THE LOVING AFFAIRS BETWEEN SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY

Physics Professor John Polkinghorne:

"Physics may tell us that music is air pressure fluctuations, and neurophysiology may describe the resulting nerve activity that arises when sound hits the eardrum, but it would be completely misleading to assume that music could be so adequately captured. Their mystery and reality slip through the wide gauges of the scientific network."

As I stumble upon it elsewhere and here on the blockchain as well, it seems that the conflict between religion and science is still in full swing.

But what about the love affairs between the "two"?

In this article I will rely on science, religion & myself.
I will make them make love with each other.
I asked myself the fundamental question: Is this about "reason" and "unreason"? Is there such a "thing" as religion and science? These two spheres of life seem to break down into what I call events.

Let me take the case of religious faith and how it may be embedded in a person's life. Are the decisions and omissions of this person then due to his religion? Very likely not. If this person lives in a highly technical country and under western influence, he will not be able to avoid having made a certain adjustment and not living according to his faith alone. It seems to me to be a very big problem when people judge the actions of others by the fact that they have had a religiously motivated cause (or in the other case, if they do not have a spiritual motive at all).

To make absurd comparisons, it would be as if I were accused of not repairing a defective engine part in my car simply because my belief that it would repair itself by itself prevents me from going to a garage. It would also be just as strange if someone claims not to feel connected with other people, because one has to prove to him rationally and scientifically founded that his existence is not based on separation but on connection.

My point is that such extreme examples are being chosen from the corner of the respective defenders in order to demonstrate the ridiculousness of such acts.

Examples of extremity points to confusion, despair and imprudence.

All the religious wars that have caused blood to be shed for centuries arise from passionate feelings and facile counter-positions, such as Us and Them, good and bad, white and black. Umberto Eco
Quotes Umberto Eco

In the debate on this form of human error, it would be good to add that confused and desperate people need to rely on others who deal with these emotions with compassion and fearlessness rather than with rejection and fear and scorn. It is because it's difficult to love the enemy you should try to love him instead of because you hate him, you deny him.

“He was insane. And when you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he’s insane, which is not to see him at all. To”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - more quotes

So let's take the case where parents didn't take a child to a hospital for treatment - discussed in this article from @mike11 (which actually inspired me to write my own posting on that). And that their religious faith prevented them from doing so. I've never experienced anything like this, and I also believe that the probability of encountering such a situation is extremely low. From my perspective, this is a dying form of human behaviour. In time and space it is a matter of patience to accept that it may not die to the total. I would deal with it though, when I encounter a similar situation and have faith (haha) in myself to act appropriate. You should do that, too.

Nevertheless it is worth to dig a little deeper: I asked myself the question,

what makes me certain that it is the religious faith that causes such omission or what else could it be?

My view of the world and how I judge my life experience tells me that it is not primarily a faith, but usually something else, namely mistrust and fear: I suspect in other people that they are without compassion or not trustworthy, I block myself against any form of cooperation. In this way, I can understand a certain rejection and hesitation when I relate my previous experiences - for example in a hospital where I have been treated myself - to future visits. If my hospital experience was predominantly of a positive nature and if I had the impression that doctors and nurses treated me sympathetically and compassionately, I tend to take possible future stays with an advance of confidence. If I rate my experiences in this respect predominantly negative, my trust has been used up to a good extent.

When two people meet each other, both of which are marked by doubts, prejudices and negative experiences at the moment of meeting, there is a high probability that they will reject each other. I would think that neither strict religious faith, nor strict scientific orientation have a special role here - but probably only the conviction that this maybe so.

After all, not every human being reveals himself as "this" or "that". When I occupy a room with people and I put red caps on one half of the people and green caps on the other, and then say: the greens are Christians and the reds are scientists, did I actually make a valid statement about what these people are?

In the world I live in, it doesn't happen that way, except in theory. So at the table or on the living room couch.

Is it also the case that someone who calls himself "strictly scientifically oriented" is always in action according to this maxim?

I don't think so. Particularly not if I draw on some knowledge from science itself. Constructivism, for example. The beautiful thing is that religion also confirms this. For example, within Buddhist teaching. And if you want to, you can also find this in Christian doctrine; if you like to interpret it this way.

