Our hope for a bright future lies in the marriage of science and spirituality, not one or the other. Science without consideration of spiritual values would be devastating to our wellbeing. Nothing would stop us from becoming a society of clones or robots, and nothing would stop us from blowing up our world with the latest and greatest nuclear weapons. Spirituality without consideration of scientific knowledge and logical thinking would be equally devastating. We would lose all the benefits of medical knowledge that has saved us from pandemics and spared women from dying in childbirth. We would succumb to irrational superstitions, the same that led to the most heinous crimes against humanity such as the inquisition and other witch hunts that tortured and murdered women just for being women, or that led to hate crimes such as lynching black people, or genocides of people deemed as the enemy because they had different religious beliefs or were irrationally blamed for whatever was going wrong in a society at the time.
The danger in denying the existence of our souls and the need for humanitarian values is no less than the danger of denying scientific knowledge we have accumulated across the centuries. Today, we are facing an existential crisis like none other before in human history. Ignoring the facts of climate change and our part in causing it would result in our own extinction. At the same time, ignoring the benevolent yet invisible forces within ourselves and others that provide wisdom and the will to create harmonious societies in which we can all live in peace, would result in endless warfare, poverty, sickness, and hate crimes.
Facts are valuable, but facts alone are insufficient. To be of value, they must be interpreted. We must ask questions such as, “Why does it matter?” For example, it is a fact that everything we throw up in the air comes back down. So what? Well, that means there must be a force that we have learned to call gravity. Why does that matter? It matters because we know that we shouldn’t be jumping out of airplanes without functioning parachutes if we want to live through the experience. If we ignore this fact and choose instead to test our spiritual faith, saying, “God will save us when we jump out of airplanes without parachutes,” we will most likely meet our Maker when our bodies hit the ground. As I write this, I realize I am stating the obvious, but maybe we need to revisit the obvious to take a step back from dualistic thinking that can mislead and divide us. Life is not just about science or spirituality. It is not just any one thing over another. All aspects of life are interrelated, woven and working together to create or change our realities.
No one has a patent on truth because truth is not just a series of facts; nor is it knowledge apart from wisdom. Truth, no matter how much we strive to be objective, cannot escape subjective interpretation of facts, which is why lawyers make the big bucks to interpret the law and persuade the jury to decide whether someone is guilty or innocent of a crime. The jury’s truth is based on an interpretation of evidence that is presented as facts tied together using logic to connect cause and effect, ascertain the defendant’s intention, and reveal beyond reasonable doubt the defendant’s guilt or innocence.
Science can tell us how the earth was created by a “big bang” that occurred in the galaxy many, many years ago. However, science cannot answer existential questions such as why we are here or what is our purpose for living? It cannot answer questions such as how can we cope with the heartbreak of losing someone we love? In fact, science cannot even define love with any verifiable facts beyond acknowledging that babies depend on their caregivers to survive.
Conversely, spirituality cannot provide answers to questions that require materialistic answers, such as how to use tools to build a house or how to provide CPR to save someone’s life. Spirituality, however, can provide an answer as to why we would want to learn CPR to be able to save someone’s life.
Avenues to knowledge are seemingly infinite, including books, experiments, life experience, and intuition. We use our five physical senses as well as our intuitive sixth sense to perceive and observe the world. How we make order out of the chaos of an infinite number of observations, called, “facts” is the process of arriving at our truth, which can easily be different for everyone. Therefore, it is helpful to learn how to make sense of life through the application of logical thinking, and it is equally helpful to learn how to discern the best use of knowledge based on spiritual values and the desire to co-exist in a society designed to benefit everyone, but first, we have to understand and appreciate our interdependence and embrace the belief that we can all win, and each of us will be more enriched in every way when we do. Science can provide answers on the how to work together and what tools to use, and spirituality can provide answers as to why we should work together and what we hope to achieve.
Photo Credit: NASA
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