Will Science and Religion ever be Reconciled?

I commented that it seemed like you were digging deeper below the institution but you thought that sounded condescending and prejudiced. So I am trying to figure out why that would be the case---and I do want to know because I don't want to be abrasive to people or be prejudiced or what not. And in my own writing I am trying to write to everyone, regardless of belief. In one book in particular, I want to provide a rationality that will help people today---regardless of their belief, when they are faced with crisis, or might even be questioning their beliefs (that book is the one that deals with the question of this thread).

SO I am trying to figure out---was that condescending and prejudiced because I was suggesting that the institutional side of religion is bad?

Is it condescending because my statements imply that Christians who thoughtlessly go to church and pray---in other words the Joe Public that Kierkegaard wrote about----are simply a bunch of sheep? Or that the sheep are victims of the institution? Or that I suggest people should question their religion?

What I am talking about is finding the spiritual core of your religion---whatever it is Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism... Is it because I do not show respect for the institution itself?

Or is it because I am not a Christian and dare comment on Christianity. I have heard Christians say the same thing about Christianity and people don't react that way to them. Jesus himself was a rebel, and he spoke out against the institution. He even said that his way is not found in wood and stone (sorry I don't have access to my library right now, and I don't recall the exact scripture---including which one it is---it was left out of the Bible.

I was confused because I wrongly thought you were taking a materialist, or atheist argument against the OP. So when you started quoting Bible versus in support of that, I, at first, was wondering why you were speaking from an Idealist perspective (Not idealistic--idealist, the opposite of materialist). I saw nothing wrong with the post itself, it was simply my own mistaken assumption.

The reason I assumed you were a Christian was not because you quoted Bible scripture---after all, I even quoted the Scripture, ‘Let there be light.’ And you even left some doubt when you wrote that such was Christian mysticism as you understand it.

What made me assume that you were Christian is when you wrote this:

Next point

Perhaps the feeling of being more anonymous on this forum means I am more vocal in that area. Or perhaps my writing sounds to you like what some New Age self-righteous bimbo would say as they turn their nose up at Christians. I do not like the holier than thou attitudes that Christians treat me with----but maybe that is a shadow element of my own psyche that I have to face----do I act holier than thou to others, yet project my own shadow? I will have to explore that. I will have to ask others how they see me.

I do not deny that I think the Christian institution has seen its day in terms of providing social progress, and that it is time for mankind to shed off that planter culture group ethic and duality in order to move forward. I criticize the institution, the dogma, elements of the belief system, but I always insist that every religion, including Christianity is valid and full of truth. I don't try to turn Christians from their own religion.

I do not try to convert anyone over to my own spiritual ways. I believe everyone has their own trip in this life, and everyone has a purpose. In my actual life, as opposed to my online persona, or even my persona as author, I share very little about my spiritual experiences, at least in a public manner. Those people who share that they want more in their own spiritual lives, my first suggestion is to find it in their own tradition first. For those who agree with me on the problems I see with the institution, and question their own faith, I suggest that they look below the surface within their own faith. For atheists who are strong in their beliefs, I tell them to read Sartre and other existentialists. I am not here to convert anyone, but I urge everyone to find meaning.

The philosophy I adhere to is one of non-judgment and multiplicity. But I love to debate. If someone wants to debate with me, I will love it. But I don’t insult them (sometimes I will have a little fun---but I will tell them so, and apologize if it was insulting), and I don’t take things personal. I will share my opinions but I do not expect others to accept them. I certainly don’t think I force them on anyone.

The discussions I talked about at the church were discussions I was invited to because people value my opinion. Some of those people know a bit about my experiences, but most of them think I am still a Christian, per se. After all, I was raised Christian, and I don’t reject all of its tenets. All the advice I offered was not anything radical, and it was meant to resolve the issues of falling membership and the place of the church in a changing world.

You are still missing my point----I may talk about more ritual and spiritual traditions than any Christian you know of, but these are not religious traditions. My definition of religion vs spiritual is not unique. Indians who walk the Red Road understand this difference naturally----in all of the Native American languages, and all their dialects---every last one of them, there is no word for religion. The concept just doesn’t exist. There is no secular or non-secular----there is no stepping out of the spirit, because to do so would be to step out of the universe. But theologians, psychologists, anthropologists, and plenty of other people use the same or a similar definition.

