A Devotee and Scientist Asks:
Hare Krishna
HH Hanumat Preshaka Swami had to leave immediately after his discourse today, and we couldn't get to ask a question
I'm hoping someone on this forum may be able to help
We learn that truth has the attributes of
1. Being independent...whether majority believes or disagrees with it, truth remains the truth. It doesn't need anything like proof, etc. to exist
2. Being eternal... truth is unchanging. It stays the same irrespective of time, place, or circumstances
3. Being universal... it is applicable to everyone, everything, everywhere
4. Being inimitable....truth cannot be manufactured
With this in mind, why is something like faith required to understand/realize truth?
After all, faith can make one accept lies to be the truth & vice versa
There are more basal things like hunger, which doesn't require anything external like faith or person to tell us we're hungry.... so why is it that for something sublime like truth, which is independent anyway, we rely on a shaky thing like faith?
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Hanumatpresaka Swami (Professor H. H. Robinson)
Such and excellent and also very fundamental question. We also have been attentive to this personally, and also in our dealings in science, even in discourses with even Nobel Laureattes.
Of course, this is the general area of Epistemology, How do we Know.
Ontology has been described as, What we can Know.
Praxiology as, What we do about It.
Yes, the word Faith has been denigrated by modern materialistic people as being Blind Faith, but this is condemned by Srila Prabhupada, and our Caitanya, Bengali, Vaisnava community. For example, it is directly declared in purport to BG As It Is 4.34.
"In this verse, both blind following and absurd inquiries are condemned."
https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/4/34/
It is a big topic with lots written on the subject.
I would say the way Srila Prabhupada uses the word faith is a translation of the word "sraddha". In his sense he is using it like saying the Old Jeeves is a very faithful servant.
We may know something but we don't apply it. We are unfaithful.
In some ways it is the same as the word 'Bhakti' or 'Love'.
Then it becomes pretty easy, no?
If we say that the Truth cannot be known without Love, Respect, then it becomes easier approach the problem of faith and knowledge.
One class of "Scientists" take Science as dominating the material energy. Forcing her to reveal her confidential secrets and forcing her to gratify our masculine desires.
😟
In The Voice of Experience Dr. R. D. Laing gives some just astonishing quotations, statements, about this perspective in science.
Does reality have a moral and ethical component, or is it just impersonal truth that can be accessed equally by demons and atheists, or gods and heroes?
PhD means Teacher of Love of Wisdom. So if you are a PhD in physics you don't have to teach your students anything, no information or rational processes. You just have to teach them to LOVE Truth!!!
Does a prominent Research Scientist leading a large and respected team in some cutting edge area of science have'Faith' in the hypothesis they are now pursuing?
Arjuna surrendered to Krsna in BG 2, but he had lots of doubts after that.
Diksa means that you don't bring up artificial doubts to try to avoid surrender.
Diksa means that we agree to go on asking practical questions as long as the Guru keeps on supplying practical answers from empirical, logical, mystical (intuitive), resources.
No blind faith is required.
We are approaching BG with a hypothesis and testing it.
One nice question for confirmed scientific materialists is:
Do you have axiomatic faith in the postulates of Euclid? 😠
Of course, they do.
We don't have faith in the postulates of Euclid because we can see red, blue and green, empirical knowledge.
As far a rational understand goes. In science it is synonimous with Mathematics.
You can't even have enumeration without Euclids postulates, what to speak of counting, arithmetric, geometry, calculus.
Its a broad topic.
I think it was Galileo whom when asked why they BELIEVED in the postulates of mathematics, responded that because they FELT right.
Vedas say that ultimately everything is RASA.
The final evidence is Rasa.
Science is based upon a fine taste that drives us on to being more and more committed.
O.K.
Some of our ideas.
