Can you be scientific and spiritual?
Spirituality can be an uncomfortable word for atheists. But does it deserve the antagonism that it gets?
19 March, 2021
- While the anti-scientific bias of religious fundamentalism requires condemnation, if we take a broader view, does the human inclination towards spiritual practice still require the same antagonism? The answer, I think, is a definitive "No."
- Rather than ontological claims about what exists in the universe, the terms spiritual and sacred can describe the character of an experience. Instead of a "thing" they can refer to an attitude or an approach.
- One can be entirely faithful to the path of inquiry and honesty that is science while making it one aspect of a broader practice embracing the totality of your experience as a human being in this more-than-human world.
<p><span>The tension between science and religion is old news to us moderns. Historical events like the Catholic Church's </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">trial of Galileo</a><span> or the </span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Scopes-Trial" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scopes Monkey Trial</a><span> over teaching Darwin in schools, seem to imply that religion and science are incompatible. More recently, writers like </span><a href="https://bigthink.com/u/richarddawkins" target="_self">Richard Dawkins</a><span>, </span><a href="https://bigthink.com/u/danieldennett" target="_self">Daniel Dennett</a>,<span> and other '</span><a href="https://iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New Atheists'</a><span> have been vigorous in their condemnation of the anti-scientific bias of religious fundamentalism. But if we take a broader view beyond these fundamentalisms, if we ask about the human inclination towards spiritual practice in general, do we still have to find the same antagonism? The answer, I think, is a definitive "No." And that answer is important as we consider the totality of what it means to be human.</span></p>
<p>First, it's important to distinguish between religion and what I'll call spiritual practice. In his excellent book "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062316117?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sapiens</a>," Yuval Noah Harari defines religion as "a system of human norms and values that is founded in the belief in a superhuman order." There are two parts of this definition that are important for our discussion. First is the "system of human norms." That phrase points to a lot of stuff, but it also means politics. There is an aspect of organized religion that has always been about establishing and enforcing social norms: Who is an authority; who justifies who is in charge; who marries whom; who tells you how to behave. This aspect of religion is about power within social hierarchies. </p>
<p>The second part of Harari's definition refers to a "superhuman order." Note that he does not say a "supernatural" order. Why? Because some religions like Buddhism don't pivot around the existence of an all-powerful deity. This distinction is important because it allows you to see a point many scholars of religion have made after looking at the long human history of what I'll call <em data-redactor-tag="em">spiritual endeavor</em>. From our beginnings as hunter-gathers, we have always been responding to a sense of a "superhuman order." That response has taken many different forms from beautiful paintings on <a href="https://www.oldest.org/artliterature/cave-paintings/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cave walls</a> to beautiful paintings on the ceiling of the <a href="https://m.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani-mobile/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/storia-cappella-sistina.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sistine Chapel</a>. </p>
<blockquote>Even though I consider myself an atheist, experiences of a superhuman order have been with me since I was a kid. </blockquote>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520265866?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">first book</a>, I looked in depth at this response, its history, and its relation to science. Even though I consider myself an atheist, experiences of a superhuman order have been with me since I was a kid. Heck, that's what science was to me—an order expressible in mathematics beyond the purely human. In fact, many of my deepest <em>experiences</em> of being alive had come to me through my scientific practice. Working through some line of mathematical reasoning or encountering some image of a nebula or galaxy, I'd get thrust into an overwhelming sense of the universe's presence, of its perfect unity and wholeness. At first, I saw the laws of physics as the source of that order but as I got older my focus widened.</p>
<p>Now, one could say that my experiences were "just awe" and nothing more. But as the great scholar of religion, <a href="https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln101/Otto.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rudolph Otto</a> noted, awe is the essential component of a spiritual experience. It is an encounter with what other scholars have called "sacredness."</p>
