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Pastimes : History's effect on Religion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (131)	5/16/2003 10:34:04 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Respond to of 520

If only this was the case. I try to keep up with the scientific news as much as I can. And I have come to the conclusion that it is rife with a culture that deems belief in God or in the whole being greater than the sum of its parts as blasphemous. I not quite sure what you mean, who is considered blasphemous - the (external) scientist who has a (internal) belief system in the realm of the science community or the believers (internal) view of science (external) in an everyday surroundings. Either way the judgement becomes important if the policies of society become entangled into the gray area where observing and believing connect. Abortion is one issue easily known. Stem cells, cloning and genetically enhanced or changed food are others. Creation/evolution in the past was critical. (Here is a link to Charles Darwin's retrospection of his belief as then an older man living through his life's work--good read) update.uu.se Many scientists held beliefs while observing or analyzing - I have a few books on spiritual blend of physics trying to tie or braid the belief and understanding into a coherent blanket; (just as someone who claims she is a Christian astrologer I just read) Einstein comes to mind.(below his three stages) I would think that many changed in what or who they belive in from what they were taught in their youth. The concept of space or the stars were a profound radical change through history. Many beliefs became myths and dissipated when more scientific reasoning was used and understood. You shouldn't have a problem with the near metaphysical arguments of the muti-universes if you believe in the ten realms and three thousand worlds. Many things were observed that didn't have a meaning so the imagination took over. Old giant dinosaur bones became proof of monsters and goliaths roaming and the stories, an eclipse of the moon or (worst) sun was fearful, unexplainable and a bad omen. ======================= from home.utm.net To Einstein, human feelings and longings motivated all human endeavor, including the development of religion. He recounted three stages of religious belief: In the first stage, fear evoked religion, fear of hunger, sickness, wild animals, and death. Early humans created rituals to secure the favor of illusory beings who controlled human affairs. In the second stage, increasing social organization led to a moral conception of God. This familiar God of Providence provided loving guidance, meted out deserved punishment, and offered the faithful everlasting life. Einstein notes that both of these stages of belief have human-like concepts of deity. He rejected both anthropomorphism and personal immortality: "I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind we experience in ourselves. Neither can I or would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death...one life is enough for me." Much of humanity rises no higher than to the second stage of religious belief. Einstein described a third stage of spirituality which he called cosmic religious feeling. "The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image...it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it." Cosmic religious feeling entailed "rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law," accompanied by profound awe and wonder in contemplating the grandeur of the universe. Such feelings led Einstein to sense "... a spirit manifest in the laws of the universe.... My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality." His view of an immanent spiritual force led Einstein to identify God with Nature. " My religion," said Einstein, " is really the universe--in other words, nature, which is our reflection of the universe." When asked if he believed in God, Einstein answered "I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists." Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677), the renowned philosopher of pantheism, held that God and Nature are one in the same. "I am fascinated by Spinoza’s pantheism, but I admire even more his contribution to modern thought because he... (dealt) with the soul and body as one, not two separate things." Spinoza’s oneness of spirit and matter reinforced Einstein’s search for a single unifying force in Nature known as the "unified field theory". A deep sense of mystery pervades Einstein’s outlook. "The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion.... He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness....one cannot help but be in awe when (one) contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity." Cosmic religious feeling spurred curiosity and served as a powerful motive in scientific research. Einstein sought answers to basic questions: What is light? What is time? What is energy? What is gravity? In seeking answers to these questions, he found religion . "I am of the opinion that all the finer speculations in the realm of science spring from a deep religious feeling...in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people." Einstein thus viewed science a source of spirituality. He turned the proverbial conflict between religion and science on its head-- religion enriched science and visa versa: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind....True religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge." Science unveils some of Nature’s secrets, but Einstein recognized that science "could never lay its hands, could never touch, even with the tip of its finger, that dream..." of discovering the creative force at the heart of the Universe. "All our knowledge is but the knowledge of school children...we shall know a little more than we do now. But the real nature of things, that we shall never know, never." When "...measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest."