Quote:
Originally Posted by fellowtraveler  This reminds me of a nationally-publicized legal case near here a few years ago - some people wanted to include the concept of "intelligent design" in the science curricula in their school district. Intelligent design is an attempt to de-religious-ize (  ) the term "creationism" here in the U.S. And creationism is generally understood to mean the taking of the book of Genesis literally, as in Fundamentalist Chrisitian perspective.
The motion was defeated, thankfully. In today's world, no sense confusing the kiddies.
Anyway, of course there was a lot of debate back and forth. The creationists felt that science, evolution science specifically, was simply untrue. Their opponents argued that there is no scientific evidence for the creation story.
The most rational comments in the newspaper (with which I agree), said that it is ridiculous to take an either/or position. Why is it so hard to believe that Source, God, Creator, whatever would use means of creation like evolution that we can measure, deconstruct, even reproduce?
Spirituality and hard science are one thing, just as everything is part of that one thing. I don't care what the dictionary definitions are. Given enough time (eons, perhaps), science would discover the truth about what we consider spirtuality. There would be no science, no spirituality...just Truth.
My current "spiritual" practice and path involves both, and I'm quite happy with it. I think we are all well-advised to remain flexible and broadminded ( not openminded), and remember that a label is just that. |
I wouldn't take the view that science and spirituality are one thing, but I do agree that they are compatible with each other.
Rather, I see them as different approaches with the same goal: a greater understanding of reality. Science looks for evidence and objective proof. If there's a new idea, science tried to find out more about this idea. If the evidence supports the idea, it becomes a theory or fact, depending on the nature of the evidence. If evidence contradicts the new idea, it's thrown out as being untrue. If there is no evidence, then science either looks for it, or decides to focus on other things.
Spirituality doesn't typically deal in objective proof. Rather, it tends to deal with subjective experience and some philosophy. Certainly, many spiritual people employ logic in figuring out their experiences, or in figuring out their beliefs about God, the beginning of the universe, and similar things, but they rarely deal with reality in an objective way.
So, in short, I see science as the objective approach to understanding the world, and spirituality as the subjective approach. These certainly aren't the same thing, even if the goal is the same.
Edit: As to teaching intelligent design in science class, I have to say, this absolutely should not be done. It isn't science, it's spirituality and religion. If you must, I could see talking about it and explaining that it's a religious view, not a scientific view, and briefly talking about how it could be compatible with science, but it should be made clear it's not scientific itself.
I also have no issue with it being taught in a religious setting, or being taught and explained as a religious view some people hold. There is a huge difference between learning about religious views, and searching to find if they have truth to them, and teaching those views as though they are scientific in nature.