Science vs. religion : what scientists really think - File PDF

Spiritual Entrepreneurs 57Spirituality as More Congruent with ScienceSo for those scientists who consider spirituality important in their lives, theirdeepest sense of self still comes from their work in science, and their spiritualityflows from the same characteristics they value in their identities as scientists.This is a spirituality characterized by coherence . The scientists do not want spiritualityto be intellectually compartmentalized from the rest of their lives; theyseek a core sense of truth through spirituality in much the same way that theyseek it through their research. They perceive spirituality as valid in so far as itsuffuses their everyday lives and is instantiated in their practices as teachers, ascitizens of the university, and especially as scientists.Scientists see religion and spirituality as qualitatively different constructs.“Religion is institutionalized dogma” was a common response when I askedhow religion and spirituality are different. Translation: Religion is most aboutthe rule of powerful persons who propagate information that is not true. “Religionis organized against individual inquiry” was another frequent response,meaning that people cannot think on their own in the midst of religious communities,which have a primary aim to stifle individual adherents who mightbe trying to ascertain the truth on their own. Their traditionally religious colleagueswould certainly have disagreed with this characterization. Often citedas examples of what was meant by power going awry were “Waco,” “Jim Jones,”“the religious right,” or the sex abuse scandals of the Catholic Church. Conversely,individual spiritual inquiry protects people from groupthink, say thespiritual entrepreneurs. Spirituality—as separate from religion—is good forpeople. It allows and even encourages them to think on their own.There is a distinct group of scientists who think that the kind of faith necessaryto sustain religious commitment means necessarily buying into an absoluteabsence of evidence. For example, when asked how he distinguishes between religionand science, a biologist 18 who described himself as ethnically Jewish explainedsimply that “science goes by facts that are empirically verifiable.” He stressed thatthere is no prejudice in science: “You would find a large number of people of anycultural, racial, or gender background that will agree on those facts.” He went onto say that religion, in contrast to science, “works by faith.” Religion even tries tostand “in the face of evidence many times.” Science is what you can “see and test,”while religion “is predicated on personal revelation . . . that is not testable . . . orhas been tested and shown to fail, but you still believe it anyway.” 19 This samebiologist does not think of spirituality in the way that he thinks of religion. Insteadhe said that for some people, spirituality could “mean sort of religious feelings,”but for him (solidifying his place as a spiritual entrepreneur), spirituality wasbroadened to “include the sort of feelings of going outside yourself.”