Will Science and Religion ever be Reconciled?

The terms history's lesson is the hangup. Life is an axiomatic proposition or the basis for further reasoning. All doctrines are the precepts , of men. Mans precepts are not necessary for proper function although in no wise prohibited. Spirit, breath, represents our reality and this breath represents a state of grace, life being a gift of probability. Spirit is not excluded as we are spirit reaching toward spirit in all things.

 

Yeah, but who is the giver of this gift you speak of? And who is the recipient?

 

There seems to be a competition between these two things (science and religion). Both ask the same question of humanity: "Where would you be without me?" But, like male and female, they fight and bicker, forgetting that they're on the same side, trying to lift the same weight. Science screams the validity of practicality. Religion screams the necessity of something else. But both are only thought-forms created for the purpose of seeing in the dark because more often than not, humans believe in the dark more than they believe in god or science matters.

 

Who, tell me tell me tell me whooo who wrote the book of love...,

We are arrayed in creation or the particulate fallout of a ray of creation. A self organizing principle of life and by self organizing I do not mean a separate or particular form of life but the inherent principle of all life. We are but one aspect of an indefinite proposition I guess you could call probable emergence. This principle does not discriminate and being is all doing.

 

Concerning form and the formless, one appears to give rise to the other because, from where most stand, they cannot help but create two things where there is only one. The formless does not give rise to form, as both are the result of the same seed.

 

Brings to question whether matter is substantial or we wonder if we ourselves are real.

Being in opposition is a connection, interdependent relationship. However having no connection and being in opposition are not the same.

All probability equals nothing in particular or the ab-solute, all in solution. Solution being equal dispersal, no clumping or form. Mind of which conscious thought is a small part is the tension of quantum, very small arrangements which create a particulate fallout as you suggest below

There is another philosophical take that states as above so below a concentric emanation. Spirit seems the psyches notation for the communion of elemental perspectives, a law without opposite. Elemental perspectives are standing wave forms, or pools or eddies of energy/matter.

It occurs to me in reviewing this mealy mouthed account that philosophy or love of wisdom/knowledge is the path to the synthesis of science and religion.
How do we reconcile, we come to agreement.

 

Meagain ,
I am merely using your outline to expand upon how said problems with conciliation may be breached. Obviously any conflicts on this issue are conceptual or abstract. I apologize if it is distracting or otherwise calls for some measure of defense.

Oh and mealy mouthed account was my own.

 

If we are going to simplify to the most simplistic common denominator, I would not choose 'how we are different' as that denominator---I would still think that such a concept is a result of cultural development. If, for example, you consider the culture that gave birth to civilization---the planter culture, You have culture and its institutions forming around a common ground—the shaping of a shared community. They were faced with the questions of ‘How do we live together? How do we plant enough to survive the periods when we are unable to harvest? How do we keep our fields fertile? How do we assure abundant crops? What powers to we need to beseech? How do we resolve problems within the community? How do we keep everyone happy and productive?”

They were not concerned with, “How are we different from the people on the other side of the mountains?” At this stage, they certainly had a concept of the in-group, but it wasn’t until outsiders were encountered that they actually did understand the in-group as an in-group, and that they actually owned their fields, and that there was an out-group.

Cultural development among hunter-gatherers before the planters followed a similar path. It was not a question of how are we different from others. Most hunter-gatherer languages use the word human, when referring to themselves. The Lakota word Oyate (which is one of the roots to Mitakuye Oyasin---all my relatives) is another example. It can mean a small group of people, a camp, a clan, a tribe, a race, a nation, all humans, all 2-legged and 4-legged people people (humans and animals), all earthlings, etc. It does not imply the difference that the English tribe does---because that is a specific kind of group. The Lakota word can mean any group, which therefore downplays the significance of the out-group.

Once again, to assume that culture is a dynamic of showing how different I am or we are, is based on post planter culture duality. The origin of culture is much older than planter cultures. Our oldest ancestors saw the world in terms of a multiplicity. And the ego in the early tribal cultures, while very individualistic, was still very oriented to the members of the group. For example---in traditional Lakota society, like many other indigenous groups, it was very rude to point. The reason is because when you point, in Lakota understanding, you are elevating your self above the group---saying, I am a special case. Because when you point, you are saying, first, look at me, then look at that. As the White man’s ways gained stronger influence among the Lakota, people began to feel the need to point. Since it was rude to point, they used their lips to point. (Some Lakota have told me that this is where that modern fad of making a duck face comes from.)

There are tons of examples I could use from around the world---but the concept of, ‘I am special’ is not only a post-planter culture concept, but also very much a Western concept. Where the planter culture group ethic is the strongest, you do not have that on an individual level. Examples of this would include many Middle Eastern cultures as well as traditional Asian cultures. Where it exists on a cultural level, you find it the strongest where it exists as a defensive mechanism. This is what we see happening today with the Jihadists and fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East.

