

I see too much of conjecture, exaggeration, imagination and falsification in Dr. Roy's comments. With the same kinds of practice, religious people of other shades have been making the claims that all kinds of knowledge can be found in their religious books. The way I see them, the stories in the Hindu scriptures are like poor quality science fictions, based upon imagination. Compared to those, many of the modern science fictions are based upon a good deal of methodical thoughts, and upon technologies that actually have been proven to work. That is why a lot of real science and technology have their roots in science fictions.

BTW: As for Modi/BJP being a threat to secularism, people need to realize that Modi/BJP is not like the fools/fanatics that throw stones at the devil after praying to their God. Even with their oxymoron of Hindutwa, they are a lot more rational people than those who believe in the dogmatic religions.

Sukhamaya Bain

==============================================================

From:
"Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To:
"mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>

Sent:
Saturday, 8 November 2014, 22:37

..........................."Indian civilization, in the Vedic era, was much advanced than any other in the world. Descriptions of inter-galactic movement through space-ship, warfare with the most advanced weapons (airplanes, rockets, missiles, etc.), in-depth knowledge of astronomy, and astrology are all in the scriptural books, which depicted the advancements of knowledge in those days."...............................................





Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
Reply via web post


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Posted by: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com>


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[mukto-mona] Christian conversions in Tirumala+Christian husband tortures for worshipping Hindu gods




Please read the following post to understand how outsourcing of Christian conversion business works  


Boy dies as teacher 'bangs his head against wall'

NALGONDA: A six-year-old boy studying in Class I of a private school died on Sunday after he was allegedly beaten up by his class teacher on Saturday for not speaking in English. 



Wife commites suicide after Christian husband tortures for worshipping Hindu gods




Thanks & Regards,


Sudhir Srinivasan
B.Arch, MSc.CPM, Dip.ID, Dip.CAD, Dip.PM, Dip.LD
| Architect | 


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Posted by: Sudhir-Architect <ar_sudhirkumar@yahoo.com>


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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





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Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions



"It is a complete waste of time to try to convince people who think science and religion are interrelated or even worse, science was born out of religion!"

I did not say - "science and religion are interrelated or even worse, science was born out of religion." This is an undue generalization of my statement. Please try to understand my point first before drawing such a broad disingenuous conclusion.

Jiten Roy


 

From: "ANISUR RAHMAN anisur.rahman1@btinternet.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2014 8:23 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
The main reason why I wrote this article (Use and misuse of science in religions) ridiculing Narendra Modi was that anybody who thinks that science was born out of mythology is either delusional or brainwashed. Now I have the feeling that Modi may not be delusional, but there are people who are.
 
Does anybody really think that astronomers discovered the Sun or the Saturn or the Venus quite a few centuries ago just by accident when they were chasing gods or goddesses of religious scriptures? Does anybody think that modern day human face lift drew inspiration from Ganesh's elephant head on human body? (Unfortunately there are people who think that is the case, as much as there are people who think that by removing 'infidels' they will go straight into heaven and have wine, women in abundance for ever).  Does anybody think that religious books contained the seed of modern scientific discoveries such as wave-particle duality or quantum entanglement or even internet? It is a complete waste of time to try to convince people who think science and religion are interrelated or even worse, science was born out of religion!

- A Rahman 


From: "Kamal Das kamalctgu@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 10 November 2014, 4:08
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
Mythology didn't give birth to modern day science. Those who believe in the flat earth also put their trust on flying carpet. For them, Sanjay was a TV reporter from the war field of Kurukshetra giving a running commentary to the blind Dhritarastra. To make things a bit more interesting, may I add that Ganesh is Sun God and Mother Durga is Venus while Father Shiva is Saturn. In the early days Sun might have increased in size and occasional solar flares might have looked like the nose of an elephant with one tusk. In Teutonic Mythology, souls and lesser Gods reach heaven over the rainbow bridge, but Thor has to walk across a boiling river as Wodin wouldn't transport him on his boat. Such concepts were not built on scientific imagination or reality.

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 10, 2014, at 9:02 AM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com</ a>> wrote:

 
Dr. Bain, the problem with your comments, most of the time, is that you think out of context.
Here, you are judging Vedic stories against modern science fiction stories. Vedic stories were at least a few thousand years old. How much scientific sophistication do you expect from the people in that era?  Did you give a thought where rest of the world was when Vedic stories were written?
When you read something from a thousand year old books, you need to think with reference to that era. Just trashing them without careful consideration, you will do injustice to those books.  
Do you know how Ganesh got his elephant head? If you do, you can compare that to the modern day face-transplant. Many Vedic stories deal with space-travel and space-warfare. If I remember correctly, Megnad used to fight from behind the cloud. Have you thought about how did those fictional ideas came to them in those days? Now, compare the standard of the Vedic people with that of the people in the rest of the world in those days. Only then, you will realize how sophisticated they were.
You found some falsifications in my comments.  What are those false statements? If you tell them, may be I can correct myself.
Jiten Roy

 

From: "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2014 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
Here are my comments on the quoted comments (below) by Dr. Jiten Roy.

