January 16, 2005

Duality

Church/State, Science/Religion, Reason/Spirituality

I've been with my parents in Orlando (partying, if you can believe it) since Thursday. I should have pictures for you this week. They've just introduced me to Boston Legal, and there's a case this week about creationism vs. evolution. Funny, I ran across an article on this topic last week at cnn.com. We also saw Flight of the Phoenix tonight, in which a character said something to the effect of, "Spirituality is not religion. Religion divides people." And remember in the previous post I went on about discovering things about our origins in comets?

I must admit I'd be all fired up about this in the past. Like most people get fired up about their beliefs regarding the origins of life. I think people don't like being confused. And they don't like change; there is comfort in constancy. So they choose to believe what someone else says about how it really happened, or a few might invent or amalgamate their own story. You would think scientists would be more willing to accept new ideas. But it's a human trait to get stuck in a rut, to want to believe "things are the way they are" and not have to make your brain hurt anymore.

Mostly now I'm just discouraged. One way that I've avoided this sort of confusion (please don't think that I'm supporting creationism here--I have faith in science) for the past several years is separating myself completely from spirituality and religion. This has not been a good plan. Perhaps it's just as difficult to hash out these issues in my head as it is for the courts to do so in the case of the separation of church and state. It's all well and good that I feel a renewed sense of spirituality. But what about the people I encounter everywhere I go with no apparent reason or faith? Or those who forsake one for the other, as I am guilty of doing? Is it arrogant to say that many people don't seem ready for world peace? Help me out here.

Posted by George at January 16, 2005 11:07 PM
Comments

Science and religion go hand in hand. When something is real, both support it whole heartedly. Either alone, ultimately seems hollow and fails to provide much comfort to the true seeker of knowledge.

Posted by: Ez at January 16, 2005 11:26 PM

I dont think its an arrogant statement, no. I'm constantly wondering if it is indeed that we're all not on the same level of desire when it comes to these things. You want badly to believe that deep within each soul you see has that spiritual capacity. I hold on to that belief - but easily I can slide into seeing how latent it is in some folks. The logical follow through however, is how do we achieve a greater understanding of one another in order to align ourselves to working together in all realms of study and progress?

Posted by: Abby at January 17, 2005 01:14 PM

Check out Ken Wilber's "Kosmos" stuff at the Shambhala web site (Wilber is a Zen Buddhist, and is reported to have known Baha'is). Wilber proposes "integral" solutions based on conscious studies type social change theories. See Wilber's comments on Habermas' statements about "science colonizing arts and morals".

Note that Wilber is proposing that humanity is on the verge of a giant paradigm shift into "post-metaphysical" meaning that resolves the kind of postmodern critiques of "traditional metaphysics" that have stopped the progress of proposals to "bring back the sacred in life" as part of creating world peace, etc.

Wilber says that science and ecology (systems theory) can tell us a lot about the "evolutionary" development of mysticism and morals (historical context of social change).

Posted by: Eric at January 23, 2005 12:53 AM