Why are physicists interested in studying eastern religions?
Please move this post.If it is in the wrong place.
Let me discuss some physicists that I have known, and perhaps the answer will pop out.
Dr.
Fred Reines (and partner Charles Cowan) won the Nobel Prize for building the first neutrino detector. Dr. Reines earned his way through college by singing with his deep booming and melodic voice. Thus, my friend and I sometimes sung Gilbert and Sullivan operas with him. He used to love to whistle Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor, and my friend did too, sometimes they whistled together. Sometimes Dr. Reines sat down in the hall of the physics building with me and helped me work crossword puzzles, and his abilities with words were astounding. While some puzzles would stump me (except for a few words), he never failed to quickly fill them in, even undoing some of my mistakes. Dr. Reines was in the Manhatten Project, Bikini Atoll A-bomb test, and in charge of the Enewetak A-bomb test. When I expressed the thought that maybe they wanted the radiation cloud to drift over the Bikini islanders to use them as lab rats, and marched soldiers into ground zero of the Nevada tests (that nuked southern Utah, resulting in cancer), and exposed sailors to radiation in the Operation Wigwam tests 500 miles southwest of San Diego, California, Dr. Reines said "oh, you think that do you." I had no idea, at the time, that he had been so involved. But, from his response, and knowing his character, I believe that his intentions were good.
Professor Julius Sumner Miller has a patent or copyright on most of the experiments used by high schools and colleges in the United States. He had a very inventive mind. Wikipedia has the wrong info, declaring that Prof. Miller had a PhD in Physics. Actually, he only has a Bachelors, and holds no doctorates. Prof. Miller had a very inventive mind because he constantly observed the world around him, and because he was very well read. Just as Socrates was a pest who constantly questioned everyone around him, Prof. Miller was the biggest pain in the eh....neck....that anyone ever heard of. One time when we were driving to Prof. Miller's favorite Chinese restaurant, he demanded that everyone "stick your hand out of the window and tell me what you observe." Some said pressure, some said temperature is cooler, etc. At the restaurant, Prof. Miller would always use the food and dishes as props for a physics experiment (example, cutting a string into sections, putting it on his ice, salting it, and lifting the ice once it froze to it...the salt caused the ice to melt, then fresh water refroze, trapping the string). Prof. Miller was also part of the group of physicists who took long walks with Dr. Albert Einstein, and discussed concepts of relativity with him. Prof. Miller constantly objected to illiterate physics students, and felt that they had to read the classics in order to think better. One day Prof. Miller cornered me and talked about Dr. Pangloss saying that we each have our own garden, then attributed that saying to Moliere. Voltaire's Candide, I replied. Prof. Miller said, oh, of course. In other words, Prof. Miller was testing me, to see if I was well read. Another time, Prof. Miller got upset with a PhD professor's ignorance of literature, and ordered me to feel his pulse....which I did using just one index finger in exactly the right spot. Prof. Miller was astounded that I knew not to measure his pulse with my thumb and that I would get his pulse with a precise press on his wrist. It was a test of my medical knowledge. To Prof. Miller, everything that he knew was in the Socratic method (that is, everything is philosophy, including science, medicine, literature, etc). Prof. Miller had talked other professors and physics students into doing death defying stunts....hammering nails into wood using just our bare hands. Often he would hammer our professor's head with tuning forks (raising bumps). Prof. Miller also used to try to fool us by using well known magic tricks (for example, he folded a dollar bill, flung it through the air, and chopped a pencil in half with it....actually, at the last minute, faster than the eye could observe it, he stuck his finger out, and it was the finger that broke the pencil). He challenged us to do the same. The idea was to get us to observe everything. Prof. Miller was also Professor Wonderful, a TV show produced by Disney. Later, he was the science TV host in Australia for many years. Though he got thousands of dollars per lecture, he spent that on air fare, food, and rent. Occasionally he vacationed in Las Vegas with our Physics professor.
I could go on with other physicists that I know, but I think that you are getting the idea that they are not one dimensional, nor focused solely on their own discipline. All of the physics students that I knew had advanced belts in various martial arts disciplines. Some liked to explore caves. Many were highly religious and Christians.
So, science is not the enemy of the Christian faith. Scientists are well versed, very curious, and they explore a variety of issues that they don't know about. They are among the smartest and most talented people on earth.
This is why some physicists study religions.
Physicists also have to grapple with the moral issues (perhaps religious issues) of making and using nukes.
I also met Dr. Edwin Teller, father of the Hydrogen bomb (or was it William Tell who shot an apple off of his son's head?)....regardless, I'm pretty sure that an H-bomb would knock off an apple.
Not only is it mistranslated by him using the wrong word, it is misinterpreted and used out of context of the surrounding verses and the chapter itself. The verse does not say “Now I am become Death the destroyer of worlds”. It is ”Time I am the destroyer of worlds”. Kālo’smi is literally “time I am” from kālaḥ (time) + asmi (I am). The verses describe Arjuna’s vision of Krishna in His divine form as God, showing His glories and attributes, time being one. It is not about death and destruction on the scale Oppenheimer was witnessing. The verse refers to the inexorable movement of time in destroying.
