Rational Believers: Religion, Tradition and Spirituality among Indian Scientists

Abstract

Thischapter attempts to discuss, through detailed ethnographic description, the manner in which scientists in a leading Indian scientific research institute defined and practiced religion and atheism(s). Instead of posing science and religion as dichotomous categories, the chapter demonstrates their easy coexistence within the everyday lives and practices of Indian scientists. The hyper-rationalism associated with modernity and Western science did not over determine their everyday life and practices. The ‘religious’ scientists did not perceive their religiosity in opposition to science, nor did they accept the conflictual view of science and religion. For them, science and religion are two different ‘modes of existence’, and they perceived the science-religion conflict as an artificial one. Likewise, the ‘atheistic’ scientists did not find any contradiction in following a ‘religious’ lifestyle and simultaneously identifying themselves as atheists or non-believers. The chapter argues that the acceptance of a Western canonical understanding of atheism or belief imposes a closure on the multiple cultural meanings assumed by these categories. Any attempt to universalize or homogenize the experiences of belief and unbelief against the scale of Western modernity runs the risk of neglecting the enmeshing of these categories within the complex life worlds of Indian scientists. The chapter questions the tacit acceptance of the distinctions between science and religion and seeks to evolve new vocabularies to talk about these categories.