Is Modern Science a Religion?
I was listening to a discussion today between Charles Eisenstein and Iain McGilchrist this morning — two extremely insightful thinkers and writers that are worth paying attention to — when a little tidbit caught my ear. There was a brief moment of seeming disagreement that I wish they had followed up on, because I think it’s worth talking about. Let me quote that part of the discussion here (it’s at about the 39 minute mark):
IAIN: And in that system, a lot of people believe that science has proved that there is no purpose, and science has proved that there are no values. That they’re just things we invent. I believe powerfully that they’re not things we invent, but things that we discover, i.e., they are there to be discovered, if we can, or if we can’t. So what we need to be is to be open to them. And they can’t have said anything of the kind, because science begins from ruling out all considerations of purpose or value, because, perfectly legitimately, it wants to understand mechanisms, and it wants to see how things work, as it were. So it forbids talk about them. But it can’t then announce that it has discovered that there are no values and there is no purpose, because it is what they themselves decreed.
There’s a nice little thing in C.S. Lewis where he says, it’s like a policeman stopping all the traffic in the street, and then solemnly noting in his notebook, “The silence in this street is very suspicious.”
CHARLES: Right, that’s an amazing metaphor.
It’s like, let us hypothesize that everything real can be measured and quantified, and then they build up this world in which there is nothing that cannot be measured and quantified, but anything that is unmeasurable does not exist. And ipso facto, it’s proven. And really what it is, I look at science as a religion, and this is one of its metaphysical underpinnings.
IAIN: Yes. It can’t be a religion, it’s not what it’s there for. It has very important use, but it shouldn’t take on roles that it’s never designed for.
Iain very graciously moves on to another topic at this point, but I do wish they had talked more on this, because it struck me as important. For much of my life, up until maybe two years ago, I also looked on modern science as a religion, but hearing this conversation now, I was more sympathetic with Iain’s point of view. I don’t think this is a real disagreement, but rather a difference in understanding of what the word religion means. To help tease this out, we can look to the ways in which science and religion are the same, and the ways in which they are different.
Scientifically minded people criticize religion because it built on unprovable and irrational axioms, such as: God exists; God created the universe; God is all good; and God has a purpose for everything and all of us. But as Charles and Iain discuss above, modern science is built on unprovable and irrational axioms, such as: nothing is real unless it’s provable; and the universe has no purpose or meaning, rather it’s just a collection of random events that follow the scientific laws of nature. So the criticism, “science mocks religion for being founded on unprovable axioms, but science does exactly the same thing!” is a valid and insightful criticism. It points out a kind of projection, a psychological symptom that belies a sense of insecurity in one’s position. The problem is, while all these claims about religious axioms may be true, it presents a caricature of what religion really is. This is something I would have had a lot of trouble seeing if I hadn’t led a somewhat religious life for the last two years or so. This caricature is a left-brain caricature — just the type of understanding of religion that we might expect from modern science.
In the end, religion is not really about belief at all. It’s about finding meaning and purpose in life. It’s about acknowledging, and entering into relationship with, powers that are higher than ourselves. It’s the acknowledgement that in serving God, we can be better stewards of those things that are most important. We can better take care of ourselves, our family, our neighbors, and out beautiful mother Earth. Because doing so makes the world a better and more beautiful place, and beauty and goodness have value. Deep, intrinsic value. To a religious person, it is of fundamental importance to worship, so that we can love better, forgive better, be kinder and more patient, be more effective agents of change, and the best possible stewards of the earth that we can be. And let’s be clear: These things are not axiomatic beliefs. These understandings come from direct experience, direct communion with God and the universe, and simply from living life mindfully.
Of course, this view of religion is not something that the left-brain can really get in touch with too easily, because this view of religion is so saturated with meaning. It is the meaning and purpose that are fundamental, not the belief in God or whatever. But serving the good and cultivating beauty don’t fit very well into left-brain thinking. It’s much easier to talk about rules and beliefs, and supposed statements of fact such as, “God created the world.”
Okay, I guess if I continue on along these lines, I will be rambling. I thought it was quite an interesting revelation, the way science is like a religion, but at the same time, the way science is nothing like religion. Thanks to Charles and Iain for the fascinating conversation. (I’ve only discussed a tiny snippet of a 90 minute call. I recommend you check it out.)
It occurred to me a few hours after writing this that a scientist might say, "How do you know that our view of the universe as meaningless, mechanical, and random is an axiomatic belief, and not something that we know from direct experience of the world?" That's a good point! As far as I know, they may well experience the world that way. In fact, I suspect that this is true in some cases. It's not as if one should require that other people's experience of the world matches up with one's own. Indeed, how we experience the world is molded, in part, by how we interact with the world. In other words, by how we choose to live. There are ways that I experience the world that would not have been possible without practicing taiji and qigong deeply, and for many years. That practice - that choice I made - changed the world I live in. I can imagine that someone who's life is steeped in thoughts and practices of a mindless, mechanical nature, may well end up experiencing the world as meaningless and mechanical. Of course, that would be a very sad thing, seeing that instead they could find beauty, love, and happiness in the world. If only they made different choices. But it's their life, and their choice to make. And if they look inside, honestly and deeply, I believe they can still find that more beautiful world that is possible.
I suspect that, in the same way that Aldous Huxley and The Tavistock Institute engineered rock 'n' roll and hippy culture in the 1950s and 1960s as an attack on religion, a similar attack was mounted on religion with scientific materialism by their predecessors in the nineteenth century. Wasn't The Theosophical Society founded (1875) to create an opposing impulse to "scientism"?