To me, being trapped by religion would be, for example, a Christian who would find participating in a Hindu ritual as ‘of the devil.’

Do you say I am trapped by religion because I find so much power and experience through these rituals? I don’t try to make other people do them too. I don’t claim they are the only way. I don’t push them onto others. But I do use them as examples of my own experience of how strange and spiritual reality actually is (but my point is that it is a very subjective experience---and each person has to find their own, and experience it for themselves if that is what they need----and that each tradition has those deep spiritual sides within it).

For me, the trappings of religion, are the trappings and dogma of the institution. I speak out about that. Dogma is defined on Wikipedia as, “…a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.[1] It serves as part of the primary basis of an ideology or belief system, and it cannot be changed or discarded without affecting the very system's paradigm, or the ideology itself.”

I don’t push dogma that I know of. I guess one could say that my insistence on a multiplistic universe is dogmatic. I do have my own philosophy. I will share how the Lakota believe, as well as that of other tribes and traditions. I have written about Taoism. My thread on haiku shares a lot of Buddhism, and I wrote a thread on Shintoism a few years ago that people seemed to like a lot. I don’t push any of those belief systems as incontrovertibly true.

But I do share my experiences----and they have been very powerful. Many of these experiences I know are true---but they are only true to me----I cannot prove such a thing to anyone else, and I always stress that. But such things are not religious—they do not have any values or judgments attached to them----they merely show that there is another side to reality than what we experience as physical. And---they are teachings and lessons for me. My point is-----that there are similar teachings for you and everyone else, if that is what you need---and you can find them in your own traditions. If you don’t need such things----that’s fine too---it’s your trip.

Know thyself---I don’t think anyone truly knows themselves. But I have done my best to face my shadow, and so forth. I am pretty emotionally stable, I am happy and content, I do not seek out pleasures to mask insecurities and other issues. Most of all----I do know what I believe. I am comfortable and confident in it. No one can scare me---I never feel threatened by others or other beliefs. I was on a life long search, and I always questioned and faced doubts. I no longer have doubts, and I have found my own spiritual home. I don’t expect others to find the same home, but I will say that if they find their own----that will be a happy day for them. (and if you are threatened by the beliefs of others, then you haven’t truly found that home yet. If you take personally what others say, or get defensive, then it is touching a shadow element---which means that you are still holding some doubt or are threatened by others in this subject---you still haven't found your home).

I don’t take anything you, or anyone else have said personally, but I am happy to explain my position.

When you said Know thyself, you are still using a definition that is different from how I explained it when I said that I am not being religious. It is knowing myself, that put me on my journey.

 

LOL! I see your point.

Of course I am not venting directly to that 20 year old---he has no idea of who I am. I would like him to know what consequences came of his action---so that he doesn't cause it to others. But my wife is opening up to her own destiny right now, and she has a lot of negativity, worry and self doubt in her right now. I know that as we work through these things, she will resolve much of that, which will open her up to her own power. Everything happened as such a strong synchronicity, Carl Jung would have written extensively about it.


P.S. You asked---on another thread if I remember the conversation we had a while back about language as I responded to your thread-----yes I do. I just haven't had time to respond to that post yet. That applies to my other book, as I am sure you recall---it gave me a different perspective on language to consider. I haven't explore that with that book yet---but since then I have been most busy with the book that applies to this thread.

 

Back to the OP---I believe that it is important for any reconciliation to be neutral in terms of belief systems.

Quantum physics takes science into such a weird realm that it is just about touching the face of God. But in the modern global culture, as eclectic as it is, any theory that actually gives creedence to consciousness, spirit, or God, would have to acknowledge all cultures and beliefs.

This is still very significant, for it could shake the materialist foundations of science, empower all belief systems, and provide a new metaverse of unifying truth to our culture. As I have said, this would be one of the major keys to resolving the post modern crisis.

