Science, Religion and Development
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Farhad Aghdasi, Science, Religion and Development, bahai-library.com.
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Science, Religion and Development

2002 – Port Elizabeth

Farhad Aghdasi

INTRODUCTION

The triple theme of science, religion and development initially emerged from an initiative
taken by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which is based in
Canada and has promoted research on development for several decades. A few years ago,
IDRC asked Dr William F. Ryan, a well-known economist and development practitioner,
to travel around the world and interview some two hundred leaders of thought working in
the field of development. His question to them focused on the role of culture and
spirituality in development.

One of the interesting findings of Dr. Ryan’s study was that almost all those interviewed
felt that development strategies and planning had not taken into account the culture and
spirituality of the people of the world. There seemed to be uniform agreement that
development had been too materialistic in its approach. Further to this conclusion, they
confessed that within their own organizations and in their own life, they (the development
workers) recognized the importance of spirituality and tried to incorporate it into their
actions. However, knowing that such words and concepts were not welcomed by
international aid agencies in project proposals and reports, they had developed two
languages - one internal for their own work and the other external for making
presentations to their donors so that they could obtain support. This is quite an interesting
confession that came not from ten or twenty people but from a great many people who
are running large development programmes around the world. 1

Following this research, IDRC invited a group of people from several countries to
evaluate Dr. Ryan’s study. The questions put before the group were: What shape would a
development policy take so as to acknowledge the spiritual dimensions of human
existence and to integrate both the material and spiritual nature of human existence? How
would the resulting programmes differ from thousands of projects to alleviate poverty,
which have been operating for decades? What would some of the outstanding features of
such programmes be?

One of the conclusions reached by the group was this:

It seemed to us, the group said - that we have to look deeper into the question of spirituality and
culture if we are to succeed in re-evaluating the development enterprise. We have to go to the level

1 Study Report is recorded on the book “ The Lab, the Temple and the Market”.
of systems of knowledge, because in the final analysis, development efforts rest on the
foundations of the various disciplines of modern science in which we have all been educated,
irrespective of where we are from. Most of us have studied in universities and academic centres
that have been influenced by Western tradition, which has defined the disciplines and professions
that we bring to the field of development. Whether we are anthropologists, sociologists,
economists, agronomists, medical doctors, social workers or educators, the knowledge system that
underlies our thinking and according to which policies are formed, plans made, and programmes
created comes essentially from that tradition. At some point in the evolution of Western Thought,
it was decided by the academia - by the intellectual powers of Europe and North America - that
science and religion were in conflict with each other. As a result, the knowledge system of the
West became extremely secular. The question of religion and spirituality was either rejected
entirely or, at best, left to the realm of individual personal concern, far from the public domain
where important decisions about the structures and processes of society are made. 2

The group then had to ask its members whether they accepted this duality- namely that
religion and science are in conflict, that religion belongs to the age of humanity's
childhood, and that an educated humanity will either abandon religion altogether or
regard it merely as a personal matter with no real relevance to the society.

If that is a basic assumption underlying development thinking and planning, then how
could we talk about a new development paradigm that gives due consideration to the
spiritual dimension of human existence? In response to this question, the theme of
science, religion and development arose within the group. To address these issues the
following observations need special attention.

1. ALARMING TRENDS

The field of development became a formalized enterprise after the Second World War. In
the midst of all the difficulties of the world at that time, with the conflict between Marxist
and Capitalist regimes, with the cold war and a myriad adversities, a great deal of effort
went into what was considered to be the social and economic development of the nations
of the planet. Although five decades have passed, the results of these efforts are rather
disappointing.

In 1972 Mr. Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, announced in a speech
in Nairobi that the number of people who were living in absolute poverty in the world
had reached eight hundred million - that was despite two decades of development effort,
which had begun in the 1950s. This announcement caused a great deal of agitation
among development workers all over the world. As a result, many programmes were
created to alleviate poverty and policies were rapidly changed, even at the level of the
World Bank. Three decades later, the number of absolute poor rose to over 1.2 billion. 3
This is the tragedy by itself. But another tragedy is the fact that when this number was
announced a few years ago, the announcement did not create the same kind of
commotion that was created in 1972 as a result of the Nairobi announcement. The 1.2
billion figure was met with almost no response. It would indeed be a tragedy if the world
has become accustomed to worsening conditions, and all of the propaganda depicting

2 Supra, p.
3 World Bank Report , Year
material prosperity that the media is feeding to the masses has made humanity numb to
the reality that things are not going very well.

