Prabhupada: ..Betterment of humanity will depend on studying the cosmic nature or not? What does Auguste Comte say?
Hayagriva: The purpose for studying the universe is to improve nature, is to improve man’s situation in nature. To improve the lot of man.
Prabhupada: How? How? So far we are concerned, that any living being is destined to a certain position of happiness and distress. By dint of his past activities he gets a particular type of body destined to suffer or enjoy. That cannot be changed.
Either you call this fatalism or destiny—every man is destined—that cannot be changed. His intelligence can change only his position with reference to God. His present position is he is forgetful of God and his relationship with God. So this position, forgetfulness, can be changed, and human life is meant for that purpose. So far improvement of economic condition or other condition, that is already fixed up.
One cannot change it. So that is confirmation in the Srimad-Bhagavatam: he is creating his own destiny. Just like it is said, “Man is the architect of his own fortune.” Destiny cannot be changed. It is fixed up. Tasyaiva hetoh prayateta kovido. Anyone who is very expert and intelligent, he should know that destiny cannot be changed, but he can change his position with reference to his relationship with God.
At the present moment he is forgetful of his relationship, but by good association, by Vedic knowledge, by training, he can change his position, and in that way he can improve his destiny also, or he can change his destiny. Karmani nirdahati kintu ca bhakti-bhajam [Bs. 5.54] A person, by engaging himself in devotional service, he can change his destiny. Otherwise destiny is very strong. It cannot be changed.
Hayagriva: He draws a distinction between atheism and positivism. He says, “Atheism, even from the intellectual point of view, is a very imperfect form of emancipation, for its tendency is to prolong the metaphysical stage indefinitely by continuing to seek for new solutions of theological problems instead of setting aside all inaccessible researches on the grounds of their utter inutility.
In a word, atheism is still concerned with studying the ‘why’ instead of the ‘how,’ and positivism, true positivism, is concerned with the ‘how’ instead of the ‘why.’ ” In other words, he felt that religion quo religion, religion as religion, had best be set aside because religious questions are basically childish.
They can never be answered. So atheism is rejected because atheists “occupy themselves with theological problems and yet reject the only appropriate method of handling them.” And for him the only appropriate method is to forget the whole thing.
Prabhupada: So how can he forget? Atheism will help anyone to improve his position? Just like death. Atheist, if he does not believe in God and God sends him death, how he can counteract it? He has no power to counteract it. We understand from Bhagavad-gita that death is God for the atheist.
Atheists do not believe in God, but God comes to him as death to convince him that “Here I am.” So how the atheist can avoid? How it will improve his present situation by atheistic speculation? So how the atheist can become independent? That is not possible. Full Discussions
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