Science keeps painting religion into a corner

Believers in the supernatural, do you feel a bit more cramped today? Like there's less room for your beliefs to roam unquestioned?

You should, if you've been following the out-of-body news. Scientists have been able to induce out-of-body experiences in healthy people. They didn't need to nearly die on an operating table and look down at their bodies from an external vantage point.

All it took was some virtual reality goggles, a camera, and a stick.

Now, this is just a first step toward understanding out-of-body experiences. It doesn't rule out the possibility that human consciousness is able to exist separate from a body.

And heck, in-body experiences aren't completely understood either – how the brain manages to create a sense of self separate from the world.

Nonetheless, this is one more in a long line of scientific advances that have the cumulative effect of painting religious, spiritual, mystical, and metaphysical belief systems into an ever smaller corner.

Big Bang cosmology explains the universe's creation (though not completely). Evolutionary theory explains how complex life forms arose on Earth (though not completely). Quantum physics explains how all the somethings in existence can be founded on essentially nothing (though not completely).

I had to add the (though not completely) qualifiers to head off anti-science types who would be quick to tell me, "But Brian, there are a lot of gaps in scientific knowledge."

Yes, admitted. By both me and scientists.

However, there's a big difference between the empty spots scattered around the large expanse of Knowledge that's been painted by science, and the utterly blank unfinished corner that Religion has been crowded into.

By which I mean, in case this metaphor is getting too metaphorical, that science has pretty darn good explanations for almost everything that religious belief systems take on faith to be supernatural or metaphysical.

So what's a believer to do? One option is to shut your eyes, put your hands over your ears, and mutter "You don't exist, you don't exist" to scientific knowledge. This is the fundamentalist approach, both Western and Eastern.

After a book I wrote about karma and vegetarianism, "Life is Fair," was published by Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) I got an email from an anxious RSSB initiate. He didn't like all the mentions of evolution in the book. He said that if evolutionary theory were true, it would destroy his faith in the RSSB teachings.

I found this very strange. Isn't the spiritual quest supposed to be in the direction of reality? How could learning more about what is real be destructive of spirituality?

To me, science is the best friend of someone sincerely seeking spirit. For if you believe that spirit (a.k.a. shabd, in the Indian vernacular) is the essence of the supreme being, it isn't going to be explainable by science – even though spirit/shabd is considered to be the ultimate source of nature's laws.

A similar argument can be applied to Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other sort of belief in an other-worldly God. If your God or Supreme Being is reducible to material explanations, then this divinity isn't very spiritual, is it?

Paint away, science. Confine my religious beliefs into the smallest possible corner.

This should be the prayer of every spiritual seeker. For every time a metaphysical belief is explained by science, you've got less room for fantasy, dogma, imagination, and blind faith to operate. You've getting shoved in the right direction: toward inexplicable Mystery.

I wish I could say something about that mysterious corner of existence that most strongly resists science's knowledge painting brush. But if I could, it wouldn't be what it is.

Emptiness. Wonder. Awe. Ignorance. Confusion. Paradox. Not-knowing.

Even here though, science is able to throw hints in our direction. No matter how small that unexplained corner of the cosmos seems to be, almost certainly it's way larger than we can even begin to imagine.

There's plenty of room to roam there, for those unafraid of bursting religious fetters.

Comments

[dave]

those experiments are pure genius! I haven't been keeping up with the Science Times, so thanks for the link.

In regards to your main point here, Real Live Preacher posted something quite apposite just yesterday: http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/1400

[Ashwin]

I had been looking for this article for some time after I had a debate with someone about OBE.

Thanks.

[Manjit]

Alright, hands up everybody who's actually had an OBE who thinks that what is being described in this bit of scientific news as an 'OBE' is anywhere close to what an OBE is actually experienced like?

Nobody?

Thought not.

Honestly, I think either the media or whoever should be more considered & responsible with their sensationalist reporting.