To the Lakota, this is a fundamental state of our being. Again, it is a multiplistic understanding that even if we are all different, we are still all the same. This is not true for civilized cultures around the world where post-planter culture dualism continuously defines in-group vs out-group. This is why you can state that ‘I am special’ “…is the most basic description of error in perception.” This is true whether the ‘I’ refers to an individual or a group. As long as the other is in the in-group, there is a sense of relation. But in the civilized version, if the other is in the out-group, it is more difficult for one to feel related.

I stand by my statement that, “…cultural identity rises as people work together to find their place in the universe and how they find meaning and value in the universe, which in turn is meaning and value to themselves individually and with each other. It is the thread that weaves people together, provides a bond, and enables them to achieve and express those things that are important to them.”

You are saying that culture arises out of a gestalt that forms between groups of people. If this was true, then isolated groups (which there would have been many at the dawn of culture) would not develop any culture. I would say that the Gestalt is the separation from nature that Meagain was talking about. I disagreed with him, that a separation from nature is necessary—but clearly at some very early stage in cultural development there must be an understanding that man is separate---and therein lies the negative space that forms culture---the gestalt.

There’s that dualism again. Why does a culture have to be bad or good? Why can’t it have both features. Yes the fact that we are different, or that I am special is certainly at play. Especially in Modern culture that is so steeped in dualistic post-planter group ethic. But that doesn’t change the fact that as a culture becomes more nihilistic, the loss of values creates a breakdown of bonds. Marriage is a perfect example. When the marriage loses its value, the bond is usually broken. Sometimes, a pair of opposites make the best couple---but not if the marriage loses its value.

A culture is not a banana tree. Just because things have always happened one way, does not mean that such is the only way it can happen this time. If a culture that has lost its metaverse or unifying truth, can find a new one, it can evolve into something new, rather than decay and collapse.

If my past had nothing to do with our shared moment of together----then we would have nothing to communicate about. There would be no difference, no gestalt---we would have nothing to talk about except the weather. When talking about a culture (which is what I was referring to), everything is built on a precedent of what came before it. This is true whether you are talking about the psyche of an individual, the collective unconscious of a community, a nation, or a culture, or even the zeitgeist---the Spirit of the Age. This is why Judaism, Christianity, Greek Rationalism, the Enlightenment, science, and the Industrial Revolution all play such a big influence on Modern Culture.

Ok---here is an example. The members of a hunter-gatherer culture deep in the amazon have desires, like the member of any other culture. The desires are generally to spend time with family and friends, play games, joke, do ceremony, have sex, if they need food, then members go out and hunt, and so forth. Modern man, living in a culture of consumerism, is continuously influenced, even programmed, to consume. For most members of Modern Culture, in order to consume they need to spend long hours working, and typically go into debt to increase their consumption. The end result of this consumption is an increasingly abstract culture of plastic values. I previously mentioned couples out together---completely oblivious to each other, as they both busily text away on their cell phones. We are becoming more and more alienated from each other. Did you know that until World War II, most Americans lived in extended families (and not just because of the depression). The nuclear family is a Post World War II concept. Who do you think is happier?

History doesn’t? Hubris is not necessarily a thing of nature. Granted, we could call it human nature. But history is filled with downfall and collapse. The stock market is a great example of this too.

 

Firstly I think it is important to mention the tensions and conflicts that exist between the various religions and their sub-sects with all their competing claims and aspirations. Tensions that frequently have and continue to have dire outcomes for many including freethinkers, skeptics, and materialists.

On the broader question many claims advanced by religious people can be tested for scientific validity. The case of Intelligent design is instructive despite the seeming scientific pretensions of its practitioners. Tensions will naturally arise in many other instances and will only increase in number as our knowledge of this world expands. These tensions can then play out in a number of destructive ways. A good example would be when a child is denied a vaccine or condoms are condemned by religious authorities. I think more broadly we can judge the two be their fruits.

Needless to say religions will probably allways be with us. Existential issues will remain for many. The promise of an afterlife has certainly not harmed Christianity or Islam. Group selection may also play a part in sustaining many large religions in extensive and culturally diverse societies.

 

I want to clarify----in case there is any confusion----I am not defending traditional values, or saying that they must be maintained in order to maintain culture-----that should especially be clear regarding certain planter culture group ethics and values of dualism.

Facing values, and the implication that they can be overturned, is part of what makes a human, as the existentialist philosophers say, authentic. This is the freedom that man is faced with, and that creates anguish, according to Kierkegaard, Sartre, and others.

But becoming authentic doesn't mean that one should do away with all values and embrace nihilism. Rather it is accepting that there are no universals, and therefore one needs to come to terms with values that fit the arising zeitgeist.

The Post-Modern crisis is a crisis of nihilism. But very few people are authentic in this existentialist sense. Most of them are the 'crowd' that Kierkegaard talked about---that rather than face their freedom head on--dealing with the anguish that this freedom implied---they instead run and hide in ideologies, giving their freedom to others to control. But today, consumerism----the spectacle-----also provides an escape for the crowd. Some like Marcus would argue that the Spectacle (though this was not his term) creates, and imprisons the crowd.

It is facing these values and struggling to find value in a nihilistic world that cries for a reconciliation between the spiritual and the scientific---especially to create a new unfiying truth.

