How do you reconcile science and spirituality
 

To restate the question: how do you reconcile science and spirituality? How do you make sense of the fact that both can exist, if they do for you?

Interested in reading your viewpoints :)

I reconcile science and spirituality through sacred geometry.

For example, did you know that the ratio of the Great Pyramid of Giza's base to height, is also the length of the King's Chamber in feet? The time it takes in years for one great Precession of the Equinox to occur? the distance in kilometers from the earth to the sun? the distance in light years from the earth to galactic central point? ten times the solar year of Saturn?

The Golden Ratio (phi) is awesome! The Fibonacci sequence is amazing...governing all matter from nautilus shells to insect wings, to the arrangement of cells in a bee-hive and the seeds in the head of a sunflower etc.

Some cosmic intelligence must be at work to do all that...it isn't just random.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VrcO6JaMrM

Also quantum physics comes really close to spirituality for me. Science is just finding out what was known 5,000 years ago in sacred scriptures like the Vedas:

Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9KnrVlpqoM

To watch sub-atomic particles play around through the dimensions....to see a Mandelbrot Set get zoomed in until the very essence of it is the Mandelbrot Set itself...warms my spiritual heart, it does.

Awesome! Thanks for the links. I will have to get in the right state of mind to watch these I'm sure. I'll get back to you when I get through the vids.

No problem...take your time and I'm happy to share.

I seem to go through monthly phases of this. I just watched a documentary on Nikola Tesla and the significance of the numbers 3,6 and 9 with regards to sound vibrations...then I did a meditation on the Shri Yantra...and now, I'm watching a film about quantum communication. It will all stop when I think I've worked out the secret to harnessing Zero Point Energy again and then I can go back to meditating. lol

u got me thngs u hav ill hav ht thng thngs i will now

That's cool, dream jo.

Just look for the patterns in nature and you'll see that different things have the same patterns.

There is no need to reconcile the two!

Science deals with the natural world......... spirituality deals with things that are unexplainable by science.....

hm, good way of seeing it... lets see if I can make sense of it

A suggested progression.
Before scientific understanding had reached the level it now begins to reach, enlightened persons realised the oneness of all by means of thought, empathy and vision.

Sometimes they chose to pass on this realisation to others of their time and culture in terms which would be familiar to those around them. A difficult undertaking I think. Sometimes this took the form of establishing a system of practice and belief. Sometimes this practice was procedural, practical step by step self realisation. Sometimes this practice was guided by belief based instruction regarding the behaviour necessary to realise the oneness of all. Sometimes this practice encouraged empathy, an understanding of being the other, of feeling with the other, connected with the other. Oftentimes this practice combined many and more such elements.

As scientific understanding "increased", science itself has now reached a similar level of realisation regarding the oneness of all--though by a differing path. Now, today, just as enlightened persons in the past sought to share the reality of the oneness of all as a reality, so also are we faced with the undertaking of turning this scientific understanding of the oneness of all into a behavioural reality. We can do so by each of us turning that objective understanding into shared yet personal reality by means of our choices, our behaviour, our ambitions, hopes and dreams. Our empathy with all which is and of which we are is our way forward and our way to further understanding.

petex

Can you please telle me what you mean by reconcile?

For me it's clear. Science (as we know it) exists.
Spirituality (as we know it) is pure theory.

Personally I have no other philosophy these days than the one of 'everything is of a natural order' I have no doubt (having experienced them myself) that there are some very strange things that we can't explain. This doesn't mean that they exist on some sort of plane to which we need to transcend. We will, one day, maybe thousands of years hence, understand much more of this weird thing called life and we'll see that the base of all that we know and have is an intelligent universe.

duplicate post...annoying when the server does that!

Well said.....I feel the same way.....science is how we understand the natural world and the universe we live in.... and it is a constantly changing and expanding base of knowledge.

2000 years ago everyone "just knew" that the earth was a few thousand years old...now we know better...

1,500 years ago everyone "just knew" that the earth was the center of the universe.....now we know better....