<p>So, what are we to make of these words "spiritual" and "sacred"? Some strident atheists recoil at these terms because they believe they must entail a belief in supernatural entities. This is a mistake. Both can point to something much broader. Rather than ontological claims about what exists in the universe, <em>spiritual</em> and <em>sacred</em> can describe the character of an experience. Instead of a "thing", they can refer to an attitude or an approach. This is the central point William James made in his masterwork "<a href="https://www.giffordlectures.org/lectures/varieties-religious-experience" target="_blank">The Varieties of Religious Experience</a>." To speak about sacredness is to understand that some experiences (the birth of your child, coming upon a silent forest glade, hearing a powerful symphony) <em>evoke an order that is more than just our thoughts about that order</em>. And to speak of "the spiritual" can call to the highest aspects of the human spirit: compassion, kindness, empathy, generosity, love.</p><p>This kind of understanding of spiritual and sacred have always been with us and they may, or may not, have anything to do with a particular religion. This is where we can draw a distinction between a spiritual practice and a religious one. In a spiritual practice, people purposely attempt to deepen their lived sense of the superhuman order they experience. It is, literally, a practice. You work on it every day, perhaps using meditation or ritual or service to others. The methods differ but the daily application and aspiration are the same.</p><p>The important point is that spiritual practice has a purpose: <em>transformation</em>. It is to become a person who lives in accord with that sense of experienced order, that sacredness. Such a lifelong aspiration and effort can happen within an individual religious tradition <em>if</em> there are domains within that tradition that truly support this kind of interior work. Unfortunately, the politics of religion can sometimes keep this from happening. As scholars Joseph Campbell, Walter Houston Clark, and others have said, church can be a <a href="https://www.context.org/iclib/ic12/campbell/" target="_blank">"vaccination" against the real thing.</a></p><p>It's also possible to build such a practice outside of established religious tradition. In that case, the difficulty comes in inventing forms that can support a lifelong practice. There is something to be said for traditions or rituals that have endured for many generations and the best of these often occur within some religious traditions.</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="46553a3ddf4bda814b15d6f0e9e0eb9e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zLKNvBdUtZY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>The bottom line is human beings have felt the need for spiritual practice for a long, long time. That means that even as participation in traditional religions <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">drops</a>, people claiming to be "spiritual but not religious" and people who embrace science continue to grow. The writer <a href="https://annakaharris.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Annaka Harris</a> and her spouse New Atheist <a href="https://samharris.org/books/the-end-of-faith/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sam Harris</a> are, for example, strong defenders of science. They have also both <a href="https://samharris.org/how-to-meditate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">written</a> about the importance of contemplative practice in their lives.</p><p>I have long argued that science is one way that the aspiration to know the true and the real is expressed. It is one way we express that sense of an order beyond us. But there are other ways that go beyond descriptions and explanation, and all of them make up the totality of being human. That means you can embrace science in all its power and still embed it within the larger context of human experience. All of us can be entirely faithful to the path of inquiry and honesty that <em>is</em> science while making it one aspect of a practice meant to embrace the fullness of your experience as a human in this more-than-human world.</p>
<div>Adam Frank is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520265866?tag=bigthink00-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1" target="_blank">"The Constant Fire"</a><br></div><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="164a571abb235d6494d6cb672dbe8eb2" contenteditable="false">
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Thinking thresholds: Is science the only source of truth in the world?
Adam Frank, a card-carrying atheist and physics professor, wonders if there might be more to life than pure science.
04 February, 2021
Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images / Big Think
- With all due respect to Copernicus, writes Adam Frank, humans are at the center of it all.
- Science is just one of many sources of truth in the world. The lived, subjective experience of humans creates reality, and when science excludes subjective experience, we end up with a less useful kind of science.
- Can science and philosophy form a union that gets us to a far richer account of the world and a far richer science?
