Dear Prabhus,
I must ask for your help. I have a friend who has been an initiated devotee for quite some time, but in recent months, his faith has been failing. This is due to claims being made by some people in the scientific community about the likelihood of global extinction in the near future. The video he directed me to was from Dr. Guy McPherson. Please give it a watch: http://youtu.be/C8w5_t7r6lw
This is what my friend asks: “So- I am having a spiritual crisis with this.
How can we as spiritual beings instructed by Srila Prabhupada that we are not the body and that this world is not a place for a gentleman and that we have to perform devotional service and chant Hare Krishna to finally go back to Krishna Loka cope with sudden human extinction in the nearby future? It just seems to turn everything I learned into a myth... Is it not said that there will be another 320'000 years or so of Kali Yuga? Already S.B. prescribes the universe in a way I cannot understand. With the sun God on a chariot with one wheel going around the world, same myth as in the Greek mythology. My faith is dwindling. Maybe you have an insight? What would Prabhupada say? Etc.”
Below is my response to him, but as the geo-science stuff is a bit out of my area of expertise, I would greatly appreciate any help you could offer so that I can pass it on and help to get my friend back on the path of Krsna Consciousness. Here is my reply to him:
I understand your fears and the crisis of faith. I am going to pass this lecture and the basic questions onto some others that I know (leaving your name out of it, of course), and see if they have any good insights. What I am giving you now are my immediate thoughts, but I do intend to dwell on it a bit longer, and perhaps do some reading in the Vedabase.
Let me start with this quote from Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja that I read recently:
"Srila Narottama Dasa Thakura has said, "I am such fellow. I am not completely pure. I am most impure. Therefore I face so many impediments, so many obstacles in my bhajana. Please, this is my great fear, I cannot chant. I cannot do bhajan, but You are so merciful, I take shelter of Your lotus feet now. No other shelter is there. Please eradicate all these problems, impediments, obstacles from my path of bhajan. Then I can chant the Holy Name and become happy, joyful and blissful."
Now, let me offer a story from WWII by way of analogy. When the Nazis held the Jews in the concentration camps and did all manner of unspeakable things to them, many Jews had a crisis of faith. But there were two responses to this crisis. Some Jews threw up their arms and gave up their faith, saying that God would not allow such things to happen, so He must not be real. But others said despite this horror, still we believe.
The German philosopher Emil Fackenheim, who himself spent time in a concentration camp, stated that God was present at Auschwitz, He did not forsake His people. In fact, He spoke to them there, but God only spoke to those whose ears are open. Those who kept their faith and listened for the Lord heard His message, but to those whose ears were closed, His sweet sound went unheard. This story illustrates that fact that we should never lose faith no matter how bad things appear to be.
Another story told by Elie Wiesel talks of the day God was put on trial. The Jews laid out the case for and against, and they found that God was completely guilty of allowing all the suffering and misery to occur within this world. When the trial was over, the Jews went to prayer. It doesn't matter how bad a situation is or how loudly we blame God for not intervening, the faithful will continue to believe. There is nothing more powerful than faith. So I urge you to hold onto it, no matter what comes.
As to the lecture, Dr. McPherson gives a lot of scientific data to support his belief in human extinction, and it is very compelling. However, it is important to remember that science is not and never has been an infallible thing. All of our scientific knowledge is based on induction. This means that our imperfect human eyes have recorded data, which we then interpret with our imperfect minds. This data does not look good, but his findings are not the consensus of the scientific community. Only a portion of his data comes from refereed journals, much of it comes from people working independently. This does not make it wrong, but it does offer a reason to question it. If there is clear proof, then why hasn't it been published? Why are not more scientists weighing in on this issue?
If Dr. McPherson's information is true, then does that really mean the extinction of humanity or does it just mean a transition? Scripture tells us that the Kali-yuga will last for 432,000 years. We have only experienced 5000 years of that time. What of the rest? Scripture tells us that the Kali-yuga is the worst of times. This means that greed, corruption, pollution, etc. etc. etc. will reign down us. Perhaps climate change is just one of those things we must endure. Scripture tells us that there are numerable planets out there other than earth. If the earth is made uninhabitable through climate change, then what is to say that the human race will not stretch out to those other planets and continue to exist beyond earth?
The Bhagavad-Gita teaches that Krsna has a plan. There is a way that things are expected to go. We have free-will to either perform our dharma within that plan or to fight against it. Arjuna had the freedom to fight at Kurukshetra or walk away from it. That was a free choice. Krsna counselled him to fight and he made that choice; but whether or not he chose to fight, the battle would have taken place. The outcome would have been the same. We all have that free will. We have used it and abused it, and it has led us to this point, but we should not think for one minute that we are the doer of things. What is Krsna's will is what will be.
Thank you for reading, and again, any help you offer would be greatly appreciated.
Hare Krsna!
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