Vedic Perspective
Editorial Commentary
9-17-87

  Some people view the modern technological age as the best time to be
living in the history of man while according to the Vedic perspective, man
has created a new artificial religion where scientists are the holy priests
and the scientific laboratories are the new temples and churches.
  This new high tech religion began with the theology that life came out of
a "big bang" and that man had evolved from chemicals.  But scientists were
not expert at only manufacturing some far out theories, they were practical
men also.  The scientists of this new age religion blessed the world with
electricity and motors, drugs and a promise that tomorrow will be a better
day through faith in scientific research.
  Science continued to establish their new theology and make converts all
over the world.  People were abandoning their religious traditions and
becoming disciples of technology.  Churchs were being closed and renovated
into condominiums and factories.
  Today, those remaining old-fashioned believers in God are feeling the
pressure of the new athiestic religion called technology.
  Technology wants to convert everyone into a believer of science.  Forget
about the old-fashioned God mentioned in old scriptures made famous by
saints in bygone days.  We're living in a new age, a technological age where
science has the answer to all the sufferings of mankind.
  Yes, it is a fact that science has given modern man some wonderful
facilities of life but along with the facilities, man had decided that
between God and technology, technology was more kind and forgiving.
Technology could be purchased, God couldn't; technology is immediately
available, God isn't; technology is under my control, God isn't.
  So right now man is living in the golden age of technology and for those
faithful disciples of science, life couldn't be much better.  Man has so
much control over nature and soon man will conquer of its greatest enemy
through science:  death.
  But this is the grand illusion of those devotees of science.  They'll
never be able to conquer over the inevitable force of death no matter how
many promises science may make.  As for the meantime, they are completely
unaware that death is moving closer at every moment while they bask in the
sunlight of their modern technological living.
  The religion of technology has come far.  They have almost eliminated all
resistance in their fight to liberate sexuality which is their most
pleasurable ritual.  In the sixties, during the sexual revolution, they
declared that women should have independence and thus the powerful voice of
scientific technology gave women the blessing of reproductive freedom,
declaring that a baby in the womb isn't anything more than tissue that can
be easily removed.  In the seventies, sexuality was liberated even more with
the help of highly qualified doctors and therapists who declared that sex
dysfunction was the cause of mental disorders.  Now to make everything
complete, the god of technology has converted many religious men who spread
the gospel of the joys of sex.  They are working as double agents in the
ranks of the old-fashioned theists and trying to make converts of the Pope
and the Catholic Church even.
  So even though it may be seen that life couldn't be better for those who
choose science over religion, the euphoria created by such technological
philosophy will not be able to do one thing:  It cannot give anyone lasting
happiness.  Technology is based on one fundamental principle:  There is no
such thing as the eternal soul and there is no such thing as God.  But
according to the Vedic perspective if one neglects to nourish the soul by
chanting the holy names of God like Krishna and Rama then such a person is
doomed to a high tech hellish condition of life which he falsely mistakes as
happiness.

--Vaishnava Dasa