Science separated from religious faith leads to atomic bombs: Imam Khamenei

Nov 10, 2016
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November 10th marks World Science Day for Peace and Development. This day is to renew responsible use of Science in order to make society a better and safer place. Khamenei.ir publishes statements by Ayatollah Khamenei in which he stresses the sanctity of science and the importance of its association with faith.

Islam has sanctified knowledge. Knowledge is sacred in Islam. Going after knowledge is a sacred endeavor. It is not true that knowledge is merely a tool for earning money. Of course, it is possible to earn money through knowledge, but its sanctity should be preserved. "Knowledge is light." It is this characteristic of knowledge that should be taken into consideration.
Combining science with spirituality, religious faith and ethics is what is missing in the contemporary world. An Islamic university combines science with religious faith, spirituality and ethics. It promotes science and determines its orientation on the basis of ethics and religious faith. Discussions about consistency or inconsistency between science and religion are due to the inability to recognize the areas that science and religion can cover. Science and religion cover different areas. Combining science with religion means that religious faith is used to determine the orientation of science. Science is like a weapon that can be used against the best or the worst people: it depends on the hands that this weapon falls into. This weapon is science and religious faith determines its orientation.

If religious faith had control over Western knowledge, it would not have developed into atomic bombs and they would not have faced the dilemma of how to deal with these bombs. They would not have faced the problem of limiting the use of atomic bombs in order to save the world from destruction. They would not have reached this point. If knowledge had been accompanied by religious faith, neither colonialism nor neocolonialism - which was the product of knowledge - would have emerged. Domination over countries, occupation of countries, violent hegemony over nations and the plundering of national sources of wealth - which has afflicted the world and nations for the past two centuries - would not have emerged at all. This is the characteristic of science that is not accompanied by religious faith, and an Islamic university is supposed to fill this gap and combine science with religious faith. That is to say, in an Islamic university, you should immerse the essence of knowledge and its uses and implications in religious faith.

Statements made at a meeting with academics and students of Imam Sadiq(a.s.) University on Jan 19, 2006

Prohibition of nuclear weapons is built upon jurisprudential, logical foundations: Ayatollah Khamenei

Comments

sajjad

2016-11-11 22:03

I'm proud of having such a thoughtful leader who continuously insist on ethics in the world and in global society. I don't think that employment of knowledge in the direction of damaging other people on this planet is acceptable for any person who is lighthearted.
Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

2016-11-13 00:10

It may be argued that the display of "moral sense", apart from its public relations benefit to the state, has little utility in statecraft. In modernity, statecraft is essentially amoral, and almost entirely in self-interest, just as in antiquity. This is obvious as it is self evident. Has there ever been a time in recorded history where statecraft was not been that way? Today it is entirely based on game-theory applied to international relations. So fast forward to modern Iran under the moral hand of vilayat-e-faqih, the legatee of Plato's philosopher-king. Can it be presented as fact that the calculus of statecraft in revolutionary Iran is not in its own self-interest? What happens when that self-interest collides with its "moral sense"? Will it give up its self-interest? That is not rhetorical; it requires both a categorical response and an empirical response. If the two are different then the point is already made. This is quite orthogonal to defining a "moral sense" in statecraft.