Hare Krishna dear devotees,dandawat pranams.
I watched a YouTube video by the channel,"science is dope"
The title of the video is"how to spot a bad claim|beerbiceps as an example"
In this video,pranav,the youtuber explains bad claims, unfalsifiable claims and the reasons they can't be taken seriously in a rational approach to life. He also goes on to apply the same logic to support atheism. When I saw the video,i found him totally logical. But,i may just be an ignorant or naive person who is convinced easily. Hence my request at your lotus feet is this: can you please watch the video and refute his claims? I'm pretty sure that your divine knowledge will help me understand what his argument lacks and how theism is correct.
Dandawat pranams
Replies
i haven't seen the video but here is my suggestion:
Trying to negate the negatives is a bad idea if you are beginning on a spritual journey.The negative here being the advocation of atheism.
The better approach is fixing your mind on the positives.The positives being--reading bhagvad geeta as it is,later on srimad bhagwatam and thereafter chaitanya charitamrita.All the while chanting with your utmost attention a fixed number of mahamantra rounds everyday.
Now after you have spent a few thousand hours on the positive things,you'd probably find refuting claims of anybody advocating anything except Krishna consciousness as not worth the time and effort..
Thanks for your reply Prabhu ji,
I'm grateful that you chose to guide me, but here are the problems many in the scientific community speak about;when one invests thousands of hours on religious activities without facing the negative opinions which question them,a coping mechanism, attachment to the religion and fear of ideas being debunked set in which induce the person to never face the questions with integrity. Here's an example,if a person becomes a brahmachari and subsequently a sanyasi,it would be impossible for him to admit to himself (after being neck deep in the water)that he wasted his time.
That is the only problem many people see with the approach you mentioned. At that point,one might convince himself of all kinds of things which never happened to him. That is why I listen to their arguments too,who knows if I will be open to listening to them after I'm too deep into my practice. What is your opinion regarding this? Again, I'm just telling you the concerns raised by people and trying to learn from you, please don't think I want to argue,i just want to learn.
Seek your blessings,
Hare Krishna
See when you are ready to invest thousands of hours in something,won't you do the checking for its genuineness before?So whatever fact checking etc needs to be done should be done before and not in-between.The catch here is that you might spend lifetimes doing fact checking only and still come to no conclusion.[Such is the potency of God's illusory potency,what to do!!].
The solution in my opinion is to put in some practice(japa,reading and possibly some temple service,vaishnav service etc.).I can say with full conviction that the doubts raised by someone speaking on the strength of some half baked philosophy will melt away when you are practising with some sincerity and faith.
A little sincerity and faith are the prerequisites and which may seem a little not logical but , well Krishna has got nothing to prove ,it is we who need the clarity,conviction etc,so yeah with little faith and sincerity the practice has to be done.
That makes sense prabhuji,i understood. Thank you so much for guiding me,dandawats at your lotus feet.