Why do You Find Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Knowledge to be Incompatible?

[SalixIncendium]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

 

[Secret Chief]

Maybe because some see one or both as threats to the other?

 

[SalixIncendium]

Maybe because some see one or both as threats to the other?

Yes, they do. But why?

 

[epronovost]

Science and spirituality aren't inherently incompatible, but that doesn't mean that once in a while a science and a specific form of spirituality will give a different answer to the same question. If one spirituality says about the origin of humans that humans were created magically from clay; science says they evolved from a species of apes which created a long line of hominids of which we are the only one species left alive.

 

[Secret Chief]

Yes, they do. But why?

Because they undermine and invalidate?

 

[icehorse]

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Nope.

For me, I have to make a few philosophical concessions to support my spirituality, but science doesn't really interfere. For example, I take as axiomatic that we should strive for actions that improve the aggregate well being of conscious creatures. (Just a take on utilitarianism.) That utilitarian goal is a big part of my spiritual foundation.

 

[Valjean]

One is based on observation and testing. The other on scripture/faith.
One is predictive, the other...not so much.
One has a methodology, the other not.
One begins with observations and tries to explain them. The other begins with doctrine and tries to defend it.
One tests, the other defends.
One welcomes challenges, the other forbids them.
One changes as new data accumulates, the other's writ in stone.
One seeks answers, the other already knows the answers.
One deals with "how?" The other with "who?"
One welcomes new facts, the other denies new facts.

 

[MonkeyFire]

I can believe in God without science, but still coexist with science.

 

[George-ananda]

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

I see them as addressing different fields of knowledge so they are not incompatible. I happen to be a fan of both fields but spirituality deals with the more important questions. Good spiritual knowledge should never conflict with what science knows. Spiritual knowledge almost totally deals with things beyond science's current reach.

 

[Sunstone]

I see science and my 'spiritual views' as both wholly compatible in principle, and very largely compatible in practice. However, I am not trying to defend any Bronze Age belief systems.

 

[ppp]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

Because scientific thinking priorities evidence, and spiritual thinking is fine with leading evidence, or ignoring it all together. People who have indulge in both, compartmentalize their views. Or when conflict is inevitable, either ignore evidence in favor if the spiritual, or re-interpret their spiritual beliefs to match the evidence.

 

[sayak83]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

For me not only are they compatible... my vocation to be a scientist is directly motivated by my spiritual experiences. In one of them (I was 11 then) when I was deep in meditation regarding the nature of the world, the world became like a translucent curtain with diffuse light shining through and I saw the weave if this curtain to be made of flowing patterns and mathematical structures stacked on top of each other. Much later in high school some of the scientific maths from QM and Relativity seemed to have a resonance with what I experienced and I sensed that here is something that can give me understanding of my experience about the structure of the world. And I got hooked to physics

 

[Deeje]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

Funny but the two sides are not really representative of the real issues IMO.
I believe that both are in error without actually realizing why. They are so busy being 'right' that they can't see where they are both very 'wrong'.

With "Christians", one lot wishes to fly in the face of true science altogether (YEC's), whilst others wants to fuse science and faith together to make out that they are both somehow true...that God created evolution and then stepped out of the picture to let life find its own way. That's like an each way bet...having a foot in both camps.....Neither one is supported by their own 'scripture' though, IMO.

For Christians, 'scripture' is the Bible, and faith must be exercised to "believe"......but for evolutionists "scripture" is what is found in the annuls of science. No one can argue that this is treated like 'scripture' to them...but it is also "faith" based when you boil it down to its bare bones.

The Bible is not a science text book and was never written to be one. But when it touches on matters of science, it is very accurate. It describes the earth as a sphere and says that it "hangs on nothing"....something that, at the time that was written, a human could not know until much later times. It also describes precipitation....when did man discover evaporation?

It had laws governing hygiene and quarantine, when 'germs' were not even thought of. When did doctors even start washing their hands between patients?

Science is a mixture of specialized 'branches'....some require hands on physical analysis and study.....some tinker with the theoretical questions that science cannot directly answer, and base their musings on theory and what is assumed to be correct in its assumptions. Small scale experimentation is presumed to take on mammoth proportions, but none of it is provable.

I see a direct connection and complete compatibility between science and the Bible because the Bible allows for a very ancient earth, and a very long period of creation.....millions of years for each "day" in fact....and all of the other things mentioned above, just cement it all for me.

I give the Creator credit for his ingenuity and his sometimes breathtaking designs and the compatibility of the planet itself with the life that he placed here. Unlike science, we 'believers' have a reason for our existence.....and its for this reason that we have the Creator's altruistic qualities and attributes. We were put here to be the Creator's assigned caretakers of all that he placed here on this planet. We are at present I believe, learning to drive 'free will' in such a way as to benefit the earth and one another in a lasting way.....but its a hard lesson for the majority to come to terms with. There seems to be an innate selfishness in intelligent lifeforms that gets in the way of us making any progress......we are intelligent but not using our intelligence in the right ways.....instead, we are destroying the earth and each other...and why? Who knows? It always seems like a good idea at the time but it never makes any real sense.Here we are in this age of technology and we still can't manage to be peaceable with our neighbors.

I believe that God will establish his existence in the near future and settle the issues once and for all.....some will be happy that they remained faithful to the Creator, whilst others are going to wish they had. His vindication will be sweet.....but not to those who wished that he would just go away....

That is how I see it.

 

[Trailblazer]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

Baha'is do not believe that science and spirituality are incompatible but rather they are in harmony, and both are vitally necessary for the continuance and advancement of human civilization.

