Deepak Chopra on Science & Spirituality
The title of his latest book is War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality. But Dr. Deepak Chopra admits that science and spirituality connected and shouldn’t be pitted against one another. He believes that both are critical to solving the big problems facing the world.
He says, “The scientific method is very precise but scientific human beings who lack a connection to the spirit will continue to create atom bombs, nuclear weapons and mechanized death and biological warfare, destruction of ecosystems and global warming.”
The book is designed as a point-counter-point discussion of God in science. Co-written with physicist Leonard Mlodinow, who is most well known for co-writing A Brief History of Time with Dr. Stephen Hawking, Chopra says the book is a primer about the beginning of the universe, evolution and how biology functions, all geared toward an audience who believes God is a necessary part of science.
Dr. Chopra, who is a medical doctor and neuro endocrinologist in addition to being a highly revered motivational speaker and spiritual leader, says that there are many things around us that science cannot yet answer.
He says, “Science cannot answer why there are laws. Science doesn’t say that God is a delusion. Science does not even at the moment understand what the human spirit or consciousness is. We’re having a conversation and discussing certain things and of course we need a brain to do that. But where is insight? Where is imagination? Where is creativity? Where is intuition? Where is intention? Where is free will? Science at the moment doesn’t address these questions.”
One Response to “Deepak Chopra on Science & Spirituality”
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I think Richard Feynman had a much better set of questions at the end of his talk on science and religion.
Chopra’s questions remind me too much of the rhetorical argument made by prosecutor in My Cousin Vinny, asking about what would “the correct ignition timing be on a 1955 Bel Air Chevrolet, with a 327 cubic-inch engine and a four-barrel carburetor?” Marisa Tomei’s answer echoes my own.
In particular, I think empirical evidence indicates that Chopra’s comment about”scientific human beings who lack a connection to the spirit will continue to create atom bombs, nuclear weapons and mechanized death and biological warfare, destruction of ecosystems and global warming” is wrong.
Anyone who knows about the life of Robert Oppenheimer – the scientific leader of the first atom bomb effort – knows he taught himself Sanskrit so he could read the Bhagavad Gita in its original language and discussed how much it shaped his philosophy of life. Not a man who lacked connection to the spirit, he accurately quoted the Bhagavad Gita at the first explosion of a nuclear device.
It is likely that scientific human beings do bad things pretty much for the same reasons religious human beings do bad things – they are human beings, prone to errors, mistakes and rationalizations.