A response to the angry mob that pushes science as a faith
Why do people push “I believe in science” lately? What’s so great about science anyway? There are other ways to have knowledge.
I am not a climate change denier or an anti-vaxxer. I am somewhere in the middle ground between extremes. I have a master’s degree in philosophy, so perhaps that will redeem me enough to keep some of you reading. I have academic proof that I’m good at thinking, and I’ve studied great thinkers. I believe in science, but it is not the end-all-be-all of my certainty in this world.
And that’s what I’m here to talk about. Sometimes science can’t explain everything. I like to describe philosophy (specifically, metaphysics — my favorite branch of philosophy) as ‘the study of reality where science can’t go.’ Recently I’ve also learned that there are ways to know reality through intuition, and though science cannot prove or refute this knowledge, it is as real as any we get from studying via the scientific method.
I argue that science shouldn’t be the last word on any decision in my life.
“I Believe In Science!”
So what’s so darn great about science anyway? People basically bully each other in these modern times over science. You’ll see ‘I believe in science’ being pushed in your face on social media and even in real life. Clearly, you’d better believe in science or you’re a total and complete moron. Better keep it to yourself if you think there’s anything wrong with that because the mob will get you.
I’m hiding no longer, people. Science gives us data. Data can be flawed. I don’t ‘believe’ in science. I believe in reality. And my knowledge of it can come through different channels. Science is just one of them. I am careful about where my faith goes.
Are you even aware that a very short blip in human history has passed where ‘science’ is widely accepted, and 200 years ago, the scientists were the ones being bullied by the mob? In fact, spirituality played a role in promoting science for many years, so why do these science-believers think they somehow have the moral high ground? Things only really changed for science in the last hundred years, marking a split between religion and science around the time Charles Darwin began writing. Humanity, why have you forgotten your spiritual origins?
Let’s go back to believing science and spirituality in tandem, please.
Science Can Be Flawed
The scientific method isn’t fool-proof. The world of science is controlled by peer review, which can be subjective. Scientific data isn’t always totally accurate. There’s always a chance of some error. Why don’t we embrace this?
We can fully accept that science is helpful but not the last word on human knowledge, we can open the door for the beauty of uncertainty in life. We can admit that a doctor’s prognosis of certain death is fallible, and begin to heal outside the restraints of scientific predictions, like people who recover from fatal illnesses. We can take scientific predictions about the spread of a virus with a grain of salt and create our own destinies, living freely. It can be a beautiful, wonderful world where we admit that some things aren’t as they seem on the surface.
I should mention here that my dad has been a scientist at NASA for 40 years. I have grown up with science. I have also spent my whole life pondering the things that are unexplained — and being dead sure that there’s a layer beyond this realm, where consciousness extends. Spirituality prevailed in me against all odds. Physics does not explain the cosmos — yet.
What if consciousness and love play a role in everything, despite what doctors and physicists want us to think?
Disconnected and Meaningless
Science would have us believe that things are random, dead, and meaningless. It wants us to think a virus will have the same effect on us all, our reaction to it is random and unpredictable, and there’s nothing in our control that we can do about it. It wants us to think that particles and waves are just a building block of the universe but it has nothing to do with our day to day life.
I don’t buy it.
Science doesn’t look at the universe holistically, and I’m sorry but I can’t get on board with that. (Actually, I’m not sorry at all.)
I don’t ‘believe’ in anything that tells me that the world and my body are comprised of unrelated parts that can be studied in isolation to tell me how to live my life. We intuitively know that this is not the way. Everything is connected.
When you meditate and look within yourself, you’ll see that we are all connected to everything and we are part of a oneness. Looking at the problems in one person without relating them to other people is absurd, the same way looking at your foot problems without studying what’s going on in the rest of the body is absurd. And if you only go that far, you’re still missing the connections in the mind and soul.
I recently read You Are the Universe by Deepak Chopra and Menas Kafatos. In it, the world we know is explained as being full of meaning. Things aren’t random and separate, as science would have us believe. It is a conscious universe — being manifested and created by all of us. In the words of these authors:
The answers offered in this book are not our invention or eccentric flights of fancy. All of us live in a participatory universe. Once you decide that you want to participate fully with mind, body, and soul, the paradigm shift becomes personal. The reality you inhabit will be yours either to embrace or to change.
If we give in and only believe in science, we will be compelled to think that our lives have no purpose. But if we allow science to inform our spirituality or vice versa, we can begin to live our lives with rich meaning.
Final Thoughts
Health is a combination of all areas of existence. If you heal, that’s because your energy was guided to do so, and no one can take credit for that except you. If events unfold in the world that science didn’t predict, that’s because of the waves and particles that we are constantly influencing, and they are shaping our world at all times.
We can choose the basis of our beliefs despite pressure from the masses. Maybe we can even be able to start a revolution in thought. My dream is to help humanity move in a direction of embracing consciousness and existence as something beyond our human science. Won’t you join me?
“In the light of trust, as it develops slowly over time, you will find that you are a privileged child of the universe, entirely safe, entirely supported, entirely loved.”
— Deepak Chopra
The divine in me recognizes the divine in you.
