The Bhagavad-Gita is not separate from the Vaishnava philosophy. The Shrimad Bhagavatam fully reveals the true import of this doctrine—that of changes of births for the soul.Christianity has disregarded the principle of change of births on the alleged ground that if it is accepted, men will not restrain their sinful propensities, rather they will indulge in vices at their sweet will in their present life, on the expectation that they will be able to make good their sins, guilts, and wrongdoings of this life in the course of the following ones. But the Shrimad Bhagavatam has crowned the principle with its true significance by means of a much fuller scientific and philosophical meaning, by instructing the urgent necessity for ardently taking up and culturing devotion to God even while the human form of life, not easily available in the after-lives, is at our disposal, without spending a single moment thereof in other useless pursuits. If we do not accept the doctrine of transmigration of the soul and adopt the instruction of the Shrimad Bhagavatam, we shall not be able to get over the all-devouring disaster of regarding matter as the sole object of our concern, which has kept its mouth wide open.

Though most of the Christians do not admit transmigration, many of the intellectual giants of the Christian world have shown several instances of their acceptance of the doctrine. Even in the Bible in St. John 9.1.2, we find, “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, “Master, who has committed the sin? This man or his parents, that he was born blind from his birth?” It is seen that even some Christian Fathers clearly gave instructions about transmigration. Origen said: “Is it not more in conformity with reason that every soul for certain mysterious reasons is introduced into a body and introduced according to its deserts and former actions?” And Goethe says, “I am sure that I, such as you see me here, has lived a thousand times and I have to come again another thousand times.”

What the Greeks called metempsychosis and is called transmigration in the English language was at one time, more or less, admitted in ancient Greece, Egypt, and many places in the West. Some say that the apostles of Christ the Great, failing to reconcile their previous and subsequent conclusions with the doctrine of transmigration, were compelled to discard it. Yet no rationalist among the Christians has been able to refute the doctrine on the basis of sound reasoning; on the other hand, most of them have had to admit it. Herodotus, Pindar, Plato, etc. have all accepted it. Huxley, the illustrious scientist of the nineteenth century, has written in his religious work, Evolution and Ethics: ” None but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity, like the doctrine of evolution itself—that of transmigration which has its root in the world of reality and it may claim such support as the great argument of analogy is capable of supplying.”

Professor Lutoloski has said, “I cannot give up my conviction of a previous existence before my birth, and I have the certainty to be born again after my death, until I have assimilated all human experiences, having been many times male and female, wealthy and poor, free and enslaved, generally having experienced all conditions of human existence.”

Indeed, a scientist may be married and have a family, with those facts only dimly known to that scientist’s colleagues. In this context, we are talking about a profession—a vocation for most scientists—which is consuming to the point that the majority of interactions between colleagues is about science and not about these other attributes of a given scientists life. For many scientists, on the job, science is “public” and all other aspects of that individuals’ live are “private.”

No doubt, many of these characteristics lead to the stereotypes of scientists being in some sense different from the mainstream population, which may be viewed as anything from, at best, “nerdiness” to at worst “coldness and inhumanity.”

To Marten: A brief note of clarification: I found, different from Stark’s work, that social scientists at top research universities are *not* less religious than their natural science counterparts. As I argue in the blog (and in the book manuscript I am currently writing) both types of scientists have a spirituality that is quite different than the general population, which–in some cases–provides them with a cohesive worldview that directs how they live their lives. Looking forward to being in further dialogue.

To Ms. Robinson: I–like most social scientists–define religion in three kinds of ways: practices (whether a respondent is involved in a religious organization), identities (whether one is a Methodist or a Muslim, for example), and beliefs (in God, a deity, afterlife, etc.). You will find these three ways of defining religion reflected in the articles that I have written based on findings from the study. On one hand, you are right. Many scientists are openly negative towards the religious beliefs of their students. On the other, however, there are just as many scientists who are very open to topics related to religion and spirituality.

To Mr. Ledewitz: Based on the 1646 surveys and 275 individual interviews I completed with scientists over the past three years, I agree with you completely. Scientists do indeed have a different religious outlook than many of those in the general population. I make this argument in this article.

What do you mean by “religion” and “religious”? Are all “religions” included by you in that term, or one specific religion? It would help if you were clearer and defined your terms and were consistent in their use.

What do you mean by “Intelligent Design”? It’s dishonest that most “irreligious” academics now use “Intelligent Design” as a deliberate stand-in for what used to be simply “Creationism.” The two are not synonymous, and again, it would help if you defined your terms accurately and were consistent in their use.

Failing that, your whole thesis and conclusions fall apart, invalidating your “study.” All your “work” becomes merely one more propaganda tool against the most persistent challenge to the established “irreligious” regime’s social engineering attempt hiding behind the rubric “science.”

There’s not a single hint that irreligion may be wrong, in error in any way, or even a thoughtful admission that it’s not complete or even necessarily on the right track. There’s only “concern” through your “study” and commentary here that there are still “religious” people in the hard sciences, and what may be done to “correct” that troubling persistence of “unscientific” belief among academicians in the sciences.

Don’t you find that just a tad disingenuous? Isn’t science supposed to be open to the truth, whatever the truth may be?

How about if some of those “confused” instructors simply invited their students to actually study the differences between the two schools of thought, write a careful, thoughtful, accurate report, and give unbiased grades based on the accuracy of the information and conclusions reported on? Voila!

But that might admit valid challenges to the status quo, and the “sciences” could never stand that, could they?

The sciences have fallen to tragic lows when the very thing supposed to be pursued and established, truth, is feared, loathed, and rejected out of hand, to the extent that students and honest leaders in the sciences are punished for straying from the “approved” dogma.

I think this fear of truth is the most telling clue of all, that behind your curtain, you’re afraid there just might be something to “religion” after all.

If not, then why not just invite truth to scientifically “bring it on!”?

I haven’t read your article in Social Problems (54:2, 2007) yet on religion among academic scientists, but if I understand you correctly you argue there that, just as with normal people, belief or disbelief among scientists is (largely) explained by demographic factors. You are probably right, considering your massive and no doubt precise work, but it sounds much more prosaic than the intriguing explanation by Rodney Stark. He attributed the much higher rates of religious disaffiliation in the social sciences (in particular anthropology) to the fact that the social sciences function as an alternative worldview.

I wonder what you would find if you did a similar study in Europe. In the Netherlands, where I live, and in the rest of Europe in varying degrees too, many sociologists and anthropologists have (had) strong leftist, even marxist ideological views. There are strong links between the social sciences departments and non religious political parties. Judging from the situation here, I thought Stark’s explanation had the ring of truth: the social sciences have served as an alternative worldview, with consequences for policy, moral discourse, the organization of society, etc.

I’ve had an interesting discussion on my own blog on Stark’s book For the Glory of God, which might interest you. You’ll find it here and here.

Warm greetings,

Marten van der Meulen