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CHAPTER 2
RELIGION AS A SCIENCE The term Science is not exclusively to be applied to Physics and Chemistry alone. There may be a science of salvation, too. Anything is a science which is a systematic exposition or explanation of a fact or a set of facts; anything is a science that is capable of verification and of yielding immediate and certain and unvarying results.
Religion is either a fact and grounded on a fact or a bundle of facts; or it is a fiction. There is no other alternative. In the former case it will be amenable to scientific treatment; in the latter it can be only a bundle of useless suppositions and superstitions. Not even inner, or psychic, or psychological or any other kind of experience is an exception or an obstacle to scientific enquiry and exposition. Doctrine, practice, ritual and also inner experience, thus all come under the jurisdiction of science and scientific thought.
Like all sciences Religion proceeds by laying down the first principle of sound common sense that all substance is eternal. Its outlook is realistic as opposed to what may be termed the idealistic view. The world was not created by any one; it is composed of things which are eternal-e.g., souls and atoms of matter. The idea of a creator will be shown to be the outcome of misconceived parabolic teaching. Jainism openly
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