Do Religion and Science Clash or Coexist? | The Turmoil of the Psyche
Hello everyone…here is a journey into my labyrinth and I hope this provides you with something to contemplate. All the essays and thoughts kind of connect today…including the bonus section that gets a bit out there…or at least that’s what I think:)
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Do Religion and Science Clash or Coexist?
An essential lesson on why they must coexist
I recently read a “Letter to the Editor” post in the New York Times about, “Do Religion and Science Clash or Coexist?”
I found the responses to be lackluster at best and narrowly and poorly thought out at worst…
One from Profesor of Physics Pulak Dutta gave me some thoughts:
“But religions do not reliably answer any of life’s questions. Religions offer verbal arguments and unverifiable claims to appeal to the opinions and emotions of the faithful. The stories told by different religions are inconsistent, and these differences can never be resolved experimentally.
In plain English, a belief is something that is not an established fact. Non-falsifiable beliefs, feelings and opinions are fundamentally incompatible with science. Certainly science doesn’t have an answer for everything, but where it does, those answers work whether you believe them or not.”
Okay, before I dive right into my issue with Dutta’s response allow me to clarify something — I think someone who ascribes to a religion is ultimately finding themselves in agreement with a group of people’s own subjective experience. So, essentially, religion is simply people who agree upon a subjective experience, which then forms an inter-subjective experience that they share. It’s a group's expression of myth.
This differs from objective truth.
However, it’s still a type of truth that should be acknowledged.
So, essentially, when discussing whether or not science and religion can coexist, we must acknowledge that religion is ultimately an expression of spiritual experiences.
And the human mind tends to have a pull towards spiritual experiences.
Now, personally, I do not consider myself religious.
However, I see the importance of people finding their own expression of spirituality because it’s our creative human pull for myth-based sense-making.
What does this mean?
It’s a pursuit of cultivating our own inner-wisdom, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, and forming an identity around these truths.
As Dutta expressed, religions do not always give reliable answers to life’s questions — so while someone is exploring these experiences they should be encouraged to explore other avenues for truth. And this is where the important distinction is found…
Science is a powerful system for investigating nature’s structure and behavior through careful observation and experimentation. Through this investigation we hope to find a better understanding of an objective reality, thus it becomes the pursuit of a more objective sense of truth.
Essentially, science is the pursuit of finding what is reality.
Where spirituality is in the pursuit of determining why any of this matters.
So, it’s not about whether or not science and spirituality can coexist!
We should be looking to understand why these two must coexist.
We have to understand that both science and spirituality are expressions of our humanity. One expression is the pursuit of objective truth, while the other expression is subjective sense-making rooted in spiritual experiences.
And this is why I think Dutta’s response misses the most important point. He seems to look through a narrow lens when looking at religion and misses the importance of us having a myth that provides us with a sense of peace from the chaos.
The default of our existence being…chaos.
As we will imbue meaning into the facts of the universe no matter what we discover about the universe. The more we distance ourselves from this human reality, the more inner turmoil we will create for our society.
The use of spiritual myths by our ancestors projected a sense of purpose on everything. This resulted in humans being able to act together in harmony, as they followed their sacred convictions using what their inter-subjective spirituality provided them.
This resulted in a feeling of social order. Now and then, however, the appearance of social order was simply perceived rather than reality. Praying to the gods for good rainfall did not ensure that the universe would comply. And the purpose of maintaining a sense of calm and order was to allow individuals to share in their myths that stabilized their reality.
A worried mind is less effective at surviving.
A controlled mind is one that is prepared to keep moving forward in order to better equip oneself for survival.
And an essential part of that equipment is a sense of social cohesion.
This is what our minds continue to be pulled into today: a sense of shared meaning for understanding the why behind all that we do and strive for.
Thus, we must tread carefully when attempting to separate the spiritual experience from our understandings of reality.
Some Carl Jung quotes I’ve been considering…
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
“The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
This will be helpful when contemplating this next section:)
The Turmoil of the Psyche
And the journey of finding yourself with doubt on your heel
I will no longer avoid my own soul. As I speak about confrontation and the importance of it, thus I must make the ultimate confrontation; the confrontation that awaits deep within myself, and be willing to face all that I find. This becomes the embrace of my own inner confrontation.
I will not let my inner fears and doubts prevent me from fully embracing the confrontation ever waiting deep within myself. I will be aware of all forms of personal delusions, illusions, and deception to the point where they no longer affect my life in any way whatsoever. Ah, the deception comes through!
They will always come through to some degree! Illusion, delusion, and deception are all around! We can only mitigate through awareness. The more deceived we are, the less likely we are to find the exit.
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