Ex-nuclear physicist Dr. G. Venkataraman is keen to imprint on his readers that, in studying anything about science, they are observing “The Glory of God”. This is, of course, an assumption and is not even a testable hypothesis, being a vague (undefined and indefinite) conception which is entirely non-operational. It is wrong to write about science from the viewpoint of a “true believer” in Sathya Sai Baba as God the Creator Incarnate, as Venkataraman does.
Dr. Venkataraman takes after Sathya Sai Baba and all others who try to convince through ‘sham reasoning’. Philosopher C.S. Peirce explained this as “pseudo-inquiry aimed not at finding the truth but at making a case for some conclusion immovably believed in advance”. Trying to foreshorten science to fit onto the Procrustean bed of religious belief, forcing personal and subjective interpretations onto scientific facts and theories – while presenting oneself as ‘a scientist’ while one is writing mainly as a believer is to disqualify oneself completely as a serious thinker. When the patina of well-known scientific facts is stripped off, only preaching what Sai Baba has claimed remains.
Science and Belief in God To accept Sathya Sai Baba as a universal teacher also means accepting ‘Creationism’ (see here ), That is a totally discredited quasi-theory, banned from education by a 1987 Supreme Court ruling. Venkataraman’s attempt to misuse science to support his belief in God does not befit anyone who truly bends to the scientific spirit. Among the millions of scientists today, believers in a God creator and regulator of the universe are in a minority which is gradually decreasing. As Professor Dawkins, a world-famous scientist as a foremost geneticist and evolutionary scientist and also as a non-believer in religion, has pointed out in his super bestseller The God Delusion – hardly any truly notable scientists today believe in God. (read his 1’st chapter here http://richarddawkins.net/godDelusion#firstChapter ). Dawkins writes: “The only website I could find that claimed to list ‘Nobel-Prize-winning Scientific Christians’ came up with six, out of a total of several hundred scientific Nobelists” [The God Delusion paperback – page 126]. Another interesting research shows how scientists in general are far less religious than average [ http://www.livescience.com/history/070629_religious_scientists.html ].
Einstein was not a religious believer in God
Venkataraman has promoted many famous scientists in his popularistic series (see my previous blog here) – as if this thereby lends credence to his main contention: to believe in God. Religionists – especially Sai followers in their endless hagiographies – try their utmost to allege that many scientists are believers, particularly referring to the incomparable Albert Einstein. However, Einstein wrote: “It was of course a lie when you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly” (see here). “The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.” [Albert Einstein in a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, : Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 217. ] Einstein used the word God occasionally but never in the religious sense or as a Creator [as in ‘God does not play dice’- an analogy for causal determinism, in which Einstein did believe].
SEE ALSO
Dr. G. Venkataraman’s delusions and cynical cover up
Donations to Sathya Sai Central Trust misused by/for directors etc.
Slander by Dr. G. Venkataraman & Joe Moreno
Atomic physics Puttaparthi style. Deeply intriguing
Sathya Sai Baba Deceptions Exposed 