Science & spirituality : two different perspectives.
Spiritualities as much as sciences are constructions of the human spirit, as far as we know. No one has come forward from the outer world to tell us which is right and which is wrong and we much depend on ourselves up to now to make this determination.
There is about only one thing undeniable: the universe has been there well before we came to be and it does not need us to stay there! The rest is speculative but should put us at our place. Am I being reasonable here or disappointing...
Our interpretation of it all since the beginning of the species has been a good try to say the least. Furthermore there should always be a clean separation between science and spirituality, for their respective angle of research and questioning is quite apart most of the time. On the one hand simply put, science asks "how" and on the other hand spirituality wonders "why". But that does not mean there is no possible dialogue between the two. They complete each other. In a natural manner a child is asking "why". In adulthood we come to ask "how". The link between the spiritual world or the invisible world and the scientific or material world is there. During childhood, in normal condition, we have the leisure to ask "why", for we do not have to take care much of the material world for our survival. It is done for us. But in adulthood we have to face "reality". Our dreamworld is vanishing. Yet always in normal child-rearing conditions it will always stay there as a beacon of hope.
The universe does not need us to be... Science has come very late in the universe. It has not build it and has still to explain much of it. It can explain the Big Bang, how it happened, but not why it happened. What or who triggered it. Sciences are only tools, great tools that is. But they probably will never explain the "whys", only the "hows".
It is very important to know the "hows" for it helps us tremendously in avoiding the pain of not knowing. "What you don't know can't hurt you", the saying goes. This is obviously a very dangerous and lazy way to be.
Since the universe does not need us to be and science will probably never tell us "why" it's there, lets assume that we still need to know "why"... That line of questioning is as old as the "how". We have intuitively known that we can't explain the two lines of questioning with the same parameters. Science has always excluded any explanation that cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is its privilege.
Spirituality as we know it involves a certain degree of intuitive belief that we can't prove scientifically. Yet we need such an anchor or a basis on which to build our encounter with the universe and "go from there". It can be something transmitted from generation to generation or it can be learned from others later on if we find ourselves unable to accept what has been transmitted to us through family, parents, etc. In any case, we build our set of beliefs from our own capacities, would they be social, intellectual or otherwise.
We all have a set of believes from atheism to fanatism of all sorts. We are more and more "civilized" and living in big cities where we hardly know that milk comes from cows or goats, that water comes from either the ocean or lakes and rivers far away, that stars are not lamposts at every street corners. The quest for meaning in this small universe within the big one is more difficult than it would have been when the Great Prophets were having their own quest in the middle of nature.
There is about only one thing undeniable: the universe has been there well before we came to be and it does not need us to stay there! The rest is speculative but should put us at our place. Am I being reasonable here or disappointing...
Our interpretation of it all since the beginning of the species has been a good try to say the least. Furthermore there should always be a clean separation between science and spirituality, for their respective angle of research and questioning is quite apart most of the time. On the one hand simply put, science asks "how" and on the other hand spirituality wonders "why". But that does not mean there is no possible dialogue between the two. They complete each other. In a natural manner a child is asking "why". In adulthood we come to ask "how". The link between the spiritual world or the invisible world and the scientific or material world is there. During childhood, in normal condition, we have the leisure to ask "why", for we do not have to take care much of the material world for our survival. It is done for us. But in adulthood we have to face "reality". Our dreamworld is vanishing. Yet always in normal child-rearing conditions it will always stay there as a beacon of hope.
The universe does not need us to be... Science has come very late in the universe. It has not build it and has still to explain much of it. It can explain the Big Bang, how it happened, but not why it happened. What or who triggered it. Sciences are only tools, great tools that is. But they probably will never explain the "whys", only the "hows".
It is very important to know the "hows" for it helps us tremendously in avoiding the pain of not knowing. "What you don't know can't hurt you", the saying goes. This is obviously a very dangerous and lazy way to be.
Since the universe does not need us to be and science will probably never tell us "why" it's there, lets assume that we still need to know "why"... That line of questioning is as old as the "how". We have intuitively known that we can't explain the two lines of questioning with the same parameters. Science has always excluded any explanation that cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is its privilege.
Spirituality as we know it involves a certain degree of intuitive belief that we can't prove scientifically. Yet we need such an anchor or a basis on which to build our encounter with the universe and "go from there". It can be something transmitted from generation to generation or it can be learned from others later on if we find ourselves unable to accept what has been transmitted to us through family, parents, etc. In any case, we build our set of beliefs from our own capacities, would they be social, intellectual or otherwise.
We all have a set of believes from atheism to fanatism of all sorts. We are more and more "civilized" and living in big cities where we hardly know that milk comes from cows or goats, that water comes from either the ocean or lakes and rivers far away, that stars are not lamposts at every street corners. The quest for meaning in this small universe within the big one is more difficult than it would have been when the Great Prophets were having their own quest in the middle of nature.
posted by Marc Bédard Pelchat at
13:00
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