Chapter 5 – Society
Science vs Religion
There is still antagonism between science and religion. This conflict is inevitable for historical reasons. From ancient times religious authority figures such as shaman, medicine men and priests sought power over their followers. Over time this alienated the people so much there has been a general reaction against religion. In this tension between religion and science there remain individuals on either side who deny the value and truths of the other side. Individuals and society need to be balanced, to retain an open mind and to recognize truth wherever or however it may arise.
Science is more a process than a collection of facts. Science is all about a procedure for forming a hypothesis and then testing it: validating it or disproving it. “The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.”[1] This is what the public needs to know; science rarely proclaims truth; it instead seeks to identify the most probable explanation for a given observation. If other facts subsequently become apparent the conclusions will be changed. Science is a process.
It appears that science has progressed so far it has left the majority of our citizens behind. We daily utilize technological products we cannot fully understand. Science has made it so that virtually nobody understands these marvelous gadgets, to our detriment. Someday this mixture of ignorance and technological power will blow up in our face.[2]
As a result of two of the societal trends we have been discussing, our gradual dumbing down and the dramatic rise in scientific achievements; the majority of our citizens are unable to fully comprehend our new scientific gizmos.
Science appears to have much more influence than religion. In the past religion dominated society for centuries while science languished; this was especially true during the Middle Ages. This domination was so complete there was an inevitable reaction to the stifling overbearing church; this reaction period has been called the Reformation, which resulted in lessening the religious monopoly of the Catholic Church. During roughly the same time period, the renaissance movement brought science into the ascendency; both of these trends resulted in bringing science into the foreground and relegating religion to the background of social awareness; for hundreds of years science has held the upper hand while today religion holds a minor place in the everyday life of many people.
Science is vital for the growth of society. The new products that science brought into our lives have at least two consequences. The first is the increased amount of leisure, which if used productively, is essential to the growth of society.[3] People have time to think and explore new ideas and these new ideas can bring about even more progress. A second effect of the products of science is they liberate women from the home; science not religion liberated women.[4] When women are relieved from the drudgery of housework they can become more productive to society.
When science is guided by wisdom it can become a great liberator for society. A mechanical age can prove disastrous only to a nation whose intellectual level is too low to discover those wise methods and sound techniques for successfully adjusting to the transition difficulties arising from the sudden loss of employment by large numbers consequent upon the too rapid invention of new types of laborsaving machinery.[5] If we are wise, science can liberate us, otherwise we will be inundated by progress. When people lose their employment as a result of scientific advances, they naturally are resentful and feel alienated. Finding these individuals suitable jobs is vital to the well-being of society.
Science is important for the development of a sustainable and viable society; we can use science to understand our environment and to use this understanding to improve our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters. Only science can improve our material lives. Science deals with facts and material reality; this is its realm and the source of its value to our lives.
Using the scientific method of thinking can assist us in many of our daily activities; it can even be useful in our political decisions. When we make political decisions based upon one hot button issue while ignoring everything else we are doing a disservice to ourselves and to our democracy. It is only by considering all sides of the issues that we can arrive at a balanced opinion. The disciplined scientific way of thinking and analyzing could help us to arrive at balanced decisions and it is especially valuable for democracy in times of change such as we live in.[6]
Science, for all its intellectual acumen, does have limits. Science deals with provable facts: it notes the various properties of physical objects and uses this information to make deductions about the object. Science is a procedure of forming hypothesis and testing them to arrive at new information. As long as science remains within its area of exploration it functions admirably. A problem arises when it ventures outside its working area, such as when it seeks to explain the beginning of the universe, explain creation without recognizing a creator. The scientist who conducts these studies may indeed be a religious person and this should not color the scientific work. As for how creation proceeded, until science recognizes the two distinctly different forms of gravity, this issue will remain unsolved.[7] By strictly staying within the bounds of science, it can never detect the sole uncaused cause of all creation, God. Science by itself is incomplete.