<p>So, what is this about? Where are we going with it all? What is its point?</p>
<p>Today marks my first post of this most excellent incarnation of 13.8. Since the new home for the blog represents a continuation of a project of thinking <a href="https://bigthink.com/u/marcelo-gleiser" target="_blank">Marcelo</a> and I started a decade ago, I wanted to begin with a 10,000-foot view. What was it that Marcelo and I were aiming for when we began with <em>13.7 Cosmos and Culture</em> on NPR 10 years ago? And where are we pointing towards now? </p>
<p>The answer, I believe, can be embodied in a single word: thresholds.</p>
<p>I am a scientist and all I ever wanted to be was a scientist. For me, science was never a career choice. Instead, it was an all-encompassing way of living. Through science, I found a perspective and a path that offered a larger way of seeing my small life and its complications. Through science, I could also see how exquisitely sculpted the world was. That beauty gave me comfort and made the experience of my life richer. For that, I have been profoundly grateful.</p><p>But as I went from a Carl Sagan-reading, science-obsessed teen to a math-physics drunk graduate student and on to card-carrying professor, my approach to science has changed. Always an atheist, when I was younger, I thought no aspect of the world was immune to science's reach. The triumphs of Newton, Lagrange, Boltzmann and Einstein showed me that science offered a way out of the cave of limited human perspectives. Through sciences' principles and practices, I thought we'd found a way to a truly objective view of the world. It was a God's-eye perspective that revealed the totality of the universe—space, time, matter—independent of us. It was the world, in and of itself, revealed to our minds through the power of reason.</p><p>Sounds glorious, doesn't it? It certainly did to me at one point. Now, however, I think there is more, much more to the story of us and the world. Now I've come to believe that the whole "Gods-eye view" thing was a mistake. It was a very useful mistake and one that helped positively shape the first three or four hundred years of science's history. But it was a mistake nonetheless and now it has led us to a remarkable range of paradoxes and closed loops in subjects ranging from cosmology to consciousness. The job before us then is to go beyond that mistake and see where it leads us.</p><p>That is why I am interested in the science and philosophy of thresholds.</p>
<p>There is a fundamental problem with this "view from nowhere," this perfectly objective God's-eye view of science. That problem is it fails to see our proper place in the universe. With all due respect to Copernicus, that place is at the center of it all.</p><p>There can be no experience of the world without the experiencer and that, my dear friends, is <em>us</em>. Before anyone can make theories or get data or have ideas about the world, there must be the raw presence of being-in-the-world. The world doesn't appear in the abstract to a disembodied perspective floating in space... it appears to us, exactly where and when we are. That means to you or to me right now. In other words, you can't ignore the brute, existential, phenomenological fact of being <em>subjects</em>.</p><p>Of course, 'subjectivity' is a dirty word in science. We rightfully spend a lot of time trying to excise our research of the effects of subjectivity. That is all well and good if you are trying to understand particles in a box or bacteria in a dish. In fact, the methods we use to purge our research of subjective biases reveal the real meaning of 'objective' in science. It's not a metaphysical position about some perfect, platonic ideal version of reality. Instead, it's about getting the same results if we perform the same experiment. That's when the knowledge gained from an experiment can properly be called objective.</p><p>But as we've pushed deeper and deeper into the experience of the world, it no longer makes sense to ignore that we are always at the center of that experience. From the nature of time to the nature of consciousness, taking the act of <em>being a subject</em> seriously offers a new direction for thinking about the biggest issues facing science and philosophy.</p>
<blockquote>We have to invent new languages that can deal with the strange loops where the world creates the self, and the self creates the world. We have to deal with the fact that <em>reality</em> is always <em>our reality.</em></blockquote>
<p>That's where the idea of thresholds appears. I once read a definition of poetry as being "that which takes us to the boundary between the expressible and the inexpressible." That, to me, is the real frontier. That is what I think we should be interested in once we recognize that science is not the only kind of truth out there. Poetry and all the arts, for example, reveal their kinds of truth. And there is a truth that can come from spiritual endeavor (or whatever you want to call it) as well. These other truths have their own place and their own power and don't simply reduce down to, say, neuroscience or some other scientific discipline.</p><p>To understand them, and science's place among them, we have to be willing to explore those thresholds between the expressible and inexpressible. We have to invent new languages that can deal with the strange loops where the world creates the self, and the self creates the world. We have to deal with the fact that <em>reality</em> is always <em>our reality.</em></p><p>The problem with the God's-eye view of science is that it confuses the illusion of being right for actually being in accord with the weirdness of being an experiencing subject. It appears to offer a perfect, hermetically sealed account of the universe that seems so beautiful until you realize it's missing the most important quality: life. Not life as an account of a thermodynamic system, but life as our embodied, lived experience.</p><p>I am hopeful there are ways to think about science and philosophy that never forget that fact. I am hopeful that, if we can work our way up to those dynamic thresholds of experience, we may get a far richer account of the world and a far richer science. Most of all, I am hopeful that by facing those thresholds we might develop a new understanding that is both beautifully true and truly helpful.</p><p>That, in one form or another, is what 13.8 is going to be all about.</p>
<p><em>Visit <a href="https://bigthink.com/13-8/" target="_self">13.8</a> weekly for new articles by Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser.</em></p>
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Is there life after death?
Is death the final frontier? We ask scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders about life after death.
18 December, 2020
- Death is inevitable for all known living things. However on the question of what, if anything, comes after life, the most honest answer is that no one knows.
- So far, there is no scientific evidence to prove or disprove what happens after we die. In this video, astronomer Michelle Thaller, neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, science educator Bill Nye, and others consider what an afterlife would look like, what the biblical concepts of 'eternal life' and 'hell' really mean, why so many people around the world choose to believe that death is not the end, and whether or not that belief is ultimately detrimental or beneficial to one's life.