One fifth of humanity is living in absolute poverty with less than a dollar a day income;
another one fifth is somewhat better off. That is two fifths of humanity - 2.4 billion
people more or less. Then, at the other extreme, there is about one fifth of humanity with
access to eighty seven percent of all the resources of the world, using it and prospering.
These two extreme groups keep moving farther and farther away from each other. The
gap between the poor and the rich increases year by year.

After five decades of effort by development workers and other agencies, does the trend
show that the fight against poverty and underdevelopment is being won? At the very
least, is the trend encouraging?

The present situation is not, of course, due to any naivety on the part of development
theory or a lack of ideas about development practice. The development thinking was very
simplistic fifty years ago. Increasing the gross national product (GNP) through
industrialization was the basic theory in the 50s. But development thinking gradually
became more and more sophisticated as it incorporated a growing number of elements:
agriculture, population, health, education, environment, distribution of wealth, land
distribution, role of women and the importance of the participation of the people
themselves in development projects and decision making. Every factor has been
considered, and each one of them has been the focus of a long train of books whose pages
set forth the most convincing arguments. When one reads the literature in this field and
reviews the reports of related international conferences and international aid agencies,
one is struck by the depth and breath of the ideas. It is people-centered development, and
every possible factor has been analyzed. Then one looks at the reality, at the numbers, at
the results – and one wonders why the gap between the rich and the poor continues to
widen each decade.

This is not to say that development projects have not experienced success.

The governments of the world have, collectively, begun to acknowledge a spiritual
dimension to development. This can be seen in the global action plans that emerged form
the great world conferences held in the 1990’s by the United Nations. In 1991, the
governments of the world, with significant contributions from global civil society, drafted
Agenda 21, a remarkably forward-looking strategy for the achievement of sustainable
development worldwide. 4 Agenda 21, called for “social, economic and spiritual
development”, recognizing that “individuals should be allowed to develop their full
potential”. A next step was the World Summit that took place in Johannesburg, South
Africa, in August 2002 and was called to “identify major constraints hindering the
implementation of the Agenda 21” and to “address new challenges and opportunities that
have emerged since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.”

4 Agenda 21, Chapter 6.3&6.23. Emphasis added.
Another example is the Copenhagen Declaration where the governments of the world
unambiguously affirm that “our societies must respond more effectively to the material
and spiritual needs of individuals, their families and communities in which they live…not
only as a matter of urgency but also as a matter of sustained and unshakable commitment
through the years ahead”. In the Beijing Platform for Action, one reads that “religion,
spirituality and belief play a central role in the lives of millions of women and men, in the
way they live and in the aspiration they have for the future.” And in the Habitat Agenda,
the world’s governments commit to “ achieving a world of greater stability and peace,
built on ethical and spiritual visions.” 5

But as a whole, poverty and violence have increased, while security has decreased; hope
has receded, and despair rules the lives of most of the people in the world regardless of
where they live.

This does not mean that the programmes for the environment, for women, for
agriculture, for micro-enterprise, for children, for education and others should
discontinue. However, there are a number of underlying considerations that need to
be examined and taken into account to arrive at solutions that go beyond a
superficial treatment of the world's problems.

2. WAYS OF LOOKING AT THIS DILEMMA

One way that is being proposed to look at the above dilemma has been articulated in the
book The Lab, the Temple, and the Market: Reflections at the intersection of Science,
Religion and Development, published in 2001. This was also the subject of a presentation
by Dr. Firaydoun Javaheri in June 2002 in Zambia. It was proposed to look at this
dilemma as the failure of materialism. The leaders of humanity, especially those in the
West who held large shares of power, made some gross miscalculations during the early
part of the twentieth century, which is when it became possible for humanity to come
together as one for the first time because of scientific, technological and cultural
advances. One mistake was to assume that material development was the only thing
worth pursuing - that material considerations were the main determinants of human
existence. Basically, they forgot, or ignored, the spiritual nature of humankind and the
role of religion in influencing human attitudes and spirit with which people do
everything, including development projects. Despite the brilliance of its thinkers and
having the entire power of science behind them, they made a fundamental mistake about
human nature. In all the theories they advanced, in the literature they wrote, in the
educational programmes they spread around the world, and in the economic systems they
took around the globe, whether falling into Marxist or Capitalist camps, they misjudged
human nature. They somehow reached the conclusion that what mattered most was to
improve material conditions. They failed to realize that unless both material civilization
and spiritual civilization advance hand in hand, humanity could not prosper. It is not in

5 Series of world’ conferences refers to the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development

No 3, platform for Acton of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Chapter 2, No 24,
Habitat Agenda, Chapter 1, No 4, Preamble.
human nature to be a material being alone, just as it is not in the nature of the human
being to want to live in poverty, thinking of the next world only. Material development is
important and essential to humanity to be able to pursue its spiritual and other goals.

3. THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF SCIENCE, RELIGION AND DEVELOPMENT

It is the above-mentioned mistake on the part of the leaders of the world that now
has to be corrected. Solutions lie not at the level of theoretical debate - whether to
follow this or that development theory. The very foundation and assumptions on
which developments rests must be redefined. It is true that we have to turn to
science, as it is this knowledge system, which studies the material universe and
teaches us how to generate material means to the advancement of humanity. But at
the same time, religion should not be forgotten. However, by religion is not meant a
specific religion or a specific sect, but religion as the spiritual heritage of humankind
and the knowledge system that studies the power of the human spirit and is
concerned with the demands and the desires of the higher nature of the human
being.

It is in this sense that a discourse on science, religion and development is promoted. If
such a discourse is to be successful, it cannot remain in the realm of appealing statements
about the importance of spirituality. It has to go further and re-examine policy, rethink
strategies and determine how these two sources of knowledge, science and religion,
which have always motivated humanity, can be brought together to achieve progress. To
do that it has to be accepted that there is no real conflict between science and religion. On
the contrary, the two need each other - that science without religion becomes the cruel
instrument of materialism, and religion without science falls prey to superstition and
fanaticism. Furthermore, both science and religion would have to be viewed differently.
The purpose of religion is to bring unity, without denying the diversity of expressions of
the spiritual aspirations of the human soul. The great religious traditions of the world
must become the cause of peace and unity. To this end, they must seek within each other
those things that bind them together, those profound truths that exist in all of them and
upon which they all agree. They cannot be the cause of strife and cannot be used to
promote hatred. “If religion is to play a meaningful role in the work that lies ahead, there
has to be some kind of a process to build harmony among the great religious traditions
themselves. …It is becoming increasingly clear that passage to the culminating stage in
the millennia long process of the organization of the planet as one home for the entire
human family cannot be accomplished in a spiritual vacuum”. (A Statement to the World
Summit on Sustainable Development by the Bahá’í International Community) 6

It is, therefore, inconceivable that a peaceful and prosperous global society – a society
that nourishes a spectacular diversity of cultures and nations- can be established and
sustained without directly and substantively involving the world’s great religions in its
design and support.

6 Issued ate August 26, 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The United Nations, the initiator of most of the projects on the global level, has been
hesitant to invite religions for their inputs.

Unfortunately, the UN has been unable to move beyond its Declaration on the
Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or
Belief, to create a convention on freedom of religion and belief.
Some of the global action plans from recent United Nations conferences suggest that
misuse of religion poses an obstacle to development.

Agenda 21 mentions religion, but with no reference to the impact that its misuse has
on development. It is observed that tragically, organized religions, whose very
purpose is to serve the cause of brotherhood and peace, behave all too frequently as
one of the most formidable obstacles in this path and lend credibility to the
fanaticism of sub-groups within major religious traditions.

The real onus, however, is on the religions themselves. The followers of religions and,
more importantly, religious leaders, must show that they are worthy partners in the great
mission of building a sustainable civilization. To do so will require that religious leaders
work conscientiously to exorcise religious bigotry and superstition from within their
faiths and renounce claims to religious exclusivity and finality.

The attitude towards science has to change too. Not regarding its proven theories, but
regarding its role. Science does not have the answer to every question about human
existence. Although through science we can discover the physical laws of our universe,
science alone cannot help us find the meaning of our existence.

If science and religion are truly to complement each other and help us come up with
effective strategies and plans for the kind of development that is sought, certain
adjustments need to be made in our thinking about these two sources of knowledge.
Equipped with both, one will be able to do rigorous research in different areas of human
endeavour.

4. MAJOR AREAS NEEDING ATTENTION

At least four principal areas of focus come to mind to be re-examined. One is
education. It is clear that educational systems of many countries are failing
miserably. They have fallen far short of their intended goal to provide good scientific
training and have also neglected almost entirely the question of moral development.
Moral education is virtually non-existent in most school systems. The kind of
educational system that leads not only to the intellectual empowerment of people
but also to their moral empowerment, that teaches them not only skills and
techniques but also the right attitude as well as how to use the powers of the human
spirit and to see the patterns from which to draw meaning. Therefore, one can
imagine a vast area of research and action to incorporate moral and ethical values in
our educational systems around the world.
Another area is technology. Society has to learn to make wiser choices about technology.
It cannot allow itself to be a slave to technology created without regard to its
consequences. It is essential to understand, from a scientific point of view, how to make
decisions about technology, both about its development and its transfer. The matter of
values needs to be brought to bear on technological choices. In other words, we cannot
simply accept technology as a given- that whatever is developed and sold is good.

