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

58Crossing the Picket Lines: The Personal Faith of ScientistsLike this biologist, spiritual entrepreneurs seem to come up with an intuitivedefinition of spirituality. It is most often and at its core about meaningmakingwithout faith. This idea of spirituality meshes beautifully with theiridentities as scientists. An individual can pursue a spiritual journey much as aresearcher pursues scientific knowledge. They also see spirituality as an individualjourney, a quest for meaning that can never be final, just as is the case forscientific explanations of reality. For this group, meaning is important. Theydiscuss aesthetics and meaning when discussing science, just as they do whentalking about their spirituality.THE SPIRITUAL ATHEISTThis distinctive rhetoric contrasting spirituality with religion was most evidentwhen listening to the group of scientists whom I would call spiritual atheists , acategory that is nearly exclusive to scientists. As sociologist James Alan Neffexplains,20in the general population, spirituality is almost inherently linkedwith some conception of God—although not always a religiously orthodoxone. Many scientists who clearly see themselves as spiritual, though, have noconnection to a particular belief in God or, in some cases, even in the transcendent.For the general public, it is an act of trust and courage to believe in God,since there is no way of proving or disproving God. In comparison, these spiritualatheist scientists see the very act of deciding not to believe in God in theface of an American public preoccupied with theism as an act of strength. Theirspirituality makes room for this disbelief and so is, again, more congruent withscience than religion is. The table below shows the intriguing prevalence ofatheism in the midst of spirituality among scientists at elite universities.Of the scientists who do not see themselves as spiritual, 59 percent state thatthey are atheists. As populations go, this is a lot of atheists. But their relation toalso being nonspiritual would seem to make sense, given our assumptionsabout the atheist scientist. Note, though, that about 22 percent of scientistsTABLE 4.1. Belief in God, Listed by Level of Spirituality21Not at all SpiritualSpiritualAtheist 59% 22%Agnostic 34% 27%Believer 8% 51%