“Like most youth of my generation and many previous I was brought up to believe in the
existence of God.
But also like many others, by the time I reached my mid-teens I had become familiar with the
secular narrative.
Namely things like The Theory of Evolution, the vast age of the earth and the Big Bang.
But after a few years of being a staunch teen atheist, I realised there was something important
missing.
A cold, dark, largely empty universe with no apparent meaning at all did not satisfy
me internally.
I needed something outside of the box.
I needed answers.
At one point I got into Eric Von Daniken.
He wrote controversial books such as Chariots of the Gods- was God an astronaut?
His main narrative, basing it on archaeology, was that ancient cultures, and their religions,
have been influenced by extra-terrestrial visitors.
He suggested interplanetary travellers had turned ape-men into the modern human form
we recognise today.
I found that idea really interesting because it accounted for evolution’s ‘missing
links’.
But then I reasoned that the belief that there is humanoid life across the universe is incompatible
with the Theory of Evolution - -which of course by definition is earth-based.
Where did all the aliens come from then?
Did they evolve?
From who?
So God was back in the picture, but never-the-less hiding in the background.
I was also a fan at the time of Carl Sagan, the American presenter and astronomer back
in the 70s and 80s.
He once said “Science is compatible with spirituality.
It is a profound source of spirituality when we recognise our place in the immensity of
space and time.
There is a sense of elation and humility combined, that is surely spiritual…”
Inspired, my search continued.
My following phase included various forms of Eastern spirituality.
The books that described the Ultimate Truth as an energy rather than a person was also
quite attractive to me at the time, because that approach appeared more compatible with
science.
But then I came across books by A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a senior Vaishnava-Hindu
holy man and scholar from India.
He spoke of a personal, loving God.
I liked his translation and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita for example, and his books
The Science of Self Realization and Life Comes from Life were brilliant.
Indeed I had found my theological home.
Still, during that personal 2transition, I had the pressing need to be convinced that
there was a sound basis in modern scientific terms.
So how could the “religion verses science problem” be bridged?
So I delved into the works of Dr Richard Thomson, a Phd at Harvard and a disciple of Bhaktivedanta
Swami.
Thomson’s first book was “Mechanistic and Non-Mechanistic Science” which concluded
that according to the law of probability, life coming coming about purely by chance…well
it could not have happened.
With Micheal Cremo, Thomson also published books about Forbidden Archaeology: Exposing
the suppression of findings that don’t fit into mainstream theories.
His other works say that some of the ancient Sanskrit text of India- – far from being
mythological, actually contain advanced scientific knowledge.
For example: millions and billions of years described in the Puranas are compatible with
the modern estimates of earth’s history and indeed the solar system and the universe.
My point here is that some ancient religious scriptures, although serve a different function,
do not necessarily have to be in conflict with science.
The two disciplines just sometimes take difference approaches but they also have a lot in common.
I suggest modern conventional science starts from the bottom and explore its way up.
The ascending process.
Religion, on the other hand, tends to work– well…from the top down.
It is inclined to accept information from ‘above’ which is a descending process.
You see lets face it: we are tiny tiny organisms on a speck of dust we call the Earth which
floats in the unimaginatively vast realms of space.
Can we really work it all out on our own?
In cosmic terms, are we not like tiny insects trying to understand something much larger?
So how can humankind be absolutely sure there is no cosmic hierarchy, beyond what our tiny
brains are able to perceive, or our eyes, telescopes and microscopes cannot see?
To be fair science generally doesn’t always claim it has Absolute Knowledge.
Rather it is a process…BUT I argue that process focuses largely on observable matter,
detectable by our imperfect senses, or by instruments which are effectively extensions
of those same senses.
I argue that spirituality is a type of science which has methods and results which go beyond
matter and our traditional sensory experience.
The basis of most religious faith is the acknowledgement you see, of the Inner Self, consciousness,
the soul, the atma…call it what you wish.
This is something different from the body: It’s not made of matter.
It is something different from the body.
Yet we know consciousness exists.
Yet conventional science cannot sufficiently explain it.
No really.
Why don’t scientists not take more time to study the difference between a dead body
and a live one?
Chemically there is no difference between a body that is dying, and, moments later the
same body that is dead.
Of course, the soul has left so what is that soul?
But perhaps science has no obligation to focus on spiritual things or things of that nature.
It is what it is.
Fine.
It has led to inventions which helps us live in this world.
But can it really deal with ALL of human society’s challenges of today?
I don’t think so.
So let us offer homage to both science and spirituality in all its various forms.
You see - both are needed.
And let’s bring attention to potential ‘cosmic bridging points’.
For example can God be the Original Quantum Observer and can the expansion and contraction
of the universe be the breathing of Maha Vishnu?
You see- - Science and religion are opposed like the thumb and forefinger are opposed.
Yet they are joined at the hand.
If you use the two together: Then and only then can you truly grasp things, pick things
up– both physical and non-physical.
This is how we can find a balance, between practicality and inner happiness in our lives.
And meaning.
Thank you for listening”.