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

Spiritual Entrepreneurs 63is just, say, “sitting here in my office.” This comment (and the many otherslike it) reveals that, for some scientists, it’s not science that is replacing religion.It’s spirituality that is replacing religion.Another biologist,37who told me that he is a committed atheist, quicklyrelated his spirituality to his experiences with nature:That feeling you get standing by the seashore looking out over the endless expanseof water. Or standing in the rain forest listening to the insects and the birds andtheir huge diversity and incomprehensibility. Or the feeling you get consideringthe age of all things in existence and how long it could go on. Sort of awe at thetotality of things. If that’s what spirituality is, then I get it. But I have the feeling Iam missing the point when I say things like that, because my Christian friendsdon’t talk that way. They seem to mean something else.Notice that in this interview excerpt, he contrasts his own sense of spiritualitywith how he thinks more religious individuals might view spirituality. Thisscientist is not only discussing the boundaries between the knowledge categoriesof religion and science, but also between himself and spiritual seekers whoare not scientists, whom he perceives to have a very different sense of spiritualitythan he does. 38A Way Out of ConflictFor some elite scientists, embracing spirituality rather than religion is a way ofavoiding the conflict between religion and science. The scientists who were themost spiritual seemed the least interested in policing the boundaries betweenscience and religion or even the boundaries of discourse between the two. Forexample, the ethnically Jewish chemist 39 introduced earlier in this chapter (forwhom spirituality is simply “getting up every day and putting [his] pants on”)also linked his sense of spirituality to his science. In particular, he sees religionand spirituality as having very different relationships to science. When I askedhim if there is any conflict between religion and science, he paused for nearly10 seconds, a seemingly interminable time in a conversation. Just as I was readyto repeat the question, he went on—with what I interpreted as a sense of frustration—toaddress the whole debate. He said rather adamantly that “there issurely not any irreconcilable conflict between spirituality and science.” As otherscientists did, he referred to Einstein’s supposed sense of spirituality, telling methat he would “adopt the views of Einstein on this, who always claimed to be anextremely spiritual person, but he had no use for religion. He was always in awe