Religion itself is neither good nor bad, same with science.
I don't want to care about what kind of label someone who meets me carries and I prefer to learn not to understand the label but the people behind it. Neither the prejudices I have about science nor religion will help me in this. What guides me is to use the present moment of a human relationship for myself and others in such a way that I experience myself as helpful and not harmful in that very moment.

It helps me to say that it is beyond my abilities to be able to include the history in the context of a religious contemplation completely in my knowledge base and to know and understand the innumerable scientific inventions and theories.

A patient can do a doctor good and a doctor good for a patient.

Both can put themselves in a position to face the other with a measure of confidence when they are without fear or rejection or strong desire. Question is: Am I always aware of them when they use to show up?

If I accept my ability to construct what I call my life in a relevant way, I succeed - with much practice, repetition and consistency - in adopting an inner attitude that understands the present moment as the greatest opportunity to be in a good relationship - which shows the goodness through the events taking place.

I would like to tell you that I myself was dealing with a mother who had a strongly paternalistic Christian faith. It took me a very long time to realize that my dislike and rejection of it was not directed towards faith, nor to her iniquities or stupidity in this regard. It was my mistrust that kept me from recognizing the good intentions behind her - admittedly clumsy - efforts.

Focusing on similarities instead of differences

After I realized this, I began to see her missionary work differently. More serene. I decided I had to give her the certainty that I felt and thought the same way she did. I confirmed to her that her desire for me to be well in a faith and that I would get an inner guidance was right. I left the baby in the tub and just poured out the scratching and annoying bath additives. At such a moment of mutual confirmation, I felt that she and I could manage without our aversions.
Her intention was to give me a positive insight into life and experience and not to exercise power over me, as I mistakenly suspected all these years. But even if this had been the case, my intention is to de-construct this with far more positive consequences than I would have thought it was just preaching water and drinking wine.

Combine instead of separate

I would consider it an ideal form of union to recognize "priests“ and “scientists“ in one human being. Why, in fact, does something actually speak against admitting the probability that where there is no scientific explanation, an "X"-factor can stand still and I accept the unknown and uncertain. If I am my priest and scientist in one person, I shell be fine. Or has anyone heard of a scientific explanation of love? Maybe I'll give it a try myself:)

In any case, what is happening when I reject "some thing" or "some one" it gains energy. Take a person you hate. The more you hate the person, the more this person becomes important. I announce that "I never ever will speak again!" with this person but as I already know, that exactly makes this persons presence even stronger.

In other words (and as far as my interpretation goes):

In propositional logic and boolean algebra, De Morgan's laws are a pair of transformation rules that are both valid rules of inference. They are named after Augustus De Morgan, a 19th-century British mathematician. The rules allow the expression of conjunctions and disjunctions purely in terms of each other via negation.

The rules can be expressed in English as:

the negation of a disjunction is the conjunction of the negations; and
the negation of a conjunction is the disjunction of the negations;
or

the complement of the union of two sets is the same as the intersection of their complements; and
the complement of the intersection of two sets is the same as the union of their complements.

In order to present you a balance between the loving affairs, I like to include a figure who worked under the umbrella of the church. Under the heading "Theology" it says about Thomas from Aquinas - a Dominican monk and "one of the most influential philosophers and theologians of history" on the German Wikipedia (Translated from German to English):

Synthesis of Ancient Philosophy and Christian Dogmatics

Thomas claims to give theology the character of a science. This is seen by the Church as one of its main achievements. To clarify the religious secrets, he uses natural reason, especially the philosophical thinking of Aristotle. Thomas disbanded the opposites that existed in his time between the followers of two philosophers: those of Augustine (who emphasized the principle of human faith) and the rediscovered Aristotle (who came from the world of experience and the knowledge based on it). Thomas tries to show that these two teachings do not contradict each other, but complement each other, so that some things can only be explained by faith and revelation, others also or only by reason. His achievements are seen above all in this synthesis of ancient philosophy with Christian dogmatics, which is of inestimable importance for modernity.

It seems that there is already a millennium old struggle here between "reason" and "faith" and we modern people of today feel the after-effects and still seem to be trapped in this duality.