Another area of research is the area of governance. “Nations are much like human beings
in that they are all similar in certain basic ways yet each also has a unique individuality
and personality all of her own, coming from a certain historical background and
experience. It also can be said that culture and religion are the factors that most
profoundly impact on the character of a nation and on the manner in which politics and
governance evolves therein”. (Inder Kumar Gujral, The Culture of Public Service, 261,)

The fourth area is economics. The entire field of economics has been called into question
by the crisis in the environment, although the power of current economic structures
remains strong and old ways persist as the standard. The present economic emphasis
suggest that every human being is some kind of a machine which is programmed to
maximize his or her utility and that a good world will appear in which all will prosper as
everyone strives to do this. Inherent in the present economic policy is a definition of
human nature, which suggests that maximizing human utility is what is expected of a
human being. So one earns, spends, buys in order to satisfy the needs. These are the kinds
of choices we make, and this is called being rational. If one does not do that, he or she is
not being rational according to current economic theory. If one actually considers other
things and allows concern for community, family or friends to prevail, it would be
considered irrational. Yet every great religious tradition rejects this concept of the human
being. That is not the human being seen in the tradition of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam or the Bahá’í Faith. The human being found there is very different. It
is capable of the most sublime sacrifice for the sake of the common good. Unfortunately,
human beings can be molded through constant propaganda into utility machines, but their
real nature, as ascribed in the books and teachings of the great spiritual traditions of
humanity, is something far from that.

It is not a question of forsaking material prosperity. Material means are necessary; but,
there is a need for a theory based on correct understanding of human nature through
which it will be possible to bring prosperity to all of humanity, one that will not produce
the sharp divisions between rich and poor which we see today.

5. INITIATIVES TAKEN

The group of people that worked together and produced the book “ The Lab, the Temple
and the Market”, all scientists involved in development but from different religious
backgrounds (Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Bahá’í), were enlightened by the initial
finding of the discussion. Following their efforts to produce the book they wished to see
if this discourse, that had began so successfully, could be extended to include a growing
number of participants. The idea is that if the discourse is extended to a large enough
circle of development workers, there will be some individuals who are willing to go even
further and undertake research that will lead to alternative development policies and
strategies, which take into account the spiritual as well as the material aspects of human
life.

Following on, a highly successful colloquium was held in India in November 2000 with
the participation of some one hundred and fifty leaders of NGOs and representatives of
government agencies with partial sponsorship of leading international aid agencies. A
cogent statement of its findings was prepared and disseminated at the provincial level and
among various NGOs with the hope that a coherent concept that can serve as a proposal
for future actions in India will emerge. The thinking is that, if a process similar to the one
which took place in India could be set in motion in twenty to thirty countries over the
next few years, and if the discourse became sufficiently broad and potent, a world
gathering with the participation of representatives from various international agencies and
countries would become an effective instrument for development strategies that are both
sustainable and effective in closing the gap between the rich and the poor, as well as
bringing developed and developing countries closer together.

CONCLUSION

It has been noted that the vast development efforts over the past 50 years, although
including many projects that have been regarded as successful, have not been effective in
reducing the overall gap between the rich and the poor. The main reason has been
identified as the failure of materialism and the lack of recognition of the influence of
cultural and spiritual factors in development. The solution offered includes the
recognition of the vital roles of both science and religion in development. Specifically,
the necessary influence of moral and religious values in the new systems of education,
technology, governance and economics are mentioned as examples. It is hoped that
worldwide discourse on such fundamental change of strategies for development will
bring about the necessary conditions to achieve prosperity for humankind.

References

1. Dr. Firaydoun Javaheri, Science Religion and Development, Talk, June 2002, Zambia.
2. The Lab , the Temple and the Market: Reflections at the Intersection of Science Religion
and Development, International Development Research Centre, P.O. Box 8500, Ottawa,
ON, Canada KIG 3H9, http://www.idrc.ca/books/ , or Kumarian Press, I294 Blue Hills
Ave. Bloomfield, CT 06002, USA, http://www.kpbooks.com/
3. Dorsen N., Giffrod P., ( 2001), Democracy and the Rule of Law, Washington DC, CQ
Press
4. Abdul Bahá, (1995), Paris Talks, 12 ed., London, Bahá’í Publishing Trust.
5. Agenda 21, UN.
6. Religion and the Public policy at the UN, Religion counts, 2002.
-- Science, Religion and Development (Used by permission of the curator)