My rebuttal to Hindu ritual pseudo science

Readers of Nirmukta must surely be aware of a recent post by Ganesh Veluswami called Temple Pseudoscience 

I enjoyed reading the post very much and was particularly impressed with inputs he provided from physical and natural sciences.

While reading it, what struck me as quite noteworthy was that I had almost 2 years ago dealt with an instance of circulating pseudoscience information in the NRI email circuit.

As against the Temple pseudoscience circulation that Veluswami was refuting with in his post, I encountered Hindu ritual  pseudoscience moving around in an email chain . 

This email was elaborately titled 'HINDU RITUALS  PRACTICE WITH MEANING  EXPLANATION'  

Unfortunately at this moment I am unable to reproduce its complete contents. But some portions of it are available on this link which are excerpted from a Chinmaya mission book by Swamini Vimalananda and Radhika Krishnakumar.

Apart from being incensed by the pseudo scientific nonsense in that document, I was further dismayed and provoked by this message (with all its case errors and grammatical warts) by my Hindutva relative and passer-on of this provocation :

"Please Read fully the Important Attachment WITH  GREAT MESSAGE giving the Complete and Total Information and Knowledge of "HINDU RITUALS & PRACTICE" with EFFECTIVE MEANING,  EXPLANATION. It is Good to Share this Great Knowledge with ALL, especially the Children & Youth."

So my 'learned' relative wants children to be introduced to this kind of nonsensical apologetic about Hindu rituals and religious practices from cultish organizations.

This was too much for me to take. So I had to resort to this following retort:

Regardless of what this article may contend, most religious rituals including those of the Hindu kind are actually meaningless

That is because rituals are based on faith and social practices and do not proceed from any process of reason or objective study.

Rituals are meant to satisfy some religious or social needs and hence their inanity is inherent and hence somewhat excusable

What is not excusable and also very reprehensible is the attempts by modern apologists of Orthodox Hinduism authoring these kinds of articles to claim a scientific basis for all their specious rationalizations (I am guessing the article came from the Hindu Revivalist cult 'Chinmaya Mission')

The claim of Hindu religion to be scientific and to be accomplishing the incredulous feat of integrating science and spirituality is totally outrageous and preposterous

Religion is the antithesis of Science and the two are mutually exclusive.  

The central and primary concept of religion being the  pursuit of god, unity or communion   with divinity or god or  submission to the will or dictates of god,  is without any basis in objective experience and reasoning.

So our Hindu apologists are already beginning their defense with an obvious fallacy.

Besides the article is full of  half truths, Hindu superstitions about yoga, chakras, kundalini, prana energy, metaphysical jargon about vaasanas, ego, self and pseudo-scientific hypotheses on health, medicine, anatomy and you name what.

This article does not stop with such insanities and proceeds to some pathetic metaphysical  allegoryisms where everything under the Sun and the Moon is spiritualized and even the Sun and the Moon are not spared from the disgrace of spiritual debasement.

No amount of spiritual and pseudo-scientific spin that the likes of New Age Hindu Shamans like Chinmaya Mission, Art of Living put in their misguided zeal to over-glorify Hinduism can render Hindu rituals meaningful.

It will be really unfortunate if this kind of tendentious religious propaganda, which is totally dissonant with secular knowledge and spirit of scientific and rational inquiry, gains credibility.