“Spirituality”, “Science” and “Social structure”… These are the three different and very independent aspects which are the pillars of modern democracy. Infact, these three will identify how advanced one country is over the other. They must be kept independent and have same priority without imposing or interfering with one another. The concept of keeping spirituality, science and social structure independently is simple and also important as it has far reaching positive impact.
Spirituality is based on personal beliefs
Spirituality is a private affair and something that is a personal belief. It may not change or changes slowly. Spirituality makes people better human beings and help them connect with and respect others.
You have the freedom to practice and maintain your spirituality but the real problem arises when you try to force outdated social structures in today’s society or prevent the progress of Science.
Every religion has a spiritual message and it help improve its followers and makes them better. Spirituality of a person belonging to one religion may be appealing to the people of other religions if they have an open mind. For example, Dalai Lama who is known for his spirituality has been followed and respected by many people of other religions.
Instead of thinking religion and spirituality as having limitless scope, it is always better to restrict the scope to their domain and not allow them to interfere with other areas.
Science is based on proofs
Science is in the realm of discovery and growth of knowledge of physical things. Science is one of the key aspects that measures the advancement and development of a country or civilization. While Science is great, it is difficult for everyone in the society to have same standard of knowledge as Scientists.
Science when applied and mass manufactured reaches out to a large number of people like electricity, electric bulb or treatment of malaria, etc.
Science in the present world is clear, but it was not in the past. Technological advancement happened in the past also but, it appeared to be conflicting with the religion.
In the past, there was a tendency to include all three (Spirituality, Science and Social structure) into one and the independence was not maintained, that lead to unnecessary problems. For example, Galileo who played major role in scientific revolution and supported/promoted heliocentric theory of Sun being static and Earth revloving around it (Copernicus theory) was against the church at that time(Though it was right). So, he was opposed by the Roman Catholic Church and was punished in 1632 and condemned to life imprisonment. He was under house arrest till his death in 1634.
The western civilization fought very hard and strived a lot before they restricted the role of religion. Since then, their economies and progress have skyrocketed.
Social structure is based on inheritance and accepted practices
Social structure is the practice that prevails in the society and is accepted by majority of the people or the practice that is empowered by the rulers in the name of law.
Among all the three, the changes in the Social structure are quite common (sometimes with the develpments in the world, sometimes for the selfish cause of rulers or the privileged).
Democracy is also a social structure. Democracy by nature means no fixation on who is leader. Anyone can become leader and it is the decision of the people. But this was unacceptable earlier. Social structure then was, only king’s son become next king/ruler.
There were many other examples in history where social structure changed. Like, in India there were many bad practises like untouchability, Sati Sahagamana etc. which was the social structure then and took many years and great struggle of reformers to abolish them.
Not only in India, Change in social structure is common to any country. For example, Blacks were treated as slaves till 1865 in USA, women were not allowed to vote in USA till 1920 and till 1971 in Switzerland. These were the rigid practices (Social structure) that took few decades to make amendments.
On the other hand, lack of social structure is anarchy and it leads to lot of difficulty if it does not exist.
Why Science, Spirituality and Social strucure must be independent?
Science is based on the proofs, whereas, religion is based on beliefs and social structure is based on maintaining pre-existing administrative simplicity and accepted social practices. These three are independent and for a modern democracy, it is very important that none of these three interfere with one another. Interference will lead to an inferior civilization.
Wherever Spirituality, Science and Social structure are independent, there is a possibility of developing a superior civilization.