Reason vs Faith -2
Dr. Yerneni Venkateswara Rao
M.Sc.,
Ph. D
Retired
Principal
Akkineni Nageswara Rao College
GUDIVADA- A.P
yernenivrao@gmail.comh.
Actually, in 1975, as many as 186
leading scientists including 19 Nobel Laureates debunked astrology, “the
illegitimate daughter of astronomy” (Johan Keppler) as hogwash contributing to
the growth of irrationalism, superstition and obscurantism. Even Gautama, the
Buddha, warned more than two and a half millennia ago that “star-gazing and
astrology, forecasting lucky and unlucky events by signs , prognosticating good
and evil, all these are things forbidden” and Swami Vivekananda in recent times
described ‘astrology and all those mystical things as signs of a weak mind’.
No doubt credulity is the fertile ground for
astrology to flourish where as concrete facts of human experience constitute
the firm foundation for rationality. But there are so many aspects of life, in
fact vast tracts of it, that cannot be reduced to and packaged into concrete
facts and on all such hard rocks in the ocean of reality, the ship of
rationality flounders and finally becomes immobilized.
If only we pause for a moment and ponder over
all the things that we normally do and all the people we usually meet with
right from the moment of our getting up from bed to the moment of our going to
bed, on any typical day we realize what an insignificant role rationality plays
in our day-to-day life. For instance, why we like doing certain things and not
others, and why we are comfortable dealing with certain people and not others
are matters not of the intellect but of the heart and hence beyond rational
explanation. The most that we may come up with by way on (non) explanation is
that we feel like doing those things and relating to those people and not
others . Can we be sure of doing the same things and savouring the company of
the same people over again is a question that must, of necessity, remain
unanswered until after the actual doings and meetings have taken place.
Likewise, the way we dress and the way we design and decorate our homes and
offices , what we prefer to eat, what we opt to read, which memories we dwell
on or cherish, which values we hold dear, which qualities we admire , what
games we play, what films we watch , what music we appreciate/enjoy, the places
we visit, the activities we patronize and promote, the ideas we find diverting
, the issues we care about, the dreams that we dare to dream, the deeds we care
to accomplish/do, the causes we identify ourselves with, the institutions we
patronize, the prospects we shy away from, the beauty spots we frequent, the
jokes we crack, the treats we long for and the heroes we fall for, our
favourite hobbies and our artistic interests and aesthetic choices and
countless other preferences and prejudices of ours are all matters of taste
having little or nothing to do with rationality.
And for that matter, none of the
characteristically human attributes like compassion, hope , charity, love,
sympathy, goodness, aesthetic sensibility, creativity, warmth , affection and
happiness as also their negative counterparts can be measured and assigned
definite numbers to suit the needs of rational analysis. These abstract
attributes continue to defy precise description, accurate quantification and
reliable prediction that are intrinsic to rational analysis and study.
Thus almost all qualitative attributes of
life will have to remain for ever outside the pale of rationality which, by its
very nature, can adequately grapple with only such facts of human experience as
can be concretized and reduced to definite quantitative entities and expressed
as numbers to accord with Lord Kelvin’s dictum: “ To measure is to know”. In
other words, it doesn’t concern itself with the value of things but prefers to
deal exclusively with the price of things as it were and such other
quantitative properties which can be measured and numbered.
Rationality , no doubt, offers ideal
solutions fro a rational world, but the none- too-perfect real world is so
closely tied to emotion that logic does not always prevail and hence, what are
needed are not ideal solutions but practical solutions to real world problems.
Just think of all the occasions on which we tend to be critical without any
sustainable logic or supportive facts. Reason must necessarily reign but always
under the suzerainty of wisdom in the real world.
Therefore to the extent the rationalists rely
on their mental prowess and intellectual acumen to the total exclusion of the
illuminating intimations of intuition and the balancing role of the heart , to
that extent their explorations of the world remain superficial and their
understanding of life and its purposes incomplete.
Professional intellectuals labouring under
the tyranny of reason, perhaps were the ones that Mahatma Gandhi had in mind
when we observed: “ Rationalists are admirable beings ; rationalism is a
hideous monster when it claims for itself omnipotence. Attribution of
omnipotence to reason is as bad a piece of idolatry as is the worship of stones
believing them to be God. I do not plead for the suppression of reason but for
the recognition of ‘That’ in us which sanctifies reason”. “Emphasizing the
limits of reason “, he added “The heart accepts a conclusion for which the
intellect subsequently finds the reasoning. Argument follows conviction. Man
often finds reason in support of whatever he does or wants to do”.
