The Science of Religion . . .
“Who, me? Religious? No thanks! I’m pretty spiritual but religion really turns me off.”
Ever heard someone say something like that? Ever said it yourself?
So what is it with this spiritual/religious divide? What makes what used to go together fall so far apart? Is it related to the idea that living-together seems to have more appeal than marriage?
“Who, us? Get married? No thanks! We’re pretty compatible but marriage really turns us off.”
What’s wrong with commitment? And, what does science have to do with any of this?
“Who me? Be scientific? No thanks! I’m pretty rational but exposing my ideas to the possibility of being disproven really turns me off.”
Just because some people get away with having their ideas accepted even when they aren’t true doesn’t make science invalid.
Just because some people get along famously living-together doesn’t invalidate marriage.
Just because engaging in spiritual activities makes a person more loving doesn’t make religion reprehensible.
It’s what people have made of marriage that makes many shy from it.
It’s what people have done to the use of the mind that has fostered less than rigorous thinking.
It’s what folks do in the name of religion that sends people running…
Marriage is an institution that makes a relationship more than being pretty compatible.
Science is an institution that makes thought more than pretty rational.
Religion is an institution that makes spirituality more than being a nice person…
There is also a science to marriage—a method of perfecting the living-together.
A science of religion?
I’ll leave you with a statement from the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith.
Spiritual Quote:
“Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how thy motion and stillness, thy will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical senses or spiritual perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty. So closely are they related unto it, that if in less than the twinkling of an eye its relationship to the human body be severed, each and every one of these senses will cease immediately to exercise its function, and will be deprived of the power to manifest the evidences of its activity. It is indubitably clear and evident that each of these afore-mentioned instruments has depended, and will ever continue to depend, for its proper functioning on this rational faculty, which should be regarded as a sign of the revelation of Him Who is the sovereign Lord of all. Through its manifestation all these names and attributes have been revealed, and by the suspension of its action they are all destroyed and perish.”
Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 163
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Religion and Wildlife
In a story from OneWorld, Eco-Islam: Malaysia’s Imams to preach against poaching, it says: “Muslim preachers in Malaysia are using teachings from the Koran to raise awareness and help preserve endangered species, many of which reside in the Southeast Asian island nation.”
This is an extremely hopeful sign in a prevailing culture that most often sees the natural world as a mere Resource, ripe for exploitation.
Malaysia is also one of the 18 countries considered to be MegaDiverse; in other words, “countries that harbor the majority of the earth’s species and are therefore considered extremely biodiverse.”
On the World Wildlife Fund site (where you can check all the MegaDiverse countries) they say something very powerful. You may already know this but, I feel, it bears near constant repetition:
For me, as a Bahá’í, religion supporting conservation of animal species is a no-brainer; but, I’d rather quote folks more eloquent then me…
Spiritual Quote:
“Among the principles guiding the Bahá’í approach to conservation and sustainable development, the following are of particular importance:
» nature reflects the qualities and attributes of God and should, therefore, be greatly respected and cherished;
» all things are interconnected and flourish according to the law of reciprocity; and
» the oneness of humanity is the fundamental spiritual and social truth shaping our age.
“Bahá’í Scriptures describe nature as an emanation of God’s will:
“Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator. Its manifestations are diversified by varying causes, and in this diversity there are signs for men of discernment. Nature is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world. It is a dispensation of Providence ordained by the Ordainer, the All-Wise.”
The Bahá’í International Community, 1995 Apr 06, Conservation and Sustainable Development in the Bahá’í Faith
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God ?
Jim: “So I hear you found God…” Denise: “More like God found me.” Jim: “…” Denise: “Kind of like when the student is ready, the Teacher appears…” Jim: “God, huh?” Denise: “Yep.” Jim: “Did He speak to you?” Denise: “No, She didn’t. Actually, I don’t think God is sexed—beyond all that…” Jim: “So how do you know God found you?” Denise: “I feel ‘Blessed ’, I feel I’m worthy of working toward my best potential…” Jim: “Quite a change from last month with all that talk about dying…” Denise: “Yeah, I want to live now and I’m not afraid of dying either, whenever…” Jim: “Wild! ” Denise: “Yeah, wild… Wonderful… Weird… Jim: “Yeah…” If you’d been in attendance at this imaginary scene, you’d have seen the body language and felt the emotion—you’d have believed that Denise really did feel that God had found her. Who or What is God? Big Question… This post was stimulated by a post on BloggersBase called, Perspectives on the Nature of God – Which of these Five Views Matches Yours? The author lists five very common conceptions of God with descriptions: God the Wrathful… God the Judgmental… God Who?… God the Compassionate… God the Universal Spirit… Then, comes a fascinating piece of contemplation: “You have probably rejected four of these five views of God as being absolutely wrong, and even been uncomfortable with the wording of the view with which you most closely align. In doing so, you have rejected the sincere beliefs of the vast majority of humanity. Is promoting your preferred characterization of God more important than compassion and acceptance of diversity?” I have my conception of God and it embraces a few of the five mentioned but goes well beyond any of them… To me, God is First and Foremost, the Unknowable—no conception from us—the creations of God—can attain to the True Nature of our Creator… This belief doesn’t relieve me of the necessity for compassion and empathy and tolerance of other’s beliefs… There is, however, a concept in religion that indicates the existence of Messengers from God, Prophets of God, Manifestations of God, Who have acted as intermediaries between God the Creator and we the created. Some