Compare these two scenarios. An arresting man with a long beard holding a staff, his followers in tow, pursued by a pharonic army, commands the Red Sea to part. The sea obliges and Moses and his flock flee to safety. The other is that steady winds pushed the water back, creating a four-hour long
opening in the sea. Take your pick; we’d definitely go for the first. The trouble with science is that it often robs our lives of colour and romance. The Ten Commandments would have been a sorry picture as per the scientific facts now unearthed by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado. Having grown up with the awe-inspiring belief that Jesus walked on water, do we really want to know that he might have actually executed this feat on the Dead Sea and not the Sea of Galilee, as it’s impossible to sink in the former?
Closer home, when Ganesh idols started drinking milk, many of us were quick to verify for ourselves. But along came science and told us that such feats were but the result of some capillary action, taking the joy out of our lives for a bit. So, let us live by the dictum that ignorance is bliss, sometimes. What we don’t know won’t hurt us, will it?