Science and Religion – Addressing Discrepancies, Part I
elliott January 28th, 2009
Following the spirit of Negin’s article “Religion or Science: Do we have to choose?”, we tackle specific points regarding science and religion to reinforce an understanding of their harmony with one another.
Awesome! I have recently been thinking a lot about this topic as I take my “Introduction to Neuroscience” course in college…the body and the soul, the mind and the brain. It is a very interesting topic and I’m glad to read what you have to say about science and religion and continue to explore this more. Thanks!
Thanks for your comment, Grace. Neuroscience sounds really interesting! Abdu’l-Baha says that “God’s greatest gift to man is that of intellect, of understanding.” To understand the dynamics between science and religion helps us understand what to do with this gift, and to couple this with knowledge of the human mind would be quite something. I’m taking a course in Biomedical Engineering and we’ll soon be discussing the brain from an electrical signal point of view. I’m very excited about it!
While this last post has been about how science and religion don’t disagree, it should be noted that there is an infinite number of parallels between the two as well, and an understanding of one reinforces an understanding of the other. I’m not sure what the scope of your neuroscience course is, but my personal advice would be to keep an eye out for these parallels.
As an example (perhaps this relates more to psychology than neuroscience), we learn that repetition can solidify thought processes. From this we might gain ideas about religious concepts. Take prayer, for example. Knowing what impact repetition has on our minds, one can appreciate its purpose, especially with regard to specific prayers which are repeated daily. Thoughts of humility, purpose and servitude (and therefore benefit to humanity) are reinforced, even if you look at it from a scientific point of view. Further investigation might include how the actions which sometimes accompany prayer (kneeling, standing with outstretched arms, etc) contribute to state of mind. Without these types of considerations, prayer (and other religious ideas) might seem to be merely ritualistic and illogical. Just some food for thought…
I call this a great modernized approach of the Middle Ages regarding science.
“Because some ‘facts’ have disproven, all of them may be wrong and that’s why we need an always-true religion to accompany science.”