of their names have been Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh. There’s also a concept called Progressive Revelation that says that all those Manifestations are One in Spirit and the religions They each founded were but Chapters in a continuing revelation of One Faith of God. This principle holds that all the religions are stages of one religion—the outer social laws changing with the constant evolution of humanity but the core spiritual Truths remaining—immutable… One God… One Faith… One Human Family… Hmmm . . . Spiritual Quote: “The holy Manifestations of God come into the world to dispel the darkness of the animal, or physical, nature of man, to purify him from his imperfections in order that his heavenly and spiritual nature may become quickened, his divine qualities awakened, his perfections visible, his potential powers revealed and all the virtues of the world of humanity latent within him may come to life. These holy Manifestations of God are the Educators and Trainers of the world of existence, the Teachers of the world of humanity. They liberate man from the darkness of the world of nature, deliver him from despair, error, ignorance, imperfections and all evil qualities. They clothe him in the garment of perfections and exalted virtues. Men are ignorant; the Manifestations of God make them wise. They are animalistic; the Manifestations make them human. They are savage and cruel; the Manifestations lead them into kingdoms of light and love. They are unjust; the Manifestations cause them to become just. Man is selfish; They sever him from self and desire. Man is haughty; They make him meek, humble and friendly. He is earthly; They make him heavenly. Men are material; the Manifestations transform them into divine semblance. They are immature children; the Manifestations develop them into maturity. Man is poor; They endow him with wealth. Man is base, treacherous and mean; the Manifestations of God uplift him into dignity, nobility and loftiness.”
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‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 465
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Would A Scientist Lie To You ?
Science has attained a position in modern culture that approaches what was formerly reserved for religion. Many people would thank God for that turn of events but most of the scientists, good “priests” of the new “religion”, would caution the God-thanker against unscientific thinking.
If that little scenario seems a bit convoluted, the actual situation in science-at-large is much more distorted.
Before launching into a case-in-point, I want to float an analogical situation to ease our approach to some extremely tangled territory:
You’re just cruisin’ along, doin’ your thing in life, when a rival you didn’t even know you had starts to spread a rumor that you’re a sex abuser. The first you hear of it is during a conversation at the next table in the café. It’s about whether the police should use entrapment to find sex abusers and it’s definitely loud enough to make you listen.
Certain details of some recent case start surfacing and you begin to realize that these people are talking about a man who’s currently being investigated for his activities who sounds like it might be you—too many little details, no name, but enough circumstantial evidence to deduce that these people are discussing You!
This kind of rumor-mongering doesn’t happen just in cafés; it’s present in business, political, and religious communities, too. The point I want to make is how hard it can be, once a rumor has circulated enough to gain currency, to disprove it, no matter how many facts you have at your disposal. Shades of Lenin and the Big Lie…
Back to the scientists.
A recent news buzz was created by an extremely expensive collection of scientific equipment—the Large Hadron Collider. This particle-smashing machine was built by tax-payer money but the people who’s pockets were emptied haven’t been given the whole truth…
An entertaining yet scientifically weak article in The New York Times, Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole, discusses some apparently alarming aspects of the risks scientists create with their expensive experiments. The problem with the article and most of mainstream science is that the science being done isn’t as rigorously honest as one might imagine it should be.
What some folks would call a fringe-group (a group that has successfully predicted what many recent spacecraft have recorded, things that have the mainstreamers running back to their drawing-boards) recently posted an article by Jeremy Dunning-Davies, senior lecturer in physics at the University of Hull and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dr. Dunning-Davies discusses the alarm produced by the switching on of the Hadron Collider, then proceeds to give an acute analysis of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (not horribly technical) and says something very interesting for a scientist:
“Science should be studied with a totally open mind and any advances should be examined in a like manner. Surely the aim of any scientific investigation is to seek the truth? Probably mankind will always be found wanting intellectually and any solution to a problem will be no more than an approximation to the real truth, but efforts must continue in all areas to find that elusive complete answer….Where several theories exist, that fact must be openly acknowledged with no thought for protecting vested interests of any sort.”
Dr. Dunning-Davies is not well appreciated by his fellow scientists. He’s encroaching on their “priesthood”, he’s asking for the complete truth and that just might lead to the mainstream scientists not having the monetary support they want.
Point?
If a large group of scientists are not letting the whole truth reach the public, or using the tactics of the malicious rumor-mongerer to keep competing theories from the funding-dollar, we the Public deserve to know.
Figuring out how to put down the rumor-like science and let the whole truth shine is a bit harder than just knowing about it. Just like the fellow having misinformation being spread about his sexual abuse, beating down a popular lie is a huge task…
Spiritual Quote:
“…the injunction to investigate truth—that is to say, no man should blindly follow his ancestors and forefathers. Nay, each must see with his own eyes, hear with his own ears and investigate the truth himself in order that he may follow the truth instead of blind acquiescence and imitation of ancestral beliefs.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Promulgation of Universal Peace
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“Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements. ~ Bahá’u’lláh
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