 

What I heven't seen much discussed over the traditions at being available within Institutions is the sense of becoming encountering for these traditions in history. Though I don't see anyone seriously misguided, I should add to the discussion the truth that History cannot be effected or controlled. In a manner of speaking because traditions are encountered in History there is in being-there the weight of taking on a tradition by the very existence of instead controlling Time in the Fact of the world. The authentic Individual controls temporally being-there in the World. Being-there (dasein) needs not be such by any availability through trust because the being of Man in the world is the situating of institutional light in Life. Traditions are chosen subjectively for research and instead that allows trust for the further Responsible engagement. The world of responsibility subjectively chosen one way is the institution itself, the more explicit way it is the institution for itself objectively that Situation of taking on availability. History is realized at the End of the time hoped to be coped with, and eventually even controlled.


In this setting of post-modernism which may or may not be nothing other than the advented course freedom of the late sixties, there are the well encountered and researched fields of the traditions of science and religion and art achievement. Science is a being of Man and quite referable to defined facts in the historical past. Religion is a being of individuals and GOD (or some faith in a transcendental being). Artiistic achievement is a tradition as artists and the modern Object of the museum without Walls.

Is an objective World the humanity defined succinctly with the utility of walls? Is the museum without walls something to behold for encounter for a sober tradition to challenge peoples and personal feeling for more traditions about?

 

What facts are defined in the past? Memory is living tissue and history a tale always told in the present. Science and philosophy/religion are both technologies toward the same impulse. The tension that exists is not meaningfully between science and religion but between ideas of substantial reward and essential fulfillment.

 

Let me take a stab at this Anaximenes. I believe that traditions evolve, and in turn shape institutions, which in turn affects history all based on precedent. For example, no religion ever came out with anything radically new and completely different from anything that came before it. Every religion just builds on previous precedents. (In fact, that is one problem I have with Christianity, there are certain things that have precedent in Indo-European traditions, but not in Middle Eastern traditions--suggesting that certain things were embellished). There are individuals who shape history---but authentic individuals develop despite the institution----again it is the rise of the subjective against the ever-flowing current of the objective (and as far as Dasein, I will write more about that in my next post). While individuals who might temporarily control or shape history, we all play a part insomuch as we are all a part of the collective unconscious which has the largest control over shaping history---as well as the next evolution of tradition and the institution.

 

O.K. up to date. Does the evolution of traditions re-act freely or naturally to revolutionary change? Can revolutionary change be reconciled literally within the intellect upon studying the traditions of evolutionary change.

Some tradition evolves, and scientists take it, as artists, evolve to new understanding of the Tradition.

Is the God to be understood less or is involvement to discover truth about nature, which is more or less lost in ancient translation?

 

Revolution is not the same as evolution. Evolution is at a snails pace regardless where the wheel of fortune stops spinning. Revolution makes substitutions it doesn't change the game. Every body must eat.

Proliferation takes advantage of relatively empty spaces, knowledge flows freely into an empty mind or we must become as little children again, (w/holy trusting, or all invested,) to realize a new conception.

The tradition, in the sense of operational appearance, of evolutionary change is multiplication. Multiplication is quick addition. Everything is sustained by like kind.

We grow in space concentrically. A journey ever without distance. The right hand no more informed than the left. Perception is not knowledge but can lead to it and in be-coming that , drawing near enough to event horizon, we are translated into shared being or knowledge.

The world is ours to do with as we will. We are engaged in the universal curriculum of creation, only the time we choose to take learning it is optional.
But what is time to a pig, only the appearance of this moment!

All ingenuity is ingenuous, that is artless in the light of a sunrise.

 

I agree that religion and science should be able to reconcile neutrally. There are many viewpoints within many religious and scientific areas, each of these viewpoints is valid in and to itself but without acknowledging all of them we cannot hope to understand the whole picture. In order to obtain reconciliation we need to dig deep enough to find how these seemingly differing views can work together.

I do not claim to be a quantum physicist by any means. I know very little about it and I will not try to speak on something that I know absolutly nothing about. My realm is more the spiritual, philosophical, religious aspect of all this.

 

So if the tension is between substantial reward and essential fulfillment then how to reconcile.
Reality contains all essentials, or, your father knows you need these things, substantial reward, food to eat. Seek first the kingdom of good, essential fulfillment, and you will behold the substantially fulfilling to overflowing.