What is being described here is nothing AT ALL like an OBE as is experienced. At best, it would perhaps only explain/describe perhaps one very small aspect of many different parts of what makes up an OBE experience. At best.

And I'm almost entirely sure anyone who's had an OBE and understands this science report would agree. Which makes one wonder how do these people know this is like an'OBE'? Where the subjects of the experiment experienced OBE'rs? Hmmm, I seriously doubt it, which makes me seriously doubt the validity of equating this lab induced experience with the OBE phenomena?

Of course, the actual research is great and amazing. It's the reporting of it which is dubious.

For example, when this report came out initially on the BBC website, it quoted one of the scientists who conducted the experiment as clearly saying something along the lines of 'we don't know that what we have reproduced in the lab is neccessarily related to the OBE phenomena'. In a subsequent updated article on this story, BBC has ommited this caveat.

A sign of the (pro-atheistic) times? Who knows.

However, as an ex-OBE'er, I can state that what is described in this article is akin to equating an electic shock in the laboratory, to the electricity of hearing a beautiful piece of music live. No comparison except perhaps on a semantic level.....

[william]

The article stated: “they feel as if they have left their bodies.”

Brian stated: “Scientists have been able to induce out-of-body experiences in healthy people.”

The article stated: Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Sensation

Brian stated: “that science has pretty darn good explanations for almost everything that religious belief systems take on faith to be supernatural or metaphysical.”

First the induced out of body experiences. This experiment may have shown the human capacity of projecting feelings onto another object, which may describe sympathy (i.e. not compassion) in better detail. The headline is very misleading and sensationalism at its best but this is how journalists get their potential readers attention to read their articles.

As someone that has had a series of dreams that I later found out in my research are called garden dreams and visitations it leaves one with the strong impression there is more to this world than meets the eye. There appears to be an underlying reality beyond most scientists’ materialistic paradigm. The interesting part about this type of dream is one can remember them 17 years later as if they just happened 5 minutes ago and with such clarity it is beyond explanation. Most dreams I forget immediately after I wake up and these three dreams appeared more real and I might add more beautiful than my waking state.

If these dreams were just all within my brain and control, I would have them every night even during waking moments. Honestly: I would not even want to participate in this world. These did not appear to be hallucinations as I have studied those phenomena and those are usually drug induced. But experiences can be very very misleading so these dreams did not convince me of another reality (beyond doubt) but did give me food for thought.

Now the statement that scientists have explanations for just about everything religious folks take on faith. I am not going to defend religious beliefs here, as much is dogma, but the supernatural and the metaphysical. Spend time watching those ultra skeptics (who claim to understand the scientific method but show no evidence of it) that try to debunk everything from UFO’s to mediums and you will find that often they pick and choose parts of the phenomena to debunk. In their defense they find much fraud and illusionary thinking.

In my mind at least the ultra skeptics that do debunking are the best example in the world of materialistic paradigm paralysis.

I just saw a medium on TV last night and in my mind she was a joke. General statements like your dead son (committed suicide) says: he loves you and he is ok now. I could not detect one hit. In her defense I did not watch her other readings. But what was interesting in that one reading I did not detect a hit but her words brought such comfort to the grieving parents. We tend to believe what we want to believe in spite of the evidence.

William Crookes a great scientist and others found at least two mediums that were able to perform feats that were beyond materialistic explanations. And fellow scientists that lived within several miles of the phenomena would refuse to experience and verify/debunk these feats for themselves. So much for scientists being open to new discoveries.

A materialistic paradigm can be as restrictive as a religious paradigm. Maybe the key to effective research is to not get caught up in either one but this is exponentially easier to say than to do. We humans find it nearly impossible to be a witness to our own paradigms. It almost always takes a significant emotional event to shake us loose from our cherished beliefs.

[A. Decker]

http://home.att.net/~meditation/brain.html
This is the address for an interesting article that came to mind towards the end of your piece, where you're wondering about science and the final mystery. Somebody seems to think they've got it.