Basudev Mandal Sir
Since the beginning of civilization when it was in its rudimentary stage, man has tried to solve his problems with a view to making the environment more and more hospitable and his life more and more comfortable. His constant quest has always been for a better life. Life indeed has become much more comfortable than ever before but man’s endeavour to make it further comfortable has not ceased, rather it has intensified.
Man tried to solve his problems in two ways– 1. scientific 2.unscientific. The first approach always helped him in his endeavour while the second naturally impeded it. He increased the production of food by discovering agriculture and built shelters and made clothes, transported things with less labour by domesticating animals and by inventing the boat and the wheel. He invented tools to apply in all these fields. However, with this earliest technology, he could not solve all his major problems; particularly at this stage, it was impossible for him to fight diseases as he did not know their causes and had no remedies for them. So he looked to some imaginary supernatural power or powers, performed magical rituals ( which still many people do in some parts of the world) with a view to achieving his objectives such as augmenting production of food, warding off natural calamities, preventing the outbreak of epidemics, getting sufficient rainfall, having more children etc.
Thus the scientific methods helped him solve or mitigate his problems, very slowly in the past, but sometimes by leaps and bounds. For instance, the progression of human civilization from the Stone Age to the Bronze, and then to the Iron Age took thousands of years. But it made a leap during the Industrial Revolution that commenced in Europe in the second half of the the 18th century, and then in the 21st century, it happened in the form of automation and information technology. Man has been exploring the outer space looking for habitable zones and for extraterristrial life. His productive capacity and speed have tremendously increased. Of course, there are still problems that have been created by unsustainable development as a consequence of inordinate human interference with nature and environment, mainly as a result of greed and avarice. The other method i.e.magic formulae and later religious rituals prescribed by organised religions could solve no material problems of man and improve the quality of life. On the contrary, such practices burnt huge energy in unproductive activities and misdirected man from the path of material progress, often inducing him to accept his plight in this world and believe in an imaginary somewhere for the fulfilment of needs and desires. Such unscientific approach gave man no means to increase the production of essential commodities or solve any worldly problems. One of the major causes of the division of the human race , alienation of one community from another, blood- letting riots and wars has been religion. In no scriptures is there any mention of human blood groups, the microbes or pathogens, no real remedies for ailments , of no formulae of power- driven engine, the causes of natural phenomena etc.
However, all of the things written in man’s ancient books of religion are not based on imagination or occultism. So long as these are based on actual observation, application and the conclusion drawn from them, they are scientific. Astronomical findings based on mathematical calculations, the positions of the stars including the constellations and of planets, the timings of the eclipses, the high tide and low tide etc. cannot be questioned simply because these are written in an almanac in which religious rituals connected to then are prescribed. Hence a confusion was deliberately created by intertwining the facts with concocted stories and the rituals associated with them.Why did some of our ancestors feel the necessity of inventing shrewd lies about the causes of natural phenomena such as the eclipses, diseases etc? The major reason was the limitation of the human sense organs— man cannot see with his naked eyes things smaller than of a particular size or things situated beyond a certain distance. The ancient humans had no instrument such as the microscope or the telescope to enhance their capacity of observing objects that could not be seen with naked eyes, or instruments to catch sound waves beyond certain wavelengths. So they made guesses and concocted fictitious explanations of observed phenomena to fool the masses. For instance, they could make precise calculations about the times of occurrences of the eclipses , but they could not discover at that stage of civilization the causes of these phenomena. So some of the Indians fabricated the myths of the demons swallowing the Sun and the Moon in the name of religion. Thus these fictitious explanations of the natural phenomena were sanctified in the name of religion. Notwithstanding such retrogressive and degenerating pulls, civilization made progress, not piggybacking on imaginary and obscurantist beliefs thrust on mankind by a handful of them, but being assisted by the glorious inventions made by the proper application of the human intellect.
In earlier times when the means of production were less developed, a certain community or mankind as a whole, so to say, could not produce sufficient quantities of commodities required to meet the necessities of all its members. So a handful of them enjoyed a kind of good life at the cost of the suffereing of the multitude—- by exploiting them in the name of religion or by force. Some of these privileged people would make some charities such as establishing educational institutions, charitable dispensaries, digging ponds, making roads etc. But the good life that those privileged people enjoyed was based on the exploitation of man by man. Therefore that kind of ‘good life’ was bloodstained. As the minds of those people were occupied with greed and cruelty towards fellow human beings, and the designs to materialise them, they could not attain true freedom of the mind and cultural broadness beyond a certain point. On the other hand , the oppressed and deprived were forced to live subhuman lives. In other words, those privileged people were spiritually misdirected and culturally circumscribed by those inhuman factors— exploitation and oppression of man.
Now a time has arrived in human history since the arrival of the Homo sapiens on this planet, when by the proper application of science and technology, all the material needs of man can be satisfied— food, shelter, clothes, transport, prevention and curing of diseases and proper education, and so on and so forth. Therefore, there shall be no need of exploitation of man by man. Consequently, all the human beings will be enabled to lead good life— both material and spiritual. Evidently this prospective good life will be far better and more humanistic than the ‘good life’ enjoyed by a privileged few in the past. It will break down the barriers that have segregated humankind, make them better human beings and the Earth, a much better place to live on. They will be emancipated from the aberration of hating, hurting and humiliating one another; occultism and obscurantism will be forced to recede further to the background. The positive aspects of the human self such as love, compassion, generosity etc. will further expand and strengthen.
This is not to mean that there will remain no problems at all. There will still be differences between ideas, opinions and ideals; newer problems will crop up. Man will face them patiently and rationally eliminating the aberrations, defeating the divisive forces that create walls among communities and nations in the name of religion, jingoism etc. Narrowness in all its forms eliminated, men and women will have time and energy for further betterment of life, to delve deeper into the psyche, to explore the outer space, strive to discover whether man is really alone in the universe, whether the Earth is the only planet harbouring life, or whether there are other habitable zones in the outer space . But first let us learn to truely love our dear Earth and love one another— enjoy the joy of loving and being loved, the joy of donating (including blood and organs) and above all, sharing and then march together towards a hitherto unknown and unheard of world of happiness and joy. This is very much possible if we can share a sense of togetherness, pushing to the background all divisive tendencies resulting from nationalistic ego, cultural chauvinism and religious dogma. The positive humanistic aspects of all the cultures should be harmonized and finally assimilated into one pluralistic but composite human culture.
It is often contended that machine has made man mechanical, shorn him of his human values. This has happened to some extent but should not be allowed to continue any further .We can really regain the lost values assisted by the machine itself. Man invented machine with a view to making life more and more comfortable and enjoyable. But in spite of material progress, life devoid of positive human emotions and values can in no way bring real happiness and joy.The same road that leads to a vibrant modern city, may lead one to a dreary desert if one moves in the wrong direction.It is we who have to make machine serve us in a human way in order to achieve our goal instead of allowing it to rob us of our human qualities. We have to do this in order to fulfil our aspirations to become better human beings in all respects
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