Isaac Asimov, the most prolific author and
world’s preeminent populariser of science with a view to dispelling the
smugness and complacency of the people about the omnipotence of science wrote :
“ My own candidate for the title of (mankind’s)Dangerous Delusion No 1 is
‘Science can solve everything’. Science CAN’T and that’s the way it is”. What
is true of science is equally true of rationality since science is flaunted by
the latter as its most visible fruit and acme of its success.
So need it be said that wise are the ones
among rationalists who are mindful of those limitations of rationality and
severe ones at that, and resist the temptation of trespassing into the
territory beyond , where they are bound to fail as surely as they succeed
within.
If the methods of the rationalists and the
astrologers are so distinctly different, their ends are no less so. While
intellectual joy of being able to understand and explain reality on the basis
of rational thought with a few fringe benefits like fame and a fairly
comfortable living on the side is what is aspired for by the former, the latter
‘s purpose appears to be far more mundane; for most, it is making money at the
cost of gullible public, the more the naivety of their clients, the greater
their earnings, but for a few, its no more than a worthwhile hobby or a
favourite pastime to amuse themselves and their friends.
Thus while rationality is a small island in the vast ocean of life
where its writ runs without let or hindrance, astrology is nothing more than a
patch of surf or sea foam with no moorings anywhere. But the trouble with either
is their protagonists tend to overzealous to the point of being fanatical about
their inviolability and make the most extravagant and, at times, even arrogant
claims on their behalf ; the former mistake island for the whole world
contemptuously dismissing what lies beyond its narrow confines as of no
consequence and extoll its omnipotence in prying open the case hardened shells
shielding the secrets of mother nature while the latter lay claim to the ocean
of life itself for want of anything substantial than mere foam and start
pretending to be omniscient ever at the ready to play God. “Astrology is
something divine and the correct interpretation of the horoscope rests on one’s
experience and intuitive capacity”, said Dr BV Raman, editor of ‘The Astrological
Magazine’ at the 4th All India Astrology Conference, Kanpur on November 14, 1998.
Thus, they both dogmatically believe and
audaciously claim that they hold the keys of the kingdom of knowledge and are
always on the alert to explain away their failures by putting the blame on the
inadequacy of data or inaccuracy of particular parameters or as a last resort,
putting them down to a want of interpretative skill on the part of the person
concerned.
Now, one last claim often made by either but
which is as hollow and devoid of substance as it is boastful. The astrologers
assertion that the predictions made by a competent astrologer are always
correct is but a kind of catch 22 situation for the
competent astrologer, by definition is one most or all of who’s predictions
turn out to be correct, just as the rationalists claim that rationality
explains every worth while phenomenon , event or occurrence, the latter being
defined as that which can be comprehended with in the framework of reasoning,
is. They thus cleverly put their interlocutors in a heads- I- win- tails- you-
lose bind / predicament and think that they have effectively fortified
themselves against the attacks of others as well as those of each against the
other.
But unfortunately for them, there are far too
many astrological predictions that go wrong and far too many phenomena that
defy understanding on a rational basis. Yet, the never-say-die astrologers and
the no-nonsense-rationalists continue to remain/ride on their high horses ,
nonchalantly explaining away their setbacks, the former by citing the
incompetence of their brother astrologers and the latter by dismissing any and
every phenomenon that proves a hard nut to crack as a thing of no consequence
and hence, unworthy of their rational endeavours instead of indulging in a bit
of honest self introspection and facing upto the emergent truth of / about the
respective hobby horses or pet pursuits.
However, when the ocean is in fury and the
island gets inundated overwhelming both perhaps then, they realize the folly of
trying to contain the uncontainable , know the unknowable, predict the
unpredictable, grasp the ungraspable and limit the unlimited , the infinite
that is life.
They may make a living by means of their pet
pursuits but can never make it to the far side of life , an elusive enigma , an
enticing mirage , an ever receding horizon and an enchanting rainbow, forever
beckoning to us.
Life being largely non rational or super
rational and hence unpredictable, rationality and astrology both continue to
thrive with neither being starved of its share /quota of adherence or degree of
popularity –the former busy picking up a pebble here and a pearl there from the
ocean front and the latter preoccupied with presenting ageless and evergreen
dreams wrapped in ever newer packages.