Science and Religion

Bahá’ís reject the notion that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion, a notion that became prevalent in intellectual discourse at a time when the very conception of each system of knowledge was far from adequate. The harmony of science and religion is one of the fundamental principles of the Bahá’í Faith, which teaches that religion, without science, soon degenerates into superstition and fanaticism, while science without religion becomes merely the instrument of crude materialism. “Religion,” according to the Bahá’í writings, “is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore, it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive.”1 “Science is the first emanation from God toward man. All created things embody the potentiality of material perfection, but the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition is a higher virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and organisms are deprived of this potentiality and attainment.”2

So far as earthly existence is concerned, many of the greatest achievements of religion have been moral in character. Through its teachings and through the examples of human lives illumined by these teachings, masses of people in all ages and lands have developed the capacity to love, to give generously, to serve others, to forgive, to trust in God, and to sacrifice for the common good. Social structures and institutional systems have been devised that translate these moral advances into the norms of social life on a vast scale. In the final analysis, the spiritual impulses set in motion by the Founders of the world’s religions—the Manifestations of God—have been the chief influence in the civilizing of human character.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has described science as the “most noble” of all human virtues and “the discoverer of all things”.3 Science has enabled society to separate fact from conjecture. Further, scientific capabilities—of observing, of measuring, of rigorously testing ideas—have allowed humanity to construct a coherent understanding of the laws and processes governing physical reality, as well as to gain insights into human conduct and the life of society.

Taken together, science and religion provide the fundamental organizing principles by which individuals, communities, and institutions function and evolve.

Science and Religion | What Bahá’ís Believe

 

[Aupmanyav]

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?
Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?
Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

Absolutely not, in my case. They are not ever in conflict.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Much later in high school some of the scientific maths from QM and Relativity seemed to have a resonance with what I experienced

You covered functional analysis (the calculus of infinite-dimensional spaces and in particular the algebras and representations of bounded and unbounded operaters of e.g. Banach spaces ) and tensor calculus on manifolds in high school?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why do You Find Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Knowledge to be Incompatible?

I still don't know what is being called "spiritual knowledge." I've asked multiple times including in one of the two threads to which you alluded above (as did two others), which referred to spiritual knowledge and wisdom and its relative value to scientific knowledge. There was no answer from either the poster addressed, who started his thread, nor any of the others that use such phrases. I asked for a working definition of both knowledge and wisdom, gave mine, and asked for examples of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and why they met that person's definition. Crickets.

And that offer is made again. Give me a definition of knowledge and how what you are calling knowledge qualifies.

I've noted that I explored this kind of thinking and activity 30-35 years ago, found that it had little of value to me to offer then, and asked for ways in which this so-called spiritual path might be of value to somebody like me. Again, crickets.

So, my working hypothesis that there is nothing there for me, stands unchallenged by any answer, and that such pursuits must be filling some need in those pursuing them that I don't have and that there is no value there for me, remains unchallenged by any answer or example.Also, that these people really know nothing inasmuch as they are unable to deonstrate otherwise upon request.

Now to your question, it's not a matter of incompatibility. There is nothing offered from the spiritualists with which to compare scientific knowledge. How can mist be incompatible with substance? How can poetry be incompatible with a recipe or directions to a home, both of which are examples of actual knowledge by my definition, if the recipe and driving directions lead to their desired outcomes?

For this thread, I'll repeat: knowledge is the collection of factual ideas, facts being linguistic strings (sentences, paragraphs) that accurately and reproducibly map some aspect of reality determined empirically. Truth is the quality that all such propositions contain.

And wisdom is knowing what to apply intelligence to in order to obtain maximal satisfaction and ataraxia. If intelligence is knowing how to get what you want, wisdom is knowing what to want - achieving what what goals will facilitate the pursuit of happiness.

I can demonstrate examples of each and explain if requested how those examples rise to these definitions. The spiritualists apparently cannot. I suppose that if they could, by now, at least one would have done so.

Instead, I get poetry, which can't be incompatible with anything, since it apparently has no specific meaning. As best I can tell, these people are in search of a feeling, not knowledge. I challenge them to offer a counterargument with clear definitions and examples of what is being called knowledge (or wisdom), and if they cannot, to understand why what they are doing has no benefit for those not seeking that feeling.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

Because they are objective and subjective respectively and nobody have figured out how to combine the 2.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I still don't know what is being called "spiritual knowledge." I've asked multiple times including in one of the two threads to which you alluded above (as did two others), which referred to spiritual knowledge and wisdom and its relative value to scientific knowledge. There was no answer from either the poster addressed, who started his thread, nor any of the others that use such phrases. I asked for a working definition of both knowledge and wisdom, gave mine, and asked for examples of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and why they met that person's definition. Crickets.

And that offer is made again. Give me a definition of knowledge and how what you are calling knowledge qualifies.

...

I can't because you won't consider it knowledge. So instead of a definition here is the explanation how come to some people spiritual knowledge can't be knowledge.
They have subjectively a rule that only objective knowledge can be knowledge. Since the spiritual in effect is subjective, it can't be knowledge.

I am of a culture, where science(knowledge) is 3 fields: Natural, social and human. And you can then include logic/mathematics and history and debate where they land and if to include them. And even consider some aspects of philosophy as science.
The trick is that any definition of what knowledge is, is subjective, cultural and in a sense arbitrary.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Two of our better known posters have created threads to ask why either science or spiritual views are more important than the other.

Do your spiritual views conflict with science?

Do your scientific discoveries conflict with subjective spiritual revelations?

Why are science and spirituality incompatible?

As one of the members who spoke about science vs spirituality I will say as I always do. This is my personal view, and can be seen as none important if you disagree.
Personally I see science and spiritual teaching as two separate paths toward a "goal/answer" mixing them is the problem that I see, trying to explain spiritual experience with science is not giving any result. Trying to explain science with spiritual teaching is mostly impossible if not fully impossible

But both paths are good as stand alone teachings