| |
die so that a decision will happen; otherwise, legally there is no possibility. Both have equally valid grounds.
These infallible shankaracharyas, infallible popes, imams, caliphs... they can be proved very easily wrong in a thousand and one ways. I am not infallible. So what I am giving to you is an open religion. They have given you a closed system. A closed system is always afraid of any new truth, because the new truth will disturb the whole system. You will have to arrange it again.
You know the story.... When Galileo found that it is not the sun that goes around the earth, but the earth that goes around the sun, the infallible pope immediately called him to his court and said, "You have to change it, because The Bible says that the sun goes around the earth, and The Bible cannot be wrong because it is written by God." And if one statement is wrong, then all other statements become doubtful.
Galileo was a very intelligent man; I love that man. Very few people have praised that man -- even a man like Bertrand Russell has condemned him as a coward. I don't think Russell understood Galileo's point, because Galileo went to the court and kneeled down before the pope -- he was old, seventy-five, dying; from his death bed he had been forced and dragged to the court -- and he asked, "What do you want from me?"
The pope said, "You simply state in your book that the sun goes around the earth, and the previous statement you cancel."
He said, "Perfectly right. I will write in my book that the sun goes round the earth. But, dear sir, one thing you should remember: neither the sun nor the earth listen to me. Still the earth will continue to go around the sun. I cannot do anything about it. I will change it in my book -- the book is mine and I have every right to change it -- but the universe... I cannot do anything about it."
I think he was a man of immense humor and not a coward at all. And he did the right thing -- why unnecessarily quarrel with these idiots? He said, "Okay. But remember, don't think that this is going to change the fact. The fact remains in its place."
Now, The Bible is a closed system. What I have given
|
|
|