My reception tells me that I am in an environment which tries to question Aquinas statement (and those who raise it today) resp. one part of his sentence "things can only be explained by faith and revelation" - it seems like this ought not to be said or thought. But I would like his whole sentence to stay intact and focus more on the complementary aspect.

Because I am a child of the western media, the expression and lobby of the camp of "reason" seems to me to outweigh by far that of the "believers" and I wonder why people get so annoyed. Is it because not all of them have yet changed to a single camp and because "unbelievers" must be persuaded to finally accept the scientific method? It seems to me that this is why the squad of people who are striving for reason can make themselves "guilty" of their own accusations.

Why this critique?

Because I sense, read and hear an either open or subtle abuse and mockery of religious people. Same of course sounds from the camp of Christians or other confessions.

From what I observe, people who abused or mocked other people in my presence were neither scientists nor Christians. Mostly those "others" weren't with us in the room or even people we didn't know in person. Mostly it were groups or foreigners. Mostly it were related to something we didn't even have some profound knowledge of.

I am neither a scientist nor a Christian in pure form myself.

What about asking yourself the following questions: Does the fact that I acknowledge the scientific method in general make me a scientist? Does the fact that I accept the virtues of Christianity make me a Christian?

What if I take both, "reason" AND "love" and make it my goal to cultivate the two for my existence?

What if you decide that you don't have to believe in something which you have strong premonitions about and start your investigation about what has meaning in your life? Isn't it possible, to leave God aside? When you leave God aside and start looking for what findings and teachings can do for you instead of against you, what then?

Am I not in a position to make such a decision? At all times, people have made such a decision for themselves and deepened into those teachings that they considered to be valuable for personal development and worthy of study.

“The natural world, on the other hand, is one of infinite varieties and complexities, a multidimensional world which contains no straight lines or completely regular shapes, where things do not happen in sequences, but all together; a world where—as modern physics tells us—even empty space is curved.”
― Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism - source

I believe that we have been sufficiently, duly, eagerly and vehemently excited about the fact that a monotheistic or multi-theistic faith has not been very helpful in developing into a responsible, compassionate being that helps itself and others. I think we're still spilling the baby with the bath water. While sharing the same anger and righteousness for a long time in my life, and soon tired and bored of this state of affairs, I took the opportunity to investigate whether there was anything else to be found in the bush.

What I found, I tried to express here in the way I approached this subject. Or at least this is my hope.

I do not intend to talk about the cruel, deviant, destructive events or consequences that have taken place in the name of both the Church and science. That doesn't get me anywhere except for the fact that I'm starting to get angry. Which, by no means is a bad thing. To feel anger I need for it is one of my best indicators of reflecting on it and integrating it into my life as a teacher. But I must not repeat this kind of anger again and again, after I already know what to do about it.

Rather, I would like to close my article with the question: Is the way of life in this world important to you inasmuch as you wish to unite with others on the basic values of your existence and that you might first consider the degree of your own maturity in order to recognize what you can work on before expecting this kind of (spiritual) maturity from others?

Just two more things:

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more. Lord Byron
source

As what @alexander.alexis recently pointed out to me, it is the comfort zone of us people which prevents from doing the work of questioning. The questions are more of a pleasure if you do not fear the answers.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
― Gautama Buddha

I don't like my life. I love it. I must not fear death in this spirit, as when I look back I already can see the beauty of it.

Thank you for reading

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P.S. while writing this article I strolled over to @nobyeni 's blog. And what did I find? But read yourself:)

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^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/umberto_eco_584342
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/401.Robert_M_Pirsig?page=14
https://steemit.com/steemstem/@mike11/faith-versus-fact-can-science-coexist-with-religion
https://steemit.com/steemstem/@erh.germany/the-construction-loving-master-mind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Morgan%27s_laws
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_von_Aquin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1637223-the-tao-of-physics-an-exploration-of-the-parallels-between-modern-physi
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/lord_byron_201617?src=t_music
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2167493.Gautama_Buddha
http://www.wissenschaft.de/home/-/journal_content/56/12054/64843/ (German)}

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^{Pictures:
Love-affair: Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
Reflection: Photo by John Jason on Unsplash}

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