500 years ago everyone "just knew" that the earth was flat.....now we know better (well...at least most of us do)


And as our knowledge of the universe grows through science....and as we peal back layers of understanding about our world and the universe we live in....we come to find that certain things...at least currently cannot be be explained by science.

And that is where spirituality....dealing with the unknown and currently unknowable comes in.

Perhaps we are being allowed to know and discover more about how it all works as we are meant to find out and know...a growing process if you will

hm, that's interesting. thanks everyone!

Yes, I will. That is I'm sure that this thing we call life is a growing process. Just look around - not much more is needed to recognise this fact. We are surrounded by information, so much information in fact that nobody can talk about anything without being contradicted. These contradictions force us to make decisions about things, although any decisions we make might well be overturned later as more information comes to light.

Myself I'd like to get rid of the word 'spirituality', it's like 'soul', no-one knows what such words mean, and I'd like to get rid of them, plus a couple of others. 8 Billion people each think they know what such words mean so we have 8 billion differing explanations.

I'd prefer to talk about mind and matter or mental- and physical- lives. This would make things much clearer. It would also help to relieve the load we have on our backs when waylaid by terms used for centuries by people who (believing their eyes) could see the Sun going around the Earth, when what we need now is a clear picture of how science can give us an inkling (modest at the moment) of how the physical world works and how the mental world bears its influence on the physical world. (See for instance Dr. Rupert Sheldrake). I mention Sheldrake just to show that I'm not talking about there not being invisible and not yet understood forces in the universe but we need to get a grip on ourselves when we talk about say 'angels'.

That 'middle point' the centre of all potential of the universe(s) and the source of all energy doesn't IMO have anything against us dwellers of the universe slowly gathering understanding of our predicaments. It's another way of looking at evolution, an evolution which isn't just about monkeys' tails.

Excellent question.

My answer comes from science - that which is physically observed, and from spirituality - specifically spiritual experience and reflection.

From the dictionary, 'science', predominantly physics in this context, is the study of that which is material. 'spirit' is essentially the vital animating essence of something, and spirituality the exploration of that 'vital animating essence'.

Given these simple definitions, and what I have indeed observed and experienced myself, I see no conflict between science and spirituality whatsoever. In fact, I have come to see the two as just very different perspectives of the exact same thing. Neither one is wrong, they're just two drastically different ways of seeing the very same things. In fact, in my experience, each is vastly stronger when they work together.

That is how I 'reconcile' science and spirituality.

Agreed. There are huge swaths of existence outside the scope of scientific observation and measurement, even theorization to a great extent. This doesn't make science bad and it doesn't mean we tell hard-core materialists who cannot fathom grasping anything they can't apprehend with their basic senses to "get a grip", LOL....:rolleyes:

It means we acknowledge there is more than one way to apprehend truth.
And that all ways should be welcomed or available for consideration and evaluation by others, recognising that preferences and aptitudes differ.

Peace & blessings,
7L

Amen .

Perhaps reconciliation is to make the attempt in finding an answer using both science and spirituality.



As an example: What is the force of gravity?

Science
Gravity is the force by which a planet or other body draws objects toward its center. The force of gravity keeps all of the planets in orbit around the sun.

Spirituality
As water is heavier than air their molecules flow in opposition to one another, creating reactions we call human emotion.

Reconciliation ... ?

Just acknowledging posts I missed before:


thanks! I appreciate the explanation

What I mean by. reconcile is science and spirituality are more times than not (at least in my experience) seen to be at odds with each other. My question is how do you make sense of this

I also like this definition of my question, which is also what I meant

Yes, so can you answer the question! :smile:

well maybe you could explain what you mean by your example first before I answer? I'm a bit confused as to what you mean

I echo Shivani regarding Sacred Geometry and Quantum studies. In fact, I'm generally a very analytical / logical person by nature, and I came into spirituality (or back into it) after reviewing both of these topics in recent years. I love science (in it's true "question everything" form), but not so fond of those who scream "BECAUSE SCIENCE!" and expect the conversation to be over. No, my friend, the conversation has just begun! :D

Kine Lea is so close.

