Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India

Science, Spirituality and the Modernization of India
Author: Makarand R. Paranjape
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2009-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1843317761

Spirituality played a key role in the construction of Indian modernity. While science has certainly been an agent of modernization in India and other non-Western countries, what makes Indian modernity somewhat special is that spiritual leaders have also been instrumental in the process. Moreover, leading Indian scientists and spiritualists have recognized the immense potential for dialogue between the two disciplines. Post-colonial India, with its ready access to a holistic spirituality and significant achievements in science and technology, is a fertile site for such a dialogue. Each of the book’s four sections addresses specific themes: (1) The tension not just between science and spirituality, but also between the East and West; (2) how some key figures in India became carriers of modern consciousness, and explored the relationship between science and spirituality in the very process of trying to reform their society; (3) significant areas of research in which science and spirituality are both deeply implicated; and (4) the relationship of both scientific and spiritual practice with gender and social justice.

Science and Religion in India

Science and Religion in India
Author: Renny Thomas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000534316

This book provides an in-depth ethnographic study of science and religion in the context of South Asia, giving voice to Indian scientists and shedding valuable light on their engagement with religion. Drawing on biographical, autobiographical, historical, and ethnographic material, the volume focuses on scientists’ religious life and practices, and the variety of ways in which they express them. Renny Thomas challenges the idea that science and religion in India are naturally connected and argues that the discussion has to go beyond binary models of ‘conflict’ and ‘complementarity’. By complicating the understanding of science and religion in India, the book engages with new ways of looking at these categories.

New Perspectives in Indian Science and Civilization

New Perspectives in Indian Science and Civilization
Author: Makarand R. Paranjape
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2019-08-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0429534353

This book examines key aspects of the history, philosophy, and culture of science in India, especially as they may be comprehended in the larger idea of an Indian civilization. The authors, drawn from a range of disciplines, discuss a wide array of issues — scientism and religious dogma, dialectics of faith and knowledge, science under colonial conditions, science and study of grammar, western science and classical systems of logic, metaphysics and methodology, and science and spirituality in the Mahabharata. This collection of essays aims to evolve a framework in which science, culture, and society in India may be studied fruitfully across disciplines and historical periods. With its diverse themes and original approaches, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in the fields of the history and philosophy of science, science and religion, cultural studies and colonial studies, philosophy and history, as well as India studies and South Asian studies.

Temples of Modernity

Temples of Modernity
Author: Robert M. Geraci
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2018-08-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 149857775X

Temples of Modernity uses ethnographic data to investigate the presence of religious ideas and practices in Indian science and engineering. Geraci shows 1) how the integration of religion, science and technology undergirds pre- and post-independence Indian nationalism, 2) that traditional icons and rituals remain relevant in elite scientific communities, and 3) that transhumanist ideas now percolate within Indian visions of science and technology. This work identifies the intersection of religion, science, and technology as a worldwide phenomenon and suggests that the study of such interactions should be enriched through attention to the real experiences of people across the globe.

Religion and Science: The Basics

Religion and Science: The Basics
Author: Philip Clayton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2018-09-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351355910

Religion and science are arguably the two most powerful social forces in the world today. But where religion and science were once held to be compatible, many people now perceive them to be in conflict. This unique book provides the best available introduction to the burning debates in this controversial field. Examining the defining questions and controversies, renowned expert Philip Clayton presents the arguments from both sides, asking readers to decide for themselves where they stand: • science or religion, or science and religion? • history and philosophy of science • the role of scientific and religious ethics – modifying genes, extending life, and experimenting with human subjects • religion and the environmental crisis • the future of science vs. the future of religion. Thoroughly updated throughout, this second edition explores religious traditions from around the world and provides insights from across the sciences, making this book essential reading for all those wishing to come to their own understanding of some of the most important debates of our day.

Science and Religions in America

Science and Religions in America
Author: Greg Cootsona
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2022-12-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000820726

What is religion? What is science? How do they interact with each other? Science and Religions in America: A New Look offers a cutting-edge overview of the diverse range of religious traditions and their complex and fascinating interaction with science. Pluralistic in scope, the book is different from traditional Christian and/or monotheistic approaches to studying the rich interplay of religion and science in multi-religious American culture. Featuring interviews with specialists in the field, Greg Cootsona draws on their insights to provide a comprehensive, accessible, and engaging introduction to the challenging interrelationship of religion and science. Each chapter focuses on a different religion within the United States, covering Buddhism, Christianity, Nature Religions, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and the Spiritual but Not Religious (SBNR). Global religious traditions and their inextricable relationship with science and technology are examined in an accessible and interactive format. With "lightning round Q&As," contributions from leading thinkers, and suggestions for further reading, this book primes undergraduate students for studying the interchange of science and religions (in the plural) and is an exciting new resource for those interested in these topics in contemporary America.

Guru to the World

Guru to the World
Author: Ruth Harris
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2022-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674247477

Guru to the World tells the story of Swami Vivekananda, the nineteenth-century Hindu ascetic who introduced the West to yoga and to a tolerant, scientifically minded universalist conception of religion. Ruth Harris explores the many legacies of Vivekananda’s thought, including his impact on anticolonial movements and contemporary Hindu nationalism.

Christian Theology in the Pluralistic World

Christian Theology in the Pluralistic World
Author: Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 705
Release: 2019-06-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467456829

Kärkkäinen’s acclaimed five-volume constructive theology abridged in one accessible volume Providing a new and unique way of doing theology in our pluralistic world, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen presents historic Christian doctrines in relation to the natural sciences and four other living faiths—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. This textbook covers all systematic topics along with a host of current issues such as violence, colonialism, inclusivity, sociopolitical liberation, environmental care, and more. Accessible and student-friendly, Christian Theology in the Pluralistic World is the ideal text for exploring a theological vision at once rooted in the Christian tradition and constructive in its engagement with the complexities of our global, pluralistic world.

Science and Spirituality in Modern India

Science and Spirituality in Modern India
Author: Makarand R. Paranjape
Publisher: Makarand Paranjape
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion and science
ISBN:

Papers presented at the International Conference on Science and Spirituality in Modern India, held at New Delhi during 5-7 February 2006.

Debating the 'Post' Condition in India

Debating the 'Post' Condition in India
Author: Makarand R. Paranjape
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2017-10-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 135158359X

How was the post-modernist project contested, subverted and assimilated in India? This book offers a personal account and an intellectual history of its reception and response. Tracing independent India’s engagement with Western critical theory, Paranjape outlines both its past and ‘post’. The book explores the discursive trajectories of post-modernism, post-colonialism, post-Marxism, post-nationalism, post-feminism, post-secularism — the relations that mediate them — as well as interprets, in the light of these discussions, core tenets of Indian philosophical thought. Paranjape argues that India’s response to the modernist project is neither submission, willing or reluctant, nor repudiation, intentional or forced; rather India’s ‘modernity’ is ‘unauthorized’, different, subversive, alter-native and alter-modern. The book makes the case for a new integrative hermeneutics, the idea of the indigenous ‘critical vernacular’, and presents a radical shift in the understanding of svaraj (beyond decolonisation and nationalism) to express transformations at both personal and political levels. A key intervention in Indian critical theory, this volume will interest researchers and scholars of literature, philosophy, political theory, culture studies and postcolonial studies.