Before you read the rest of this article, please take the time to visit the internet address above and read the Scientific American article for yourself. In addition, may I thoroughly recommend to anyone at all interested in the world around them to consider purchasing for yourself a subscription to the electronic Scientific American. It much cheaper than buying the printed edition, and all the volumes can be easily stored on your computer for instant retrieval, rather than cluttering up your bookshelves or becoming lost or dog-eared. Not only can you read the latest editions, your subscription enables you to download all the editions published since 1992. A great resource and some fascinating reading for a cold winter's night.
I wrote to the Scientific American about this article, whilst my letter is not likely to go further than the briefest persusal by some poor editor, I can post it here with no-one to gainsay me - I don't have to meet anyone else's literary or journalistic requirements. That's the democracy of the internet, but also I suppose the anarchy of the internet, the written equivalent of feedback radio, and the verbal detritus of a million moderate minds.
I enjoyed reading your report (Clash in Cambridge) in regard to the arguments between science and religion at Cambridge. Five years ago Prince Charles caused something of a stir in the UK when he gave one of the prestigious Reith Lectures on the subject of sustainability. However, rather than tapping in to the economic, social and scientific aspects of this subject, the Prince, having spent some time thinking about these issues whilst in retreat in an Orthodox monastery in Greece, gave what I thought was a very reasoned and heartfelt plea to think more about the spiritual issues related to humanity's place on this Earth. And poor chap, did he come in for some stick. He was said to be anti-science, and one of the protagonists in the recent Cambridge debate, Richard Dawkins, wrote a polite, but pointedly scathing riposte to the Prince's views. Of course, Richard Dawkins is well know for his atheistic, and somewhat proselytising, beliefs. (If "belief" is the correct term, or would Dawkins disparage the use of this word?)
R eligion is the name given to a code of spirituality, a common set of rules and precepts governing a certain agreed way of defining spirituality, arising from the culture in which it commenced, and developing in time along with the culture it is intimate with. Because religious codes are constrained to time and place and culture, they place a barrier between believers of different faiths, and a barrier between rationalists and believers. For the purpose of my arguments I consider religion and spirituality the same. To do otherwise is to fatally interpose thousands of years of conflicting cultural norms and philosophies into what is basically a very simple premise.
F or most of us ordinary mortals there is this unfathomable gap between science and religion - between our scientific intellectual certainty that there can't be a God, and this spiritual, deeply felt unity with our universe, that there must be a God. If this is so, then surely this should be the topic of discussion, not whether science is right, or religion is right, nor the underlying assumption that both can't be right at the same time. I would contend they can. In other words, Prince Charles, and anyone else in the world who cares to think at all about this matter, can be pro-spirituality and pro-science at the same time.
I t would be my contention that "spirituality" however defined and however externally manifest, is a fundamental part of what it is to be human. It is as much a part of what it is to be human, or should be, as our normal physiognomy, our intelligence (our rationality, if you will), the colour of our skin, or our language. Indeed a lack of that spirituality most people would consider to be an abnormal state of being. It is an apparent loss, or diminishment, of spirituality in our modern world, which Prince Charles sought to address in trying to understand humanity's present inability to look to a sustainable future, which is the only future that makes sense. He was saying, politely but firmly, that without a spiritual commitment to humanity and our planet, that all the science in the world is not on its own going to be sufficient to deal with the problem. I believe he is right.
I ndeed it is worth listening to another (and brilliant) series of Reith lectures given two years ago by Dr Vilayanur Ramachandran, on his studies of the human brain. Just as he has been engaged in a scientific endeavour to find a place in our brains for reason, intellect, sensation, and consciousness, isn't it also possible to consider that conscience and spirituality are just as intimately part of our human make-up, part of our consciousness, as all these other attributes. And if this is so, isn't it likely that it is this particular attribute or part of our make up that truly distinguishes humanity from all the other animals? If we can agree with this, and I am sure that most people can, isn't it also likely that evolution put it there for a reason? I wonder if Richard Dawkins, instead of so strenuously denying the existence of God or our spiritual existence, has considered this possibility? It would be a joke of a rather sublime kind that it is evolution itself that put in place that spiritual part of our being this particular evolutionist is so keen to dismiss. And that our success as a species has been due in no small part to our endowment of a spiritual existence. In fact it is such a good joke, maybe it needs a God to think of it!
S cientists have studied humanity for hundreds of years. Scientists are happy to accept so many aspects of what it is to be human, from our genetics to our social interactions, our sexual behaviour to sports physiology, our intellect to the physics of hearing, but when it comes to our spirituality science seems reluctant to intrude. Yet spirituality is so universal a part of man's existence and of our efforts in trying to understand our universe, why cannot scientists see it for what it is, a fundamental part our innate humanity. In fact it is so universal, that those humans who don't seem to have any spiritual feelings at all are considered strange, and perhaps pathological.
H aving been endowed with a consciousness, a spirituality and a conscience, then it automatically follows that we have also been endowed with a spirit of enquiry. For the moment we perceive our own self, then there is no avoiding three fundamental questions of existence. Who am I, where did I come from, and where am I going? These questions we can attempt to answer from a spiritual (or religious) perspective, or from a scientific (or rational) one. But they are not separate enquiries, they are indissolubly linked by the humanity from which they arise.
S cience and religion could be considered opposite sides of the same coin, and that coin is a spirit of enquiry. And what distinguishes humans surely from all the other species on Earth is exactly that, our spirit of enquiry, which as I stated above, is the logical outcome of our innate consciousness and spirituality. We have intelligence, so do chimpanzees and dolphins. We have a social world, so do dogs. We have emotions, so do many mammals. We have senses, so do all animals. We have language, so do monkeys and cetaceans. We use tools, so do gorillas. But a spirit of enquiry does seem to be singularly lacking in all other animals. It that spirit of enquiry, arising as it does from consciousness and spirituality, that has advanced us as a species, and as I indicated above has probably arisen because of the amazing evolutionary advantage it has provided us. The only difference between science and religion is the framework of that enquiry.
T he problem for both scientists and the religious is the apparent contradiction of their findings. For many, a spiritual connection with each other or with the world requires a God. But each culture has its own god, sometimes more than one. Or for some religions god is more amorphous, a pantheistic philosophy that finds god or spirituality in every tree or mountain. For others it may amount to no more than a sense that there is more to life than appears in our immediate understanding. For a rationalist, to decry that certainty is pointless. If it exists in the mind of its believers, it is as true as anything in the world can ever be true. It is the outward manifestation of an inbuilt part of human existence as real as a nose, or a voice or an idea. It is as real as a black hole, a quark or gravity. If a rationalist has difficulty understanding prayer, or God, or sanctity, perhaps they should ask themselves how easy would it be for the religious to understand string theory, or thirteen dimensions or cosmic inflation? If a religious person failed to demonstrate a miracle to you satisfactorily, could you successfully demonstrate a singularity?
A s I said at the outset, the argument of religion vs. science is an irrelevant side-show. A three day discussion will certainly generate much enthusiasm, much debate, much rhetoric, much argument and much passion, but it is guaranteed to generate no light. This is because there is no such dichotomy, and that people only come to think there is because each side is neglecting or denying an important part of their own make up. The rationalist neglects his spiritual existence, and the religious, his rational existence. But in nature there is no separation. We have our very being in whatever processes constituted us, and that includes both the rational and the spiritual. We would not be human beings, but some other creature, without both.
