Editor – This article was published in the May 2013 issue of Prabuddha Bharata. Very good article, explains the concept simply and beautifully.  

Excerpts from article

“It has become fashionable for many to denounce religion and praise science. Some have even turned this denunciation into a career! The general argument is that religion has no scientific basis and hence is wrong. It matters little if most people know nothing of religion, or for that matter how science truly works.

The modern division between science and religion may be attributed to René Descartes (1596–1650), who first brought in the concept of the divide through his x-axis and y-axis. This divide was later called Cartesian, and it was through this divide that people started looking at matter and mind, God and world, science and religion as separate. The persecution of the scientific yet religious minds, such as Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei by the church, did not help matters.

Then one saw Voltaire adding to the growing discord between the two. By the eighteenth century God had become a ‘hypothesis’ for the scientific community. Swami Vivekananda tried to bridge this divide. It is through his works that one can understand the underlying unity between the two. During his travels in the West, he met not only religious leaders but also some leading scientists and inventors like Nikola Tesla, Hiram Maxim, Lord Kelvin, and others.”

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This article is courtesy and copyright Prabuddha Bharata (www.advaitaashrama.org). I have been reading the Prabuddha Bharata for years and found it enlightening. You can subscribe online at www.advaitaashrama.org. Cost is Rs 100/ for one year, Rs 280/ for three years, Rs 1,200/ for twenty years and Rs 2,000 for twenty five years.