Science & Spiritual Literacy

Science of the 20th Century has made a major contribution to Spiritual Literacy. For millennia several religions have maintained that the phenomenal world that we live in is but an illusion of writhing impermanence. Modern science has proved it.

Our perception

Our perception Every secondary school pupil knows that we see physical objects in terms of their ability to reflect red, green and blue light. Our brains then give the world ‘colour'. Some things become ‘attractive'. Other things become unattractive. In reality the colours and appearance of the world are based on an illusion.

To put our limited vision in a still more revealing perspective, our eyes can only ‘see' a minute portion of the electromagnetic spectrum contained in ‘light'. To make this more immediate let us consider film. We have discovered that if we simply record the ability of objects to reflect red green and blue light, we can fool our eyes into thinking that they are seeing coloured objects. Film is simply an alternative illusion.

In short we cannot ‘see' the world. We see a fraction of it. Twentieth century science has told us the only certainty in our perception of the phenomenal world is that it is partial and entirely of our own making. We live in a virtual reality.

Matter

Matter Twentieth century science has told us that everything that we perceive, in however limited a way, is made out of a mist of three or four elementary particles caught in a sea of energy. Our bodies are simply creations of these subatomic particles ordered into human shape by other subatomic particles formed into cells of DNA.

Neither are we solid. There is infinitely more space in us than matter. If the earth were to suddenly lose this subatomic space in its matter, it would shrink to the size of a football. ‘Matter' is more energy than matter

The human body is simply one, rather short term, form of the cosmic mist of the universe. Particles pass through us all the time. Everything we live with is just another form the subatomic mist that we call the phenomenal world.

In short not only can we not ‘see' the world but the world is more energy than matter - and perhaps more analogous to thought than physicality. Twentieth century science has brought us to this humility - this ultimate perspective. Perspective is always a fundamental part of Spiritual Literacy.

Scale

The ‘scale' that we live in is equally humbling. We are not just small. We are infinitely small. Twentieth century science has given us a vision of the universe as inconceivably gargantuan. We are so small, and our perception so small, that the scale of the universe is simply outside our comprehension to contain. There can be no place for arrogance with twentieth century science. Simply to know that we are a part of a universe so enormous that there are particals or waves of light that have been travelling more than two billion years just to reach us - is to be humble. Humility is a bulwark of religion.

At the same time we are vast. Our bodies are composed of countless billions of living cells which in turn are composed of ‘galaxies' of subatomic matter as spacious in their own way as the universe. All this is physics - in our waking state.

The above observations do not look so real in our dream state - where different rules apply. The waking state does not look real from the dream state. The only confirmed reality of both states is that ‘we' dream and ‘we' are awake. ‘Ego et sum'.

I think therefore I am.

Conclusion

We are now more able than ever before to use science for religious contemplation for two reasons.

Firstly twentieth century science has brought an empirical basis to the necessity of the study of non material things. We now understand that the world that we perceive and are attached to is an illusion, a dream, a figment of our imaginations. An eminent scientist recently compared matter to thought. No rational person is attached to a dream. Equally no rational person can be attached to the illusion of the physical world. Science has given us a new and much more complete perspective of the phenomenal world. Basically it is not there. Only we, the possessors and therefore the perceivers of matter, exist.

Secondly the sheer grandeur and scale of the illusion we exist in is worthy of contemplation - indeed has made many scientists become religious. Just as a great work of art contains germs of the infinite, so has contemporary science's view of the phenomena of the cosmos. Is there anything so great, so beautiful, so ordered, so inspiring as a view of a galaxy spinning in eternity? Equally can there be anything more inspiring that observing the microscopic world of the subatomic particle displaying that same order, infinitude and grandeur? They are humbling notions, which give us a unique and real perspective on life.

Such perspectives are the bedrock of Spiritual Literacy. They also contain seeds for productive contemplation.