Thoughts on Science and Religion
The universe is made of stories.
The Universe Is Made of Stories
I think the central story of Christianity is not one of the parables of Jesus, or even his death and resurrection, but a simple story of a meal shared with friends. The story goes like this: Jesus took a loaf of bread in his hands, blessed it, broke it, and shared it with those around him. This story tells me how to live a good life. If I take each moment as it comes, if I enter into the moment, if I don't hold back, if I share the moment with those around me, then I am living a good life–solving a problem at my job, sharing the road on my way home, sharing dinner with my wife, reading a good novel while she practices at the piano, making love, taking out the trash, and walking the dog.
Religious people argue with atheists and scientific materialists over the existence of God. Agnostics, people who may have a sense of the sacred in their lives, who claim to be spiritual, but not religious, reject any formal organization of religious thought and practice. There is truth in every perspective, but I want to try to answer the atheists and the agnostics. I'll use poet Muriel Rukeyser in my answer to the atheists. She wrote "The universe is made of stories, not atoms." There are scientific stories, such as the Big Bang theory about the origins of the universe, or Sir Isaac Newton's story of a canon ball's trajectory from the mouth of a canon. And there are religious stories like the one I described above. Scientific stories and religious stories are qualitatively different. Maybe scientific stories tell us how things work and religious stories tell us how to live a good life.
In my answer to the agnostics I will use poetry as well. Poetry is particular. Jane Kenyon wrote a poem about a man in a coffee shop eating yogurt out of a container with a white plastic spoon. She could have written about eating in general, but I don't think it would have made a very interesting poem. Religion is particular and interesting, while spirituality is general and boring. Someone who samples a number of religious traditions is still being religious, I think. They just may be missing the benefit of going deeply into any one tradition.
Religious traditions tell different stories about what it is to be human and what it means to live a good life in a particular culture. I wonder if Catholicism would make more sense in Asian cultures if, instead of using bread in the Mass, we used rice cakes. Christianity took root in Latin America only after the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a poor peasant, in the form of a "mestiza," a woman of mixed European and American Indian descent. Buddhism, with its story of Siddhartha finding enlightenment beneath the Bodi tree, seems to make perfect sense to many people in the West, and many people in the West find enlightenment and wisdom through the Sufi poet Rumi, an excellent story teller. The central Jewish story of the exodus from slavery in Egypt has had meaning for other oppressed peoples, especially those in Latin America.
I think the universe is made of stories–scientific and religious types of stories. I could not imagine life without either one of them.
Jim Gunshinan is Managing Editor of Home Energy Magazine. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from University of Notre Dame.
6 Comments
Practicing Episcopalian and recovering Roman Catholic here. I have a great love of things scientific, and I think Calculus and Physics are some of humanities' highest achievements.
One of the things I find interesting though is how the common person, who is neither scientist or religious priest, will unwittingly raise science and scientist to the roles and stature normally held by religion and priest. So many people I run into seem to think that somehow science is "the truth" and "unchanging." They don't seem to understand that science "tells a story" and will happily change it when a better one that makes more sense comes along. They also don't often realize that because they are not scientists themselves, they have to take the words of scientists as a form of gospel, something which they often criticize religious people for doing with their religious leaders.
Nobody likes it when I try to explain to them, in my mind, that science and religion have more in common than they are willing to realize. They always come back to "science is based on fact" when it is most often based on theory, which is continually being revamped.
Using the same analogy, art is made up of stories, entertainment is a series of stories, etc, etc.
I agree religion and science have a lot in common, but thats no different from art and religion, entertainment and religion, art and science.
All are inherently different of course. Those distinctions have been articulated for hundreds of years and will continue. I believe its the distinctions that give rise to exploration and appreciation rather than focusing on the commonality.
"Stories" are narrative fabrications in the mind. They may or may not be based on objective, external facts. Just because a scientific theory can be updated does not make it merely an imaginative fabrication. The updates are always based on new facts that come under observation. To equate the development of understanding with flights of fancy is to devalue and distort both. A good story can illuminate a universally experienced truth, which can lead to beneficial results – or it can be a clever lie that might be more or less destructive. Understanding derived from the scientific method, has many practical applications and does not depend on the imaginative faculty. The law of gravity is not a "story," it's a testable fact – even though one can imagine a gravity-less scenario. And so on.
Atheists and scientific materialists demand of believers the same rigorous examination and testing that they would expect of any scientific hypothesis. But believers can only offer stories and theories based on nothing but imagination.
Recommended reading: "God: the Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger
Mario,
Science is impossible without imagination. What does an atom really look like? How do we convey the "truth" without the use of imagination?
I think imagination plays a very big role in science. But I am not a strict materialist.
To: "Religion is particular and interesting, while spirituality is general and boring"
huh? Not sure what you are referring to, when you say "spirituality", but "general and boring" is a pretty sweeping conclusion to make about something I am not sure you understand at all.
Pragya,
I guess that was a pretty provocative statement. I mean that spirituality does not exist in a vacuum; it is manifested in concrete acts and practices. To me, saying that you are spiritual but not religious is like saying that you are healthy but have no concern about diet and exercise.
Saying to someone that "I am not sure you understand at all" because you don't understand what they are saying is not so helpful either.