Please Join "Hindu Science Day" - Sept 16th

"To blinding darkness go the men who make a cult of Nescience. The devotees of Science enter darkness that is darker still. Different is the fruit, they say, of Science and of Nescience. Thus from the sages have we heard who have declared this lore to us. The man who knoweth well these two, Science and Nescience, combined, O’ercoming death by Nescience by Science gaineth endless
life." - Yajur Veda 40.12-14

I am writing this post on behalf of a friend of mine, Rajiv Varma, a prolific Hindu religious, cultural, and political activist living in Houston, Texas.  Not only does Rajiv work with the South Asian community, he is active in trying to attract Westerners and other races into the fold of Hindu Dharma.  In an unprecedented spiritual event, Rajiv working with the Hindu Heritage Foundation of America has established the first ever "Hindu Science Day" which will focus on the scientific origins of the Vedic religion.  Details are below for the event and I encourage all Hindus and friends of Hindus to take note and attempt to establish similar events in their area in the upcoming years. 

All religions claim to have a scientific basis, and when Hindus assert this belief they are mocked as just being another group of charlatans trying to pass off superstition for science.  But why is Hinduism different?  The flier for the event mentions the Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig Veda as evidence of our claim that our "religion" lays upon the foundations of science. 

Nasadiya Sukta (after the incipit ná ásat, or "not the non-existent"), also known as the Hymn of Creation, is the 129th hymn of the 10th mandala of the Rigveda (10:129). It is concerned with cosmology and the origin of the universe... The Creation Hymn begins by paradoxically stating "not the non-existent existed, nor did the existent exist then" (ná ásat āsīt ná u sát āsīt tadânīm), paralleled in verse 2 by "then not death existed, nor the immortal" (ná mṛtyúḥ āsīt amŕtam ná tárhi). But already in verse 2 mention is made that there was "breathing without breath, of its own nature, that one" ânīt avātám svadháyā tát ékam). In verse 3, being unfolds, "from heat (tapas) was born that one" (tápasaḥ tát mahinâ ajāyata ékam). Verse 4 mentions desire (kāma) as the primal seed, and the first poet-seers (kavayas) who "found the bond of being within non-being with their heart's thought"... An atheist interpretation sees the Creation Hymn as one of the earliest accounts of skeptical inquiry and agnosticism. Astronomer Carl Sagan quoted it in discussing India's "tradition of skeptical questioning and unselfconscious humility before the great cosmic mysteries." - Wikipedia

Creation.

1. THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water? 2 Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day's and night's divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever. 3 Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit. 4 Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the existent's kinship in the non-existent. 5 Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder 6 Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being? 7 He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not. - Rig Veda 10.129

 The Nasadiya Sukta is my favorite scripture from the Rig Veda along with the scripture quoted at the top of this post from the Yajur Veda.  Both of these hymns make it clear that the gods came after the creation of the world, that the gods, like us, are produced by an unknown substance or being which even the greatest of the gods do not understand.  The Yajur Veda states that it is neither through nescience (ignorance) nor science that we can excel to the highest levels of human accomplishment, immortality, but we must accept both in order to gain the most fascinating powers and abilities which the universe still keeps secret from us. Most people don't know this, but Hinduism actually has a god of atheistic materialism, Bṛhaspati, who contradictorily is the teacher of the gods.  His Lokāyata ("materialistic", "atheistic") sutras is the foundational text of the Cārvāka school of "materialist" (nastika) philosophy. Charvaka, originally known as Lokāyata and Bṛhaspatya, is the ancient school of Indian materialism. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embraces philosophical skepticism and rejects Vedas, Vedic ritualism, and supernaturalism. Obviously Hinduism has allowed and even created a purely scientific school of thought.

Brhaspati

"Hindu Science Day" will be accompanied by Vishvakarman worship. Vishvakrman is the deity of the creative power that holds the universe together according to the Rigveda and is considered to be the original creator, architect, divine engineer of the universe from before the advent of time, strongly implying that our universe is held together by scientific forces, and the Vedas make it clear we do not have to believe in any actual god in order to understand this concept, but as the Yajur Veda says, it's best to keep a balance between knowing (science) and not knowing (nescience), there are always opposite forces which must be kept in balance, and out of that balance is where Hinduism emerges.