Probably a majority of people including the mainstream science as well as mainstream religion/spirituality would answer “Yes” to the question above. There is a widespread (mis)understanding that science is a pursuit of the mind while spirituality is a pursuit of the heart or soul. A consciousness-integrated science provides the answer that any presumed or perceived differences in science and religion/spirituality pursuits are mere artifacts of their respective incomplete mainstream approaches that ignore universal consciousness.
I agree with and would like to elaborate further on Deepak’s following statement:
" ….Spirituality stands for higher consciousness, and that includes the consciousness of reason, imagination, psychology, and religion. Understanding the nature of God, which was an objective set by Einstein, requires the use of as much intelligence as any of us can summon."
Enemies of religion and science are within their own individual domains. Religion’s biggest enemy is the blind-faith in personal God that does not exist and science’s biggest enemy is its presumption (belief) that matter-only (measurable-only) reality is the ultimate universal reality.
The ongoing debate between science and religion over the past few centuries has been led by the basic differences in the methods of science and religion to perceive reality. Science has searched for the ultimate reality by fragmenting the observed reality into pieces or tiny particles of matter. Religion, on the other hand, has ignored scientific observations and relied on blind faith to propagate the concept of a creator – the God. Science has ignored the inherent spontaneity/consciousness in nature, while religion has ignored the actual observations of the universe.
Any apparent fallacies (Desh’s IB post) among God, matter, space, and time are also artifacts of incomplete methods or linear logic (cause and effect) of mainstream science and religion ignoring universal consciousness, which is a Holistic Relativity phenomenon.
What is often ignored, however, is the fact that the differences or conflicts between science and religion are nothing but the brainchildren of the inherent deficiencies and inconsistencies within their individual domains. Science fragments reality into pieces, and is unable to put it back together because it looses the glue that seamlessly unites the pieces. Religion covers the reality under the rug of blind faith, wherein the doubts remain hidden and unresolved. Experiment is the religion of science and faith is the science of religion. Neither the experiment nor the blind faith is complete in providing the wholesome realization of the universal reality or truth. Each experiment is a blind man’s touch of the elephant of reality and each belief is a tainted image of the truth/reality in its own colored mirror.
Unless both experiment and faith are integrated with the universal consciousness, the incompleteness, inconsistency, and the ensuing duality/conflict between science and religion will remain. If there is One ultimate universal reality, the differing ways of observation of science or spirituality must converge. This One way of convergence is the way of consciousness or the choice-less awareness of what exists as is.
The mainstream scientist who pursues matter (measurable) alone or the mainstream spiritualist who pursues spirit (immeasurable) alone can only perceive partial or limited reality relative to the limitation of the observation method. The materialistic-only experiments or measurements of science suffer from similar paralysis as the blind belief-based rituals of religion in revealing the majority of the ultimate reality to mankind.
The science that ignores spirituality or consciousness is not a genuine science since it can reveal only partial or limited reality. An incomplete mainstream science devoid of consciousness, howsoever well-accepted, that reveals only 4% of the universal reality in the form of the visible matter may be only marginally (materially) more beneficial than the so-called pseudoscience but incapable to provide the genuine happiness to humanity.
Similarly, the spirituality that totally relies on the subjective judgments and ignores its own validation against the scientifically observed universe behavior could reveal only partial reality or even be a mere hallucination of the ego. There is no lack of the so-called self-acclaimed mystics and gurus who fall prey to such pseudo-spirituality (mis)leading to increased suffering and chaos. Many well-known religious fanatics who have caused terror and violence in the world today are ideal examples of claiming such religiosity or pseudo-spirituality.
Blind skepticism is as incomplete and dangerous as blind faith; they both are brainchildren of ego – the unconsciousness.
……TO BE CONTINUED……….
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