Direction for [ Question No: 1 To 5 ] :
Read the following passage and answer the questions given below :
At this critical juncture when human existence is faced with many crises, the only way to survive is to pick up the threads of understanding among individuals, communities and nations, and highly diversified ecosystems, in order to establish peace and harmony between the two, on a spiritual foundation.
However, due to lack of proper understanding of the meaning of spiritual association between the human-beings and the nature as described in our scriptures, religious traditions are often overpowered by fanaticism and various kinds of material goals. Thus religions sometimes clash with each other and humanity and nature are exposed to under constant danger.
So under the present scenario, it is very important that religious traditions should imbibe a scientific and rational spirit.
On the other hand, we are all aware that although recent advancements in science and technology have brought tremendous benefit to humanity, they have also posed self-inflicting dangers to humanity.
We are threatened by self-inflicted swiftly moving environmental alterations about whose long term biological and ecological consequences we are still painfully ignorant, as for example, depletion of the protective ozone layer, a global warming unprecedented in the last one hundred fifty millennia, the rapid obliteration of bio-diversity and the prospect of a global nuclear war that would put at risk most of the population of the Earth. There may be other danger too, of which we are still ignorant. Individually and collectively, they represent a trap being set for human species, a trap we are setting ourselves in, with advancement of science and technology on one hand and derailment of human ethical values in the application of science & technology on the other.
Here then comes the issue of ethical concerns. Ethical values, incidentally, have not been able to keep pace with the explosive development of science and technology. Thus, there is an important need to generate ethical guidelines in our scientific research based on age-old spiritual wisdom, especially in the field of bio-engineering and biotechnology. A balanced approach between scientific temper and spiritual values should be ensured. Although, there have been several attempts preserving world natural/biotic ecosystems and maintaining world-peace by religious leaders, scientific community and political groups, progress towards such attempts shall remain a dream if a cooperative effort of science, spirituality and human organisations does not take place.