- Life after death is also not relegated to discussions of religion. "Digital and genetic immortality are within reach," says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. Kaku shares how, in the future, we may be able to physically talk to the dead thanks to hologram technology and the digitization of our online lives, memories, and connectome.
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Study: Viewing religion, science as incompatible is uniquely American
In some countries, religiosity and pro-science attitudes are actually positively correlated, according to the results of a recent study.
01 September, 2020
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
- Americans have longed seemed to view science and religion as competing forces.
- A new study examined views on science and religion among roughly 70,000 people across 60 countries.
- The results showed that while many countries show a negative correlation between religiosity and science views, the correlation is far more consistent in the U.S.
<p>Americans tend to view religion and science as competing forces, both logically and psychologically. This outlook isn't quite new.</p><p>Since the 19th century, American intellectuals have been discussing the seemingly incompatible nature of religion and science. One byproduct was the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis#:~:text=In%20Science%20%26%20Religion%2C%20Gary%20Ferngren,underwent%20a%20more%20systematic%20reevaluation." target="_blank">conflict thesis.</a>" It argues that inherent differences between the two inevitably lead to hostility in society. Today, historians generally take a more complex view of science and religion, but it seems many Americans still believe the two are largely at odds.</p><p>Now, a new study published in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550620923239" target="_blank">Social Psychological and Personality Science</a> suggests this phenomenon may be unique to the United States. The researchers examined data from 11 studies that surveyed roughly 70,000 people across about 60 countries.</p>
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<p>The results showed that, for Americans, religiosity is consistently associated with negative views toward science. To find those associations, the researchers analyzed the results of nine studies that measured the religious-scientific views of 2,160 Americans. These studies measured things like interest in science-related activities, selection of science-related topics, general attitudes toward science and implicit attitudes toward science.</p><p>Americans who scored high in religiosity were much more likely to hold explicitly and implicitly negative views toward science. But that's not quite the same as being anti-science.</p><img
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<p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It's important to understand that these results don't show that religious people hate or dislike science," study author Jonathan McPhetres told <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2020/08/study-suggests-religious-belief-does-not-conflict-with-interest-in-science-except-among-americans-57855" target="_blank">PsyPost</a>. "Instead, they are simply less interested when compared to a person who is less religious."</p><p>To find out whether this negative correlation exists elsewhere, the researchers examined data from the World Values Survey (WEVs) that was collected from 66,438 people in 60 countries. The results showed that while most countries did show a negative correlation between religiosity and science views, those correlations were smaller and less consistent than in the U.S. What's more, further analysis of five understudied countries revealed that religiosity is positively associated with science attitudes in parts of the world.</p><p>One phenomenon that was consistent across the world, however, was moral prejudice against atheists.</p>Improving science communication
<p>Why do Americans seem especially uninterested in science? The study didn't seek to answer that question, exactly. But the researchers did note that future research could explore why Americans show higher rates of biblical literalism and strong overlap between religious fundamentalism and politically conservative values. </p><p>But the key finding is that the belief that science and religion are inherently in conflict does not generalize around the world. This suggests scientists and science communicators are able to change attitudes.<br></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"There are many barriers to science that need not exist," McPhetres told PsyPost. "If we are to make our world a better place, we need to understand why some people may reject science and scientists so that we can overcome that skepticism. Everyone can contribute to this goal by talking about science and sharing cool scientific discoveries and information with people every chance you get."</p>
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Penn Jillette: The year that shattered America's illusions
The year 2020 will go down in history as one that shook our inner and outer worlds.
09 July, 2020
In this Big Think Live session, magician, author, and cultural critic Penn Jillette will discuss the giant upheavals of 2020 through the lens of what he knows best: illusions.
<p>Which social, personal, and governmental illusions have been shattered this year, and how (and what) should we rebuild? Jillette, one half the world's most famous magic duo with Teller, will also give tips on how to foster long-term business partnerships and sustain creativity, and how he maintains a clear, rational mind in the noisiest era to date.
</p><p>
Moderated by Victoria Montgomery-Brown, co-founder and CEO of Big Think.</p><p><strong>STREAMING LINKS:</strong></p><p><a href="https://edge.bigthink.com/live_streams/99">
Big Think Edge</a> | <a href="https://youtu.be/kXtD3zTxjO4">YouTube</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom/posts/10157492362503527">Facebook</a>
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