Why do most scientists hate spirituality?

[JaysonR]

Originally Posted by Akaalis

All I can say is that today's science is materialistic and very selfish in nature with no moral anchor from which to keep grounded. It disregards and even insults the existence of a god(or at least a higher moral authority) to which we should follow and live by. Just look at the world today, is completely driven by science and has become morally deprived and degenerate. Goodness and Virtue of Heart is laughed at and rarely practiced nowadays. Its quite sad....

That's not true at all.

In previous eras babies would be thrown off cliffs because they were deformed, or mentally deficient (Sparta, for instance); people would be forced to fight to the death for entertainment (Rome and Medieval Europe, for instance); the average person was not a citizen, but lesser and to become a citizen of a given nation was based on the race of the individual and their social status (Just about every culture all throughout the Bronze Age [and prior] in the Near East Asia); human blood sacrifice was a standard of some region's religions (South America, for instance); the murder rates (what we would class as murder) in most previous eras was considerably high - as well as permitted in many regions (Levant region, for instance, permitted killing for a multitude of reasons outside of involving a legal ruling system); if you are an individual that concerns over sexual conduct, then just about every previous era of culture in the Western world had far more elaborate sexual conduct than our current era (not even going into such concepts as sexual slavery); it was of the standard practice of most regions (even up until the 1930's) to force other peoples of nations, which a "ruling" nation took control of by force, to go into battles for the "ruling" nation (with no compensation to those individuals not being uncommon).

This is not to mention the repeated trend of religious societal rule (meaning, when an individual ruler of religious zeal took ruling power) in the Near East Asia (more-so this region) and the Holy Roman Empire (during its championed era) not only killing reams of scientific communities, but also destroying their facilities and banning their work further.
Such actions, for example, utterly destroyed the advancements of the Muslim Empire in Astronomy and Mathematics where they had been leading the world previously.

I'm not sure what's so terrible today by comparison to, "then", but there was surely not a more moral age, or a better age in that regard, than now.

And there certainly was not an age in any of these above examples where "Goodness and Virtue of Heart" lead anything.
Blood, force, wealth, and class ruled almost exclusively in most eras of humankind.
"Goodness and Virtue of Heart", were not only laughed at in many of these previous eras, but there were also plenty that would banish an individual or outright kill them for expressing such sentiment in competition to the standard of the society.

The Iron Age and Bronze Age Near East Asia, for instance, was almost exclusively governed by a philosophy of "Us versus Them", and mixing with any peoples outside of your race (which, at the time, was equal to your "peoples", or "nation") was not only forbidden and looked down upon, but considered to be betrayal on every level; thereby sentencing you to either death or severe reduction of your class level.


This isn't to say there were not multitudes of amazing advancements and philosophies to admire...but these previous ages were defiantly not more moral by nearly any common standard of today's measure.


Oh, and that's not even bringing up the lovely era of eugenics which survived on into the 1950's, and of which such agencies as Planned Parenthood were started from as an interest of preventing, "undesirables", from breeding, or that the national breeding association of America governed the policies of regarding eugenics of immigration standards.

Originally Posted by hse1pbe

I don't think that scientists generally hate spirituality. What I do think happens, though, is that sometimes science is misunderstood and misrepresented by individuals who may be trying to make a spiritual point, which can annoy scientists, and may make them appear defensive. The scientists may have no problem with the spiritual conclusion, but if a person gets there by using incorrect science, of course a scientist is going to call them out on it.

^This is a good answer. I know many scientists who are spiritual in many ways, for example through traditional religion.

Nah, I don't think they 'hate' spirituality, exactly, but I did know a couple of scientists who gave me the following impression:

In their case, it was almost as though their very 'scientific nature' needed absolute 'order', with no surprises, no inexplicable 'mysteries' or happenings, and solid walls of assurance and knowledge wrapped tightly around them like a security blanket.

The very mention of the word 'spirituality' seemed to make every muscle in their body twitch in agitation. I smelled fear, but never pressed the issue.

It seemed to me as if there was a need to protect themselves from the sometimes disconcerting aspects of life; all that 'stuff' that can't be measured, poked, x-rayed, dissected, injected, bottled, skinned, or genetically modified.

Curiously, they both grew up in fairly relaxed families where there was at least one member who was spiritually 'gifted' in some way.

However, despite their 'twitching' and general discomfort with the subject, I didn't get the impression they 'hated' it.


MM

Originally Posted by MorningMist

Nah, I don't think they 'hate' spirituality, exactly, but I did know a couple of scientists who gave me the following impression:

In their case, it was almost as though their very 'scientific nature' needed absolute 'order', with no surprises, no inexplicable 'mysteries' or happenings, and solid walls of assurance and knowledge wrapped tightly around them like a security blanket.