Christ teaching through axiomatic statements brings science of mind to religion.
Let the mind be in you that is in christ, logos, knowledge.

The truth sets free.

Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you, ask you you will receive and we know them by their fruit*, (organic processes.) An appeal to scientific method. Do not judge by appearances.

This is one picture of synthesis in the middle of a cinematic library.

 

job 26:7

written a long time ago, but is scientifically accurate

"he is stretching out the north over the empty place
hanging the earth upon nothing"

 

How come the internet communication concerning Bertrand Russels Agnostic historical philosophy does so inadequately on the internet? And then there are such problems explaining B.F. Skinner as less anything of value to the "human condition"? But what can we do to shake up the old guard of computer software companies.

 

Maybe people don' like Russel? I went out into the street in front of the house and took off my shirt, danced with my hands in the air and sang BF Skinner lies a'mouldin' in his grave!" Like I won publishers clearing house when they said that fucker had died. If you can "shake up the old gaurd" then it was a scale that was dead and could slough. Keep shaking the tree though. Man without thought and growth is a pestilence from which it is best to make diesel.

 

i think the answer is pretty obvious. you can already see the process. science improves its description of reality more compared to religion. and religion is forced to make more and more abstract interpretations, of what was once taken literally.

i expect, a meaningless form of religion will be reconciled (people are already doing this)

 

Exactly, just the point. But still you should be able to look another fellow straight in the face and be able to say: "You look like a man of distinction.:love:

 

there is no conflict to begin with between what science is and what religion is. there are only fanatics who hate science for its honesty, an honesty inconvenient to their agenda, and a minority of scientists of well earned reputation, who have concluded logically, reasonably, validly, that what religions, especially western religions, especially christianity, have to say about science, they've basically pulled out of their ass.

 

Empiricism V Faith. And visa versa.

 

Institutions tend to be reactionary towards, revolutionary change, and reject as long as they can such changes. Sometimes they can survive such change---such as the church in the former Soviet Union. Other times it slowly accepts changes---such as the changes we hippies brought to the institutions of America and Western Europe----but such change often swings back and forth. For example, many of the conservatives in the US are fighting to bring back the values of the 1950's and even the 1890's.

Evolution changes institutions and culture over a much longer period, and the change is stronger and more long lasting. Revolution helps shape, and plays a part in, evolution. A good example of evolution is the Industrial revolution and the shift from feudalism to capitalism.

But we are watching evolution happening around us---and this plays a part in what this thread is about. In my books I talk about the rise of feminism. This is more than just the things we see---voting rights (which is an old issue in America demonstrating how long evolution takes place, but it is still an issue in some countries), equal pay, control over their own bodies (amazing that this is even an issue today in America).

But the real change that is taking place is a lot deeper and impacts every level of not only society but our individual lives as well. For example, As women have entered into the workplace with greater control, that has shaped corporate life. The movie, Anchorman, is a comedy and a bit of an exaggeration, but anyone old enough to remember those days should be reminded how much we have changed since then---even just the humor in the workplace is considerably different today. As changes like these play out, even the collective unconscious evolves, and the psychological implications can be significant: Jungian psychologists talk about how the rise of the masculine (which occurred in the early stages of civilization), created a more black and white--dualistic view of the world. It was key to giving mankind a stronger focus on the conscious mind and physical reality. It also marked the start of mankind's growing alienation from his subconscious.

The psychological impact of the rise of the feminine will be the reverse of these trends. As we reconnect with the subconscious, and give greater significance to intuition, feelings, and other aspects of the psyche that we label as feminine, this will only help resolve the difference between science and religion.

Churches have even began embracing more of a feminine viewpoint---I have watched this in the catholic church, and even in my mom and dad's church and others. The New Age movement has certainly embraced the feminine. The rise of the feminine will eventually impact all levels of spiritual belief systems.

Science has already concluded that the very archaic spiritual concept that all is illusion is in fact true. As science begins to embrace more of the irrational, the possibility of the non-physical, it will begin to validiate the existence of God, or cosmic consciousness, or whatever you want to call it.