I see too much of conjecture, exaggeration, imagination and falsification in Dr. Roy's comments. With the same kinds of practice, religious people of other shades have been making the claims that all kinds of knowledge can be found in their religious books. The way I see them, the stories in the Hindu scriptures are like poor quality science fictions, based upon imagination. Compared to those, many of the modern science fictions are based upon a good deal of methodical thoughts, and upon technologies that actually have been proven to work. That is why a lot of real science and technology have their roots in science fictions.

BTW: As for Modi/BJP being a threat to secularism, people need to realize that Modi/BJP is not like the fools/fanatics that throw stones at the devil after praying to their God. Even with their oxymoron of Hindutwa, they are a lot more rational people than those who believe in the dogmatic religions.

Sukhamaya Bain

==============================================================

From:
"Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To:
"mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>

Sent:
Saturday, 8 November 2014, 22:37

..........................."Indian civilization, in the Vedic era, was much advanced than any other in the world. Descriptions of inter-galactic movement through space-ship, warfare with the most advanced weapons (airplanes, rockets, missiles, etc.), in-depth knowledge of astronomy, and astrology are all in the scriptural books, which depicted the advancements of knowledge in those days."...............................................








__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





__,_._,___

Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions



"I am amused by the false pride Dr. Roy has in "unparalleled" ancient Indian literary wealth."
Who is talking about pride of literary wealth of those mythological books here? I am not, even though I could, because most of those books are considered as epic Mohakabbyas. That's not my point here. You are also mixing up things out of context. 
Let's make it clear to you all - I am only taking about 'ideas' embedded in those books, not their scientific validity of anything.
Once we assume those books as mythological stories, there is no point looking for science behind those fictional stories, but we cannot rule out the possibility that some of those 'ideas' may have inspired scientific developments in the later era. That's what I am talking about.
You must know - Indus Valley civilization started 3000 B.C., which makes it more than 5000 years old civilization. Some of the Hymns of Rig Ved were written  more than 3500 years ago. If you want to compare literatures, compare literatures in the rest of the world at that time.    
Jiten Roy
 

From: "Subimal Chakrabarty subimal@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2014 7:01 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
I am amused by the false pride Dr. Roy has in "unparalleled" ancient Indian literary wealth. I don't know what he thinks about ancient Chinese, Greek, Persian, and Roman literary wealth. We should have strong belief in the power and indispensability of scientific process and methodology for the progress of science and hence of civilization. Fictions are fictions. They can be based on wild imagination and can be termed as fairy tales. Homer's epics are probably older than the Indian epics. Like the Indian epics the Greek epics are also full of wild imaginations. 

Having said this I need to emphasize that I will never set aside these books as rubbish and not worth reading. They contain many eternal truths besides the literary beauty. I enjoy them. 

Sent from my iPhone



On Nov 9, 2014, at 9:02 PM, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Dr. Bain, the problem with your comments, most of the time, is that you think out of context.
Here, you are judging Vedic stories against modern science fiction stories. Vedic stories were at least a few thousand years old. How much scientific sophistication do you expect from the people in that era?  Did you give a thought where rest of the world was when Vedic stories were written?
When you read something from a thousand year old books, you need to think with reference to that era. Just trashing them without careful consideration, you will do injustice to those books.  
Do you know how Ganesh got his elephant head? If you do, you can compare that to the modern day face-transplant. Many Vedic stories deal with space-travel and space-warfare. If I remember correctly, Megnad used to fight from behind the cloud. Have you thought about how did those fictional ideas came to them in those days? Now, compare the standard of the Vedic people with that of the people in the rest of the world in those days. Only then, you will realize how sophisticated they were.
You found some falsifications in my comments.  What are those false statements? If you tell them, may be I can correct myself.
Jiten Roy

 

From: "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2014 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
Here are my comments on the quoted comments (below) by Dr. Jiten Roy.

I see too much of conjecture, exaggeration, imagination and falsification in Dr. Roy's comments. With the same kinds of practice, religious people of other shades have been making the claims that all kinds of knowledge can be found in their religious books. The way I see them, the stories in the Hindu scriptures are like poor quality science fictions, based upon imagination. Compared to those, many of the modern science fictions are based upon a good deal of methodical thoughts, and upon technologies that actually have been proven to work. That is why a lot of real science and technology have their roots in science fictions.

BTW: As for Modi/BJP being a threat to secularism, people need to realize that Modi/BJP is not like the fools/fanatics that throw stones at the devil after praying to their God. Even with their oxymoron of Hindutwa, they are a lot more rational people than those who believe in the dogmatic religions.

Sukhamaya Bain

==============================================================

From:
"Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To:
"mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>

Sent:
Saturday, 8 November 2014, 22:37

..........................."Indian civilization, in the Vedic era, was much advanced than any other in the world. Descriptions of inter-galactic movement through space-ship, warfare with the most advanced weapons (airplanes, rockets, missiles, etc.), in-depth knowledge of astronomy, and astrology are all in the scriptural books, which depicted the advancements of knowledge in those days."...............................................