A purely materialistic science harbors within itself the potential seed of the destruction of all scientific striving, for this very attitude presages the ultimate collapse of a civilization which has abandoned its sense of moral values and has repudiated its spiritual goal of attainment.[8]
Christianity was able to survive the darkness of the Middle Ages until the beginning of the renaissance. The excessive practices of religion during this period were a major factor in the rise of secularism after this time.[9] This secularist movement gradually grew until now much of society is now under its influence. In this society God is not denied, merely ignored.[10] The consequence of our having other goals than God in our lives can be catastrophic. During the first third of the twentieth century Urantians killed more human beings than were killed during the whole of the Christian dispensation up to that time. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism; still more terrible destruction is yet to come.[11] The harvest of such a secular society can be terrible indeed.
Today religion has become splintered and dogmatized. Dependence upon dogma endangers the moral freedom and spiritual liberty of those under its spell; they become a slave to religious authority.[12] Slavery to dogma stifles originality and tends to minimize personal experiences because these may not conform to any specific dogma.
Another consequence of this dogmatization of religion is Christianity has become largely a white man’s religion.[13] Not everyone views our world in the same way, we do not all think and feel in the same manner. There have been studies that investigate the different ways in which various people think and observe their world. For example an excellent article by David Robson on BBC investigates some of these differences.[14] One of the examples he presents is that 94% of American professors claimed they were above average while self-inflation is nearly absent in studies across East Asia. The same article reported on another study that tracked the eye movement of individuals viewing a picture. Those from East Asia looked mainly at the background, determining the context while people in America looked at the main focus of the image. Different peoples view things differently and if we exclude any group we are lessened because their unique viewpoint is lost. Inclusion is better than exclusion.
During the training of the apostles, Jesus many times told them his teaching should not become dogma.[15] They were warned about the dangers of dogma but this teaching was forgotten in the flurry of emotion after Pentecost.
True religion appeals to the soul not the intellect. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus.[16] If we value a religion about Jesus, this may indeed inspire us to become better individuals. On the other hand if we follow the religion OF Jesus, this must transform our lives. The most powerful expression of the religion of Jesus was the matchless way in which he lived. Even though he is the creator of all life in our part of creation, our local universe, he lived as a man among men. The true religion of Jesus is his life of service on our world.
Dogmatic religions also have difficulty adapting to social changes because of their inflexible traditions and dogma, while the religion of Jesus, the religion of living experience, has no difficulty with social changes.[17]
Religions of authority are the easy way out for those seeking satisfaction for spiritual longings.[18] Those who subscribe to these beliefs do not want to think for themselves, they wish only to follow what the established religion decrees. These people are amongst us even now; they are timid, fearful and hesitate to venture out of their secure life space. When they so give themselves up to the religions of authority they compromise their own free will. In effect they make a free will decision to donate their God given free will to whatever dogma they currently follow. On the other hand those who seek the religion of the spirit wish to explore personal religions experiences and enlist in the supreme adventure of all human existence — man seeking God, for himself and as himself, and finding him.[19]
While the religion of the mind, which follows theological authority, requires little from its adherents other than blind following; the religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress.[20] The religion of the spirit yields an intimate connection between the individual and the creator of all things and beings. Traditional religion is the safe comfortable way; the religion of the spirit though difficult and strenuous, yields a profound relationship with God.
Our revelation declares a personal religious experience is the only way we can affirm the certainty of a supreme and personal Deity.[21] We may read about and study God in some worthy religious book, but only in our very own experience we can know about God. We know more about automobiles than we know about camels because we have more experience with cars. So it is with God, we have experienced Him in our lives and therefore we know Him.
The religion of Jesus certainly has implications in our daily life but they are the natural outworking of our inner experience as we manifest the fruits of the spirit flowing from our personal religious experience.[22] This personal experience fills our being and bursts forth as we incorporate it into our every waking moment. This experience may not be something we can explain to others but it does come forth in our actions, in our everyday experience.
True religion is a personal experience, indeed when the first six apostles went out on their first missionary tour they experienced the realization that religion is wholly a matter of personal experience.[23] Religion is described as the revelation to man of his divine and eternal destiny. Religion is a purely personal and spiritual experience….[24] There is this: Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God and serving the human brotherhood….[25] True religion is experienced as a relationship with God and it is lived in loving service with our sisters and brothers.
True religion will have a profound effect on the daily life of the believer. This is a way to determine the validity, or the depth of faith, because of the consequences of faith on the life of the faithful; they manifest the “fruits of the spirit” in their lives, their service is genuine and their faith is evident in their countenance. These evidences of faith are apparent in true believers of many faiths because these expressions of the spirit in their daily life unfailingly take place.[26]
One example of these fruits of the spirit was when the young Frederick Douglass taught slaves how to read before he ran away to freedom. He said he taught them “because it was the delight of my soul.”[27] This is the way we must demonstrate our faith, in everyday actions that are a natural outgrowth of faith; these are genuine actions, not premeditated calculations.
Religion is a hope for a better life now and into the eternal future; this eternal future is ours for the asking, there are no preconditions whatsoever. Our faith will certainly make us free, forever.
A given dogma can only appeal to one certain group of people, those who accept that teaching as opposed to all others. True religion, being experiential, can be unifying; having a personal experience with God helps us better appreciate, even to celebrate our differences. We celebrate and salute those who are different. It is this variety and diversity that brings interest into our existence.
Both science and religion are necessary to arrive at a full understanding of realty. Science measures the material world, determines the facts while religion evaluates this world, giving it meaning, giving us an awareness of value.[28] Philosophy coordinates them thus enabling us to become somewhat conscious of true reality.
Religion can be taken to extremes breeding fanaticism and ecstatic reactions if overindulged in. One function of science is to purify religion of these excesses.[29] We need a balanced approach to life.
Both science and religion seek to understand our world, but they utilize different tools. Science analyzes matter, determines facts while religion looks at things from a spiritual point of view; religion seeks values. Each is entirely valid in its own realm. Indeed a prominent scientist proclaimed that the “notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”[30] And this same scientist declared that in our short life we should not deny people faith when science cannot bring them comfort.[31]
Evolution has been a contentious issue between science and religion. From the scientific viewpoint evolution fits the facts. “Evolution unifies all of biology by accounting for both the unity and diversity of life and for the remarkable adaptations of organisms to their environments.”[32] Evolution can also be compatible with religion because it seems as if it would be simpler for our creator to create a process for the appearance of the various organisms, called evolution, rather than to create each one separately. That reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw once: “In the beginning God created—Evolution.”
Both religion and science have a vital role to play and each has an important place in a well-balanced society. One goal of religion is to enhance the relationship between the individual and God. Religion is concerned with the spiritual realm while science is concerned with the material realm. Because they deal with different portions of reality there should be no conflict between them.[33]
A goal of science is to understand the creation around us and apply this knowledge to making our world a better place. Science is purely material, totally physical and this is its area for analysis and experiment. Since religion deals with faith and our personal relationship with God there should be no conflict between them, they deal with different portions of reality, the material and the spiritual.
No society can long endure unless it is in balance. This balance applies to all aspects: rich and poor; science, religion and philosophy; capital and labor; the various races and the different intellectual levels. We must all be in balance before we can reach a stable society. We as a society can only attain wisdom when we are in balance, when we accept the wisdom of those who are different from us.
In the final analysis the outcome is certain: the true religion of Jesus will triumph over secularism.[34] Our creator, our father, our brother will not fail. So the question becomes will you follow truth and eternal value or falsehood, innuendos and lies? The eternal future of each of us hangs in the balance with this answer.
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“The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark” by Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, New York, 1996, p 22 ↑
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Sagan p 26 ↑
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All references are to The Urantia Book unless otherwise noted. The number refers to the single column version in the format page.paragraph, 907.3 ↑
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937.1 ↑
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909.3 ↑
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Sagan, p 27 ↑
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125.6 ↑
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1457.2 ↑
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2081.2 ↑
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2081.5 ↑
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2082.5 ↑
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1458.1 ↑
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1032.2 ↑
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www.bbc.com/future/story/20170118-how-east-and-west-think-in-profoundly-different-ways ↑
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1592.2 ↑
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2091.10 ↑
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1088.1 ↑
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1729.4 ↑
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1729.5 ↑
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1729.6 ↑
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1140.1 ↑
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1585.4 ↑
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1539.4 ↑
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2075.6 ↑
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2092.4 ↑
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1091.5 ↑
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Sagan p 356 ↑
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1122.1 ↑
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1088.8 ↑
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Sagan p 29-30 ↑
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Sagan p 297 ↑
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Jane Reece in “Biology” Eighth Edition by Neil A. Campbell, Jane B Reece et.al; Pearson Benjamin Cummings; San Francisco; 2008; p vii ↑
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2078.5 ↑
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2075.3 ↑