Tag-Archive for » spirituality «

27
Nov
Traditional Religion, Science, and the Search for Meaning
Joemar

It seems that humans are hardwired to make some sense of life or to have some meaning. Science and religion both agree on this goal, which is to come up with meaningful models to understand everything. These two spheres of human exploration fulfill our deepest longing to make sense of the world. The only difference is that science is more realistic and objective while religion is more imaginative and subjective.

While I am critical of traditional religions, it cannot be denied that these institutions have done a lot of good to humanity in providing meaning to countless souls throughout generations. It has assisted humanity’s search for a greater view of life and to provide moral directions. However, as societies develop and mature, there is a general trend to become less and less dependent on traditional religious notions and practices. Over time, human beings realized that although we somehow get a coherent and meaningful view of the universe through the lens of myth-based religions, true progress and survival of the human species cannot simply hinge on these dogmatic and closed-ended explanations. What we need is an objective yet dynamic understanding of the world around us.

While it is helpful to simply conjure that various phenomena are results of the activities of the gods, some wise men of old stood and dared to question these mythical and simplistic explanations. They dared to know nature objectively and break the shroud of mystery that surrounds them. Objective mechanistic explanations of common phenomena were made and their accuracy tested. Over the course of time, men of able minds learned that objective knowledge of the world is most beneficial to humanity, which should now be clear to the man in the street. We learned that we need to leave myths and imaginative explanations behind to sustain mental, material and even spiritual progress of mankind.

The general procedure of working out an objective view of the universe constitutes the very core of science. In this method, data from the external world are collected using objective measures with the use of conventional standards and instruments. In this way, the data can be clearly separated from the interpretation of the observer, which can often be swayed to certain biases as a result of personal preferences, cultural background and popular paradigms. While a scientist cannot be totally free from these, all inaccuracies resulting from these biases or from honest mistakes can still be corrected. In the scientific community, data and explanations are published, presented, criticized and revised or even abandoned. The evolution of this method and the community that actively uses and promotes it to advance the objective understanding of everything in the observable world perhaps constitutes the single greatest achievement of the human race.

Since then, the advance of science has been unstoppable. Historically, the development of science has caused religions to recede into unpopularity or to retreat to so-called “spiritual realm” as science is only supposed to concern with the physical and natural world. This is reflected in a simple line to make Galileo’s monumental discoveries compatible with religious ideas of the time – “The Bible shows us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go”. This demarcation between physical and spiritual realms is of course purely arbitrary, which simply sets the bounds of where science is now but not a real limitation of scientific inquiry. As soon as science has not yet completed the grand project of coming up with an objective explanation of every observable phenomenon and as soon as myth-based or revelation-based religions can still fit scientific findings to their beliefs, these religious institutions will always be here to stay, doing the same good thing that it has been doing for millennia – providing meaning to billions of souls who instinctively resolve to make sense of their existence.

At the individual level, a choice has to be made on whether to commit oneself to a meaning of life that comes packaged and prescribed by any of the traditional religions or to adopt an open-ended meaning of existence guided by the objectivity of scientific inquiry.

Category: Philosophy, Science  Tags: , , , ,  Comments
15
Jun
M. Scott Peck’s Four Stages of Spiritual Development
Joemar

I just came to read about M. Scott Peck when I was reading articles about demonic possessions and  exorcisms. He is an American psychiatrist and best-selling author who wrote about his insights into various subjects including characterization and diagnosis of evil, nature of love, existence of Satan, and about spiritual development. Many of his ideas do make sense but others are vehemently criticized as unscientific.

What I found to be a helpful insight from M. Scott Peck is his four stages of spiritual development. I am quoting here a summarized description of the four stages from the Wikipedia article on M. Scott Peck:

Stage I is chaotic, disordered, and reckless. Very young children are in Stage I. They tend to defy and disobey, and are unwilling to accept a will greater than their own. Many criminals are people who have never grown out of Stage I.

Stage II is the stage at which a person has blind faith. Once children learn to obey their parents, they reach Stage II. Many so-called religious people are essentially Stage II people, in the sense that they have blind faith in God, and do not question His existence. With blind faith comes humility and a willingness to obey and serve. The majority of good law-abiding citizens never move out of Stage II.

Stage III is the stage of scientific skepticism and inquisitivity. A Stage III person does not accept things on faith but only accepts them if convinced logically. Many people working in scientific and technological research are in Stage III.

Stage IV is the stage where an individual starts enjoying the mystery and beauty of nature. While retaining skepticism, he starts perceiving grand patterns in nature. His religiousness and spirituality differ significantly from that of a Stage II person, in the sense that he does not accept things through blind faith but does so because of genuine belief. Stage IV people are labeled as Mystics.

I find this interesting because I am aware about my spiritual evolution from hard liner fundamentalist Christianity (Stage II) to rational religion characterized by skepticism on ancient revealed religions (Stage III). I used to think that mystics are much like fundamentalists who emphasize revelation and dogma, so belonging to Stage II. Much to my surprise, M. Scott Peck considered mysticism as the highest stage of spiritual development. This illustrates my lack of knowledge about what mysticism really is.

In the past few months I have been contemplating about the limits of human knowledge and how our mental abilities are incapable of directly grasping the existence and presence of the divine. I am sort of inclined to believe that rational religion is powerless in bringing us into a union with the ultimate reality, with the divine..with God. This development from a purely rational to a mystical approach to spirituality is quite apparent from my previous post entitled “Reflections on truth, knowledge, the philosophy of science, God and religion” on my answer to the last question that I myself posed:

If you are not absolutely certain about the existence of God, then what does it mean to be religious?

For me, to be religious does not necessarily involve absolute certainty that a Divine Being exists. It is more of the feeling that there must be a Super Intellectual power that sustain the beauty and complexity of the universe. To be religious is to be amazed at the magnificence of nature and to come to a humble realization that there is a greater intelligence and power behind all these. As with Albert Einstein, I say “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe….”

I used to read about mysticism in its various forms (e.g. Western and Eastern mysticism) before but it only starts to make sense now. Perhaps there really is no shortcut from Stage II to Stage IV. I needed to go through Stage III for me to realize that mystery pervades all of human experience and that the more we think deeper, the more we realize that we really don’t know anything at all.

Category: Philosophy  Tags: , ,  Comments