 

to create a new unifying truth ? ha! funny metaphysics again . truth
is for children , and when you fool around speaking it wrong they get
very annoyed . reality shall not be dictated .

 

Exactly my point, it is the essential pulse of en-culturation the natural outcome of a fundamental premise. I would not choose I am special as the most common denominator. Identification is more properly ascertained in how we are similar.

Culture is an idea about how to be civilized. Being civilized is precisely equal to your relationship with the person standing next to you.
Civilization as you attend to it is food delivery technology. We have shared community being by nature interdependent. We need not shape shared community but we can come to agreements over differing perspectives.

Culture as I have said and as you describe above with your planter culture's existential dilemmas is sponsored by fearful thought, a defensive reaction to beholding resistance to maintaining our temperate clime.

The enemy or they , needn't be the guy on the other side of the mountain but any elemental force, as in "what powers do we need to beseech"

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No as you see, it is your claim not mine. Culture need not arise in my estimation, nurture/nature is more than sufficient!

You can use the words separate, special, me, not me interchangeably and come away with the same meaning. Yes clearly the fundamental prosecutor is the mistaken idea, not the necessary idea, that man is separate from his good.

Dualism is not one or the other it is the conceptual existence of both features by definition.

What constitutes our past? History is always told in the present and memory is living tissue. Each new moment is an essentially new creation, continuity in appearance is achieved by fashioning the present moment, equaling one cycle of breath upon the previous moment and changes in future trajectory are made at this moment of creative fashion. That is to have a future different from the past we make a different choice, not a traditional choice, in the present.

Innovation is a rupture/rapture in world model being a eureka moment transcending evolutionary orders.

It appears that you defend en-culturation as an essential program of human development and that defensive position is the hallmark of the hypnotically enculturated mind, cultural imperatives being sponsored by fearful thought, doubt, suspicion.... that we are in harms way or otherwise compelled by moral authority, rather than free to live.

Culture as I describe it is the propriety model in essence. As I have suggested the tension is between substantial reward, enough consumables, and essential fulfillment, being in the world.

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History is his story told in the present. We can't genuinely observe the dawn of mans development but we can remember our own questions and how they occurred to us. Doubt arose an existential tantrum the moment I was told no.

 

Nor can it harm.

 

Outcomes, dire or otherwise are but a moments reflection in a space time continuum. Points of contention contend not with the truth but with each other.

The terms we need come to are together we stand or we fall apart. Regardless science or religion we remain the arbitrator of all measurements and our lives appear to us equal to our determinations.

How to come to grips with our authority problem.

 

You present a false choice. Reality is universal and what is not real does not exist. One need not evaluate to choose between known things.

 

known things can be repressed , denied ... and a subversive version of reality may be dictated by authority . what is subverted ? the natural
mind , which is then inclined to take refuge in the cave . then there is
the problem of the half-wit artificial intelligence that still walks around -
the Moton - the bumbler with nuclear weapons . oh , disaster .

ain't this the something people pray about ? oh , reconciliation ,
one moment of tearfulness ... its crazy . stay calm . the hallucin-
ations will be cool but not really all the interesting . the reality is
fine out here , where the sparkles are .

 

I guess I need to clarify that better---by 'no universals' I meant that there are no universal values, ethics, or morals. How can we as mortal humans be so presumptuous as to determine the morality of the divine? This should be understood as values develop in the evolving zeitgeist.

But now that you bring it up---I would not say that reality is universal. It is subjective. In recent years there has been a lot of papers, primarily in psychology that show how subjective reality is, both how it relates to understanding the present and the past.

In my book that deals with the question in this thread---I discuss light and the perception of reality. The speed of light is the one constant in the universe that is not effected by how fast the observer is moving, or what direction. It is the speed of time (for example, if you move faster than the speed of light, you will move back in time. If you move at the speed of light, according to Einstein's theories of relativity, time suddenly drops to zero).

In my book I take Berkeley's statement, "esse est percipi," perception is reality, and I apply it to light, which---if it is the speed of time, then it could be a defining principal to the reality of time. This would mean that there is a matrix of photons clear accross the universe that represents the Now. One photon behind is the future, one photon ahead is the past. This means that there is an objective Now that spreads clear accross the universe. It is Now in a galaxy 400 Million light years away, just as it is Now right here in my living room. But no matter how universal that Now is, it is still very localized, and perceived entirely on a subjective level.

How subjective? Let's say that someone is standing twenty feet away from me. We both experience the Now at the same time---and remember it is a matrix of photons. But any photon that exists in the 20 feet of distance between us, is in my past, and my friend's future, if it is moving away from me, or in my future, and my friend's past if it is moving towards me. And if we were looking towards that galaxy that is 400 Million Light Years away, It is also currently Now (but the galaxy has probably moved), and it would take 400 Million Years before we would see the light from that galaxy in the Now. We cannot really perceive any other photon of light, other than those in the brief instantaneous moment of Now---we know they are there, but we only see them in the Now. This plays back to the fact that there is only the Now.

But as you can see---the Now is the absolute point at where the objective meets the subjective and forms reality.