Are Science and Religion Really Opposed?
Here all is one, united in a simple vision of being. All the long evolution of matter and life and man, all my own history from the first moment that I became a living cell, all the stages of my consciousness and that of all human beings, is here recapitulated, brought to a point, and I know myself as the Self of all, the one Word eternally spoken in time.
But does this mean that here all differences and distinctions disappear? Does this mean that I am God? Here I must remember that what I am trying to describe is a mystical reality, which cannot properly be expressed in human terms. I am straining human speech in order to try to bring it within the grasp of my mind. If I am using the ordinary language of rational thought, then certainly I am not God, and to say that this world is God is as false as to say that it exists of itself. If I try to find words to express that transcendent Reality, I have to use images and metaphors, which help to turn my mind toward the truth, and allow Truth itself to enlighten it. I can say that that eternal world is like the white light of the sun, in which all colors of the rainbow are present and in which each retains its own distinctive character. Or I can say that it is like a symphony in which all the notes are heard in a single harmony, but in which each has its own particular time and place. Or I can say that it is like a multitude of thoughts gathered together in a single mind which comprehends them in a single idea embracing all. Or going deeper, I can say that it is like a communion of persons in love, in which each understands the other and is one with the other. “I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one.” This is as far as human words can go.
– Bede Griffiths
There was a time when I thought that science and religion were conflicting worldviews, and I thought that by choosing science I was choosing the “more correct” system. Even before that, there was a time when I thought that Christianity was at odds with every other religion. But I was mistaken. Instead of seeing so many conflicting systems, I now see how they complement each other. And the diversity is actually really beautiful. It’s like each worldview is a single note and I was only capable of understanding one note at a time before. They all seemed irreparably dissonant to me when heard together. But now that I have ears to hear, I can hear how they form beautiful harmonies.
What, in the end, are all our verifications but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds have framed? But why in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such system of ideas can be true?
…And why, after all, may not the world be so complex as to consist of many interpenetrating spheres of reality, which we can thus approach in alternation by using different conceptions and assuming different attitudes, just as mathematicians handle the same numerical and spatial facts by geometry, by analytical geometry, by algebra, by calculus, or by quaternions, and each time come out right? On this view religion and science, each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to life, would be co-eternal.
– William James
Religion and science are not opposed, but rather each adds its own observations and truths to our collective understanding of reality. I believe the exact same to be true of the diverse religious traditions. If we approach each “by using different conceptions and assuming different attitudes” they will all lead to the same truth, they will all “come out right” just as the problems of mathematics come to the same answer through different approaches. The religious traditions and other worldviews are all good for different kinds of people. And the more pathways there are to the Divine, the more people will find their way to it. And we desperately need as many people as possible to have direct experience of divinity. There is nothing that humanity needs more.
Religion is like a playhouse, and we must open that theater and look inside. We must open everything each religion has. We have to open each of the religions. If we open the religions and look inside, then we will see only one point, one family, one God, and one truth. God’s story, the story of mankind, and the point of truth will be inside.
– Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
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