One of the greatest scientists of
the 20th century, Albert Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame;
religion without science is blind.” The
parallels between science and religion are growing progressively closer
together the more knowledge is acquired by scientists and is accepted by
theologians. An important point to
remember when comparing and contrasting the two is the idea that truth is
homogeneous. And, with the more recent
breakthroughs in the discipline of quantum physics and the discovery of 'the
God particle’, the Higgs Boson, God, the Creator Source, is proven to exist by
a consistently evolving discovery.
“Science employs laws and
relationships that describe a mechanistic universe. Theology defers to the realm of the
intentional – God has motives that can be described by agents acting out
narratives” (Levine, 2008). Contemporary scientists once did not
speculate that the earth revolves around the sun, but instead now they
understand the earth’s position in the galaxy and why the seasons change as
they do.
Religion is defined as people's
beliefs and opinions concerning the existence, nature, and worship of a deity
or deities, and divine involvement in the universe and human life. Various religions differ on many levels but
agree on the basic ethical principles such as the Golden Rule of ‘do unto
others as you would have them do unto you’ or ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ Religion deals with desire and its
intentions. The scale weighing judgment
and mercy is the cause and effect of egoism or altruism, reception and
bestowal. Loving yourself is
receiving. Loving your neighbor is
sharing. Loving your neighbor as
yourself is receiving for the sake of sharing.
(Berg, 2006) That sort of
circuity is akin to the mechanics of a light bulb. When a light bulb becomes bright, it means
the filament is present. A filament in a
light bulb represents a resisting of a direct connection of (+) and (-). A direct connection represents desire for the
self alone. It creates a momentary burst
of light followed by darkness.
In an analogy, we can define God as
the attribute of bestowal. With the sun
being the original representative of God, giving life to all earth creatures,
it is an accurate comparison, because that was from a time before
religion. The paradigm in mysticism,
esoteric knowledge, and a scientific, methodological similarity is between what
is proven true about when a light bulb shines or bursts and also how atoms form
molecules or disintegrate. Atoms form
molecules by sharing electrons.
Electrons represent the desire to receive. Mutual reception creates vessels of
bestowal. When receiving is for the sake
of sharing, if electrons never disconnect, immortality is achieved. All atoms are immortal, they just switch
molecular compositions, thus creating a basis for scientific research of the
afterlife.
When in the thesis of this paper, I
stated that truth is homogeneous, it means that there is absolute truth. Certainty is achieved through awareness. It can be called so with observational
representationalism, or projections from a branch of philosophy based on “the
view that phenomenal consciousness can be explained in terms of the intentional
features of experience” (Gennaro,
2008). This means that even what cannot
be felt by the senses can potentially be validated through individual
perceptiveness. Proof is in witnessing
individual actions and states of being affecting the environment, or, as
Descarte’s cogito so aptly puts it, “I think, therefore I am.” Yes, you do exist. You can tell this to certainly be true,
because you are reading this and it creates a reaction. The God of the Bible told Moses to refer to
Him as YHVH, which translates as “I am who I am.”
So, where does this put religion in
society? Can the myriad of personal
convictions be tied back to any verifiable scientific evidence? Scientists learn about the theory of
evolution by natural selection. Do these
two not void any necessary belief about First Cause (God)? In stark contrast, “according to the creationist
view, God produced humans fully formed, with no previous related species. But what if evolution is God's tool? Darwin never said anything about God. Many scientists—and theologians—maintain that
it would be perfectly logical to think that a divine being used evolution as a
method to create the world” (Lovgren,
2004).
“Being is a type of consciousness
writ large of which we have experience and knowledge because we are
participants in it” (Bachyrycz,
Launiger, Wilfred, 2004). We ought to
use the shared experience of living to form a epistemological affluence for the
purpose of repairing the world. When
mankind aligns definitions between science and religion by merit of the rules
of grammar and value ethics, conflict will be rare if not extinct. The human being will always be however
curious. The process of deciding what is
true is a reasonable blueprint by which I, and other people who take claim to
certainty, give answers the questions “why”.
The question of how is much more difficult to satisfy. “If a person believes that if one lives in
accord with one's faith that he will be rewarded with eternal life, should he
be able to say why? If a biologist
argues that evolution offers the most compelling account of the variety of
species on earth, is it also part of that biologist's responsibility to defend
that claim, and offer the strongest arguments one can to justify it?” (Mosser, 2010).
In conclusion, science and religion
observe the same truth, since truth is homogeneous; they see it through
different lenses--intellect and emotion.
Beliefs are founded upon emotions.
There are no scientific beliefs, because the word ‘belief’ implies a
possibility of doubt. If science remains
theory only, then it is apparently tied to some emotional bias. When science and religion meet with similar
observances, it is called being lucid.
One way to get lucid is through language. “The philosophy of language investigates the
role language plays in human understanding and behavior. It explores how people are able to
communicate with each other, what assumptions must be made to understand
adequately that communication, and why there are fundamental difficulties, on
occasion, in our understanding each other.
At its most abstract, philosophy of language seeks to show how our
understanding of the world is fundamentally connected to the language we use to
describe and explain that world, in order to clarify philosophical claims and
philosophical puzzles" (Mosser,
2010). It is my understanding that God
is a verb. A verb is an action or state
of being. The nouns that this verb,
love, describes is matter which exists as dense projections of consciousness. The God that religion is an ode to and the
evidence science seeks as an explanation is the measurement of that
symmetrical, conscious movement, one in the same.
References
Bachyrycz,
D., Lauinger, B., & Wilfried, V. E. (2004). Hegel's god: A counterfeit
double? The Review of Metaphysics, 57(3), 616-617. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/223365597?accountid=32521
Gennaro,
R. J. (2008). Representationalism, Peripheral Awareness,
and the Transparency of Experience.
University of Southern Indiana.
Retrieved from:
http://www.usi.edu/libarts/phil/gennaro/papers/repperiph.pdf
Levine,
S. (2008). Darwin vs. Dogma: Can Science and Religion be
Reconciled? Yale Scientific. Retrieved from:
http://www.yalescientific.org/2008/12/darwin-vs-dogma-can-science-and-religion-be-reconciled/
Lovgren,
S (2004). Evolution and Religion Can Coexist,
Scientists Say. National Geographic
News. Retrieved from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1018_041018_science_religion.html
Mosser,
K. (2010). A concise introduction to philosophy. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint
Education, Inc.
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