Social Science Requires Theism

Social science must have a theistic basis because the big issues in society cannot be decided merely by measurable characteristics or by speculative morality.

Start with imprecise numbers. We are told that there are currently 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. Others say it’s closer to 20 to 25 million. The point is, nobody knows. We do know that close to a third of federal inmates are illegals. But we don’t know much about the rest, except for those illegal alien “dreamers” on television lamenting how they have to “live in the shadows.” We don’t know the extent of the costs to taxpayers of illegal immigration, even as we are told by amnesty supporters that they are net contributors to the economy through payroll and sales taxes. But they don’t tell us if that sum subtracts the $26 billion sent back to Mexico. We do know that taxpayers spend $2 billion a year to provide medical services to illegal aliens just in emergency room visits. According to Christopher Conover, state and local circumventions of federal prohibitions against health care for illegals are indirectly costing taxpayers $17 billion a year in care for illegal aliens. And that’s just health care. Some estimates put the total cost of illegal aliens at $89 billion, while others go as high $135 billion.

Bruce Thornton, “Lies, Damn Lies and Immigration Policy,” 29 Jun. 2018, FrontPage Mag, 2 Jul. 2018 <https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/. . .>

This shows that there are important things in this world that are right before our eyes and other senses that we cannot understand properly without guidance from Krishna and the great sages. Just the vast uncertainty alone about the number of illegal immigrants in America (bewteen 11 – 25 million) shows how difficult it is to understand even material subjects, what to speak of moral or spiritual ones.

Of course, being overly concerned with the maintenance of the body is itself a problem. And on such a pretext we may entirely dismiss concern with worldly affairs such as politics and economics . But if it is accepted that society can be arranged in such a way as to help people become self-realized, then such matters become spiritually important. This is why the varnasrama system must be something that is taught and preached.

Thus it is imperative for us to see the world through the eyes of the shastras and the great acharyas.