__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





__,_._,___

Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions



""in-depth knowledge of astronomy ...... are all in the scriptural books, I find it more than exaggeration; it is falsification."
Again phrase 'in-depth' needs to be judged in the context of the era. I can agree that - above statement could be 'exaggeration,' but not 'falsification.' Falsification is making up stories about something that has no truth. Can you say that people in those days had zero knowledge of astronomy? You can't. Actually, Planets and Stars have played a very significant role in those days. Dr. Das has been referring to them for some time in this forum. Astrology was quite mature in those days.  
"BTW: Did Ganesh's body try to reject the elephant's head, as we see in modern transplant cases;"
Again, you are taking things out of context. Dr. Bain, those are mythological/fictional characters, so they are imaginary. Isn't it? Ganesh's body did not reject the elephant head, because such rejection does not occur in an imaginary character; it only happens in the real world. You are thinking of them as real.
"Now, don't get me wrong; I have been weak enough to think that the blessings of my parents did/could bring good things in my life; but I am not weak enough to think that such blessings by themselves could change established science."
Think of the above statements this way:
Blessings by themselves have no power to change anything in your life, but – they can surely boost your psychological confidence. Parents' blessings cannot make you a famous scientist, but it can give you inspiration and incentive for many of the things you do in your life.
When your father said – 'Son, I bless you, you will be successful in everything you put your hearts and minds to,' you know it is a self-serving statement, but your fathers' blessing will always come to your mind every time you take a new initiative, and it will provide some psychological boost; so, it does not make you a weak person. You have been keeping too much 'cynical' views in yourself; it's time to relax a bit.
Thank you.
Jiten Roy

 

From: "Sukhamaya Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2014 6:12 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

 
Well, Dr. Roy, I can accept that the imaginations of the Vedic stories were richer than their time. But when you suggest, for example, that "in-depth knowledge of astronomy ...... are all in the scriptural books", I find it more than exaggeration; it is falsification. BTW: Did Ganesh's body try to reject the elephant's head, as we see in modern transplant cases; or there was no such problem due to his mother's blessings? Now, don't get me wrong; I have been weak enough to think that the blessings of my parents did/could bring good things in my life; but I am not weak enough to think that such blessings by themselves could change established science.

Talking about some people being ahead of their time, I am willing to accept that Mohammad also was one such human. The problem that I see with the Muslims now is that too many of them proclaim his messages to be adequate for today's world.

Sukhamaya Bain

--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 11/9/14, Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona] <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sunday, November 9, 2014, 10:02 PM

Dr. Bain, the problem with your
comments, most of the time,
is that you think out of context. Here, you
are judging Vedic stories against
modern science fiction stories. Vedic stories were at least
a few thousand
years old. How much
scientific sophistication do you expect from the people in
that era?  Did you
give a thought where rest of the world was when Vedic
stories were written?

When you read something from a thousand
year old
books, you need to think with reference to that era. Just
trashing them without careful consideration, you will
do injustice to those books.  

Do you know how Ganesh got his elephant
head? If
you do, you can compare that to the modern day
face-transplant. Many Vedic stories
deal with space-travel and space-warfare. If I remember
correctly, Megnad used to fight from behind the cloud. Have
you thought about how did those
fictional ideas came to them in those days? Now, compare the
standard of the Vedic people
with that of the people in the rest of the world in those
days. Only then, you will
realize how sophisticated they were. You found some falsifications in my
comments.  What are those false statements? If you tell
them, may be I can correct myself.

Jiten Roy

From: "Sukhamaya
Bain subain1@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]"
<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
To:
mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November
9, 2014 7:04 PM
Subject: Re:
[mukto-mona] Use and misuse of science in religions

Here are
my comments on the quoted comments (below) by Dr. Jiten
Roy.

I see too much of conjecture, exaggeration, imagination and
falsification in Dr. Roy's comments. With the same kinds
of practice, religious people of other shades have been
making the claims that all kinds of knowledge can be found
in their religious books. The way I see them, the stories in
the Hindu scriptures are like poor quality science fictions,
based upon imagination. Compared to those, many of the
modern science fictions are based upon a good deal of
methodical thoughts, and upon technologies that actually
have been proven to work. That is why a lot of real science
and technology have their roots in science fictions.

BTW: As for Modi/BJP being a threat to secularism, people
need to realize that Modi/BJP is not like the fools/fanatics
that throw stones at the devil after praying to their God.
Even with their oxymoron of Hindutwa, they are a lot more
rational people than those who believe in the dogmatic
religions.

Sukhamaya Bain

==============================================================

From:

"Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]"

<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>

To:

"mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com"

<mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>

Sent:

Saturday, 8 November 2014, 22:37

..........................."Indian civilization, in the
Vedic era, was much advanced than any other in the world.
Descriptions of inter-galactic movement through space-ship,
warfare with the most advanced weapons (airplanes, rockets,
missiles, etc.), in-depth knowledge of astronomy, and
astrology are all in the scriptural books, which depicted
the advancements of knowledge in those
days."...............................................





__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





__,_._,___