Quote:
Originally Posted by Profpat  Hi Dipayankar; You might want to rethink your above statement:
Though atheists are in the minority in most countries, they are relatively common in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, in former and present Communist states, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. A 1995 survey attributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica indicates that the non-religious are about 14.7% of the world`s population, and atheists around 3.8% . A 2004 survey by the CIA in the World Fact book estimates about 12.5% of the world`s population to be non-religious, and about 2.4% as atheists . Non-religious people should not be equated with atheists as the definition of n on-religious persons includes the people who are professing no religion, non-believers, agnostics, freethinkers, dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religions.
It is a surprise that even after six centuries of the exponential growth of the knowledge of science, more than 95% of the people do not deny the existence of God while almost 85% of the world population actually believes in God. It is also a fact that scientific knowledge has hardly made a dent on the popularity of the religions and faith. Even Isaac Newton, the greatest scientists of all times, believed
"As a blind man has no idea of colours, so we have no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.” Even the greatest scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein agreed that “ Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Also you didn't answer is your unknown force created or eternal or something else? Best Pat |
Sir James Jeans, who made important contributions to the dynamical theory of gases, the mathematical theory of electromagnetism, the evolution of gaseous stars, the nebulae and so on writes:
Today there is a wide measure of agreement which, on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality: the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and govenor of the realm of mater---not, of course, our individual minds, but the mind in which the atoms out of which our individual minds have grown exist as thoughts.
Sir Arthur Eddington, who made impoartant contributions to the theoretical physics of stellar systems and was a leading exponent of realtivity:
The idea of a universal Mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.
I asset that the nature of all reality is spiritual, not material nor a dualism of matter and spirit. The hypothesis that its nature can be, to any degree, material does not enter into my reconing, because as we now understand matter, the putting together of the sdjective 'material' and the noun 'nature' does not make sense.