The very mention of the word 'spirituality' seemed to make every muscle in their body twitch in agitation. I smelled fear, but never pressed the issue.

Thanks for sharing. I don't know the individuals you're talking about specifically so it's impossible for me to speak for them, but your story reminded me about what I feel is a general misconception about scientists, which is definitely relevant to this thread.

For some reason, many people seem to think that scientists think they have it "all figured out" and that they do not like mysteries or surprises. This is not true! This is almost the opposite of reality. Sure, some scientists may seem confident or even arrogant, but in general, science thrives on mysteries and surprises. What do people think scientists do? They are constantly probing the unknown, tackling mysteries head-on. Personally, this is what has driven me to become a scientist (I'm a student, at the moment).

Originally Posted by Kepler

Thanks for sharing. I don't know the individuals you're talking about specifically so it's impossible for me to speak for them, but your story reminded me about what I feel is a general misconception about scientists, which is definitely relevant to this thread.

For some reason, many people seem to think that scientists think they have it "all figured out" and that they do not like mysteries or surprises. This is not true! This is almost the opposite of reality. Sure, some scientists may seem confident or even arrogant, but in general, science thrives on mysteries and surprises. What do people think scientists do? They are constantly probing the unknown, tackling mysteries head-on. Personally, this is what has driven me to become a scientist (I'm a student, at the moment).

I agree with you, Kepler and can certainly see how my experience with two scientist friends could perpetrate the misconception.

Perhaps I should have prefaced it with, "this is a generalisation based on two people I knew...".

They do, indeed, tackle things unknown.

MM

because spirituality turns the man away from science

[JaysonR]

Originally Posted by sarinmall

because spirituality turns the man away from science

That may be its effect on you, but that is absolutely not the case universally.

[TheGreenFairie]

I study Psychology and got mocked by my friend because of this. He was saying how can I study psychology and believe in what I believe. I said for one, psychology is just an interest for me career wise and my spiritual beliefs aren't anything to do with that.
One of my tutors did say that if we were to do a study on this the chances are that the results would not be significant. Therefore, I don't believe they hate spirituality, it's just that there research generally does not find such things to be true.

Hmmm.. good post. I have now decided that I'm going to do my second year project in this area

Ok I can give you a very good example of why scientist hate spiritualism. A lady with crons disease, means she has been been diagnosed only months away from bowl cancer. This women has three young children and a single parent. she is lovng sweet and has no clue why she has this outlook?

She came to me for a healing, spirit showed me a "haircut" pretty horrible looking haircut she had as a child, I told her.... this haircut and the time it happend started your disease, you track if back to when you had this haircut we can start to cure the disease. Next visit she told me she went through her childhood photo album, and she had the haircut I described when she was 9 years old, two weeks after the photo is when her parents divorced.....

Basicaly she needed to heal the emotional and mental damage her parents did to her at this time in her life, after three weeks of healilng work, and helping her relase and heal this tiime in her life her crippling condition has gone from chroinic to mild...... basicaly our past and its damage is what causes our disease... if we find the root and heal it we can heal the body. Our bodies are baromiter of what ails us, it takes a very good healer to find the root, once here we can start to let go.... this person is on longer on the DOCTOR CANCER list..... so much for saying spirtual healing has no physical affect on the physical body. Just because the medical profession cannot put the result through a test tube doesnt make it less real.... the results are the proof in itself... our familiy doctor told my mother her groin pain was due to old age, a private doctor put her in touch with a specialist that found she had a prolapsed womb, which need major surgery.. after surgery my mother still had pain.... I did healing with her to resolve the sexual abuse her brothers subjected her to throughout her whole childood, now she is pain free...... doctors and surgery work on the physical plane only, they have no concept of the emoitional, mental or spiritual plane that not only cause dis-ease but also being the ones that perpetuate problems long after physical or surgical intervention. what does it truely matterr if they want to believe it of not what truely matters is by a persons existance as a healer if affect a change for the betterment of another in Gods name, you make a difference to that persons soul and as such it affects your own in terms of your own soul in how youve changed and helped another one of Gods children

[norseman]

I am/was a professional practical "scientist" and I don't hate spirituality. Let me qualify that. I do dislike New Age pseudo-spirituality. I also dislike pseudo-science. The two "disciplines" have much to learn from each other and I imagine them merging into a a new Natural Philosophy eventually. This will come when we learn to think again and throw off the shackles of religion.