Your example is wonderful. So far, so good. Let me take it that last half step.

...Emotion is one of the forces by which people or groups revolve around each other and change. Gravity provides a stable platform for this, being the attraction of manifestations (mass) to manifestation (mass).


And finally... "Gravity" in either context is a relationship between one entity and another. The difference between science and spirituality is the context of that relationship. This is because science and spirituality are 'Realities' only in terms of perspective - that which is cognitively apprehended in terms of each specific relationship. The 'reality' springs from the minds construction of that context and cognition. Both the scientific and spiritual 'realities' are really only constructions of the mind, each 'constructed' from it's specific cognitive perspective.

hm, thanks for the clarification! this is all so interesting. I really appreciate everyone's input.

Both 'exist' and both are methods to explore the nature of reality. Due to limitations in the scientific method, science tends to deal with local physical reality. In my experience they are seldom at odds.

Since neither has provided a 'complete' rendition of reality, there are rare times they seem to be at odds. This resolves itself by more exploration and further understanding.

Neither has addressed 'how' anything 'can exist'.

Perhaps you mean science institutions and religious institutions are at odds??

The meaning was simply an attempt to reconcile science and spirituality. Gravity was just the first thing that came to mind when thinking about air in water.

As air and water are two of the elements of life then perhaps further investigation can be made adding the other two, fire and earth.

And as it's Sunday I like the idea of the Easter Ascension, when our Lord Jesus Christ returned from death and rose from the Earth into Heaven. The idea that the stone was rolled away from the mouth of the tomb like the moon and the sun at total eclipse has a wonderful symbolic resonance.

I'm more inclined to see things as only science, especially as regards to the body. It's as if anything that people do not understand they call it "spirituality" as though that's an explanation. Granted people have different names for things like "soul" "consciousness" the "body" itself, celestial or physical, but once the conversion is done into energy either "potential or kinetic" as Einstein started to do then things fall into place. Existence is a form of science even if only the result of "joining the dots" or backward engineering. Consequently for me there has to be a creator as the way existence and the body work together is so complex that I do not believe that it could be due to random process.

They are reconciled by realizing that they address different spheres of existence and being.

I don't know, maybe I see it this way because of my experience as a twin flame (I don't have confirmation from my twin flame that we are one, but my experience recently is well described by that theory). We are taught the experience and psychology and upbringing dictates who we are but now I know our souls can be very important as it has been taught to me in my own experience. The idea that we are our family history or our upbringing has been completely thrown out the window for me with my experience as a twin flame. He is someone who I would have never thought I'd share stuff in common with and with whom I would feel so understood and complete around. Anyway, a bit of a tangent but maybe that's where it comes from. I don't know what it was like for you, but spirituality has definitely been a taboo thing in my life and my identification as a scientist on the other hand is very much celebrated,

That's pretty much the way I see it.

I agree that the nature of our souls sets much of how we move through experiencing (manifest) reality. Much of what is 'taught' by human society is just wrong. What do you expect from such a limited creature?
I grew up with Christian religion and science both being valued by my parents. The religion didn't do much for me, I had to explore spirituality on my own. However, I was mostly left alone so no one interfered with my exploration of spirituality. I got a science degree (electronics) and had a successful career as a computer engineer. Unlike most computer people, I heavily leveraged my 'mystical' understanding and knowledge in that pursuit. Both science and spirituality have had (and still do) lots of positive influence on my life here on Earth. As far as the 'larger' reality (beyond space-time) science has been mostly useless. So for me, they often worked together with little conflict.

I get the sense that you are not battling a conflict between science and spirituality but rather are dealing with the negative effects of the taboo on spirituality forced upon you.

I know how hard it is to continue to hold on to beliefs that no one else supports. It must be much harder when they are actively being shut down by others.

Well it's both. I was also having a hard time integrating the two in my mind. Like destiny.... That's not taught in science oriented places as I believe my society is. And neither is the concept of souls