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"Is rationality the enemy of religion?"
Invincible_summer
Heavy Metal DhammaWe(s)t coast, Canada Veteran
A friend posted this article on FB. Thought it would be of interest to some of you.
http://www.nature.com/news/is-rationality-the-enemy-of-religion-1.10539
I personally don't understand why scientists are constantly trying to discover the scientific nature of spiritual/religious belief. I guess it's human nature, but I feel that religion is the realm where science is sort of suspended for the sake of experiencing something that isn't necessarily quantifiable.
http://www.nature.com/news/is-rationality-the-enemy-of-religion-1.10539
I personally don't understand why scientists are constantly trying to discover the scientific nature of spiritual/religious belief. I guess it's human nature, but I feel that religion is the realm where science is sort of suspended for the sake of experiencing something that isn't necessarily quantifiable.
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Comments
Both religion and analytical thinking face the same problem: They are limited. This is not a criticism. Pitting the one against the other is like pitting apples against oranges when both are, at their best, perfectly good fruit.
In what way are religion and analytical thinking limited? Perhaps one brief way to state the limitations is this: Both religion and analytical thinking rely on the past for their powers. Both look to the past in order to explain or find meaning in the present or plan the future. And therein lies a brick wall: Anyone might employ past experience to enhance their happiness or understanding, but the fact is, no one can grasp the past. The past is past. But human beings -- the ones who analyze or profess attraction to religion live in the present. That present cannot be grasped, but it sure as hell can be experienced, sometimes in quite unpleasant ways. That present is not limited. Check it out.
To rely for meaning or explanation or philosophy or religion on the past is quite sensible in one sense. But its limitations are apparent to anyone who attempts to live in the past. Finding meaning or explanation or philosophy or religion in the present is imaginative, perhaps, but inaccurate: This moment has no edges ... anything is possible in this moment... anything and everything. This moment could care less about our wisdom. This moment -- the very moment anyone lives in -- is not subject to religion or intellect. A sneeze, a smile, a kiss -- any one of these and a million other things into the bargain assert what is...right now. And what is cannot be what was ... it is too busy being what is.
To live in the past is perfectly 'reasonable' in a social sense: With luck, the past makes us all a little bit kinder and wiser. But to live in the present is inescapable. And neither religion or intellect can escape or improve or explain or control what is inescapable.
Swami Vivekananda, a ranging exponent of Vedanta, once observed, "The mind [he meant intellect] is a good servant and a poor master." The same mind that analyzes and dissects is the same mind that believes and extols religious tenets. Some may imagine they are in accord with Vivekananda's view when they state that the "good master" is "God" or "enlightenment" or something similar. But this is just more limiting talk. Better, I think, to practice ... and stop trying to escape from the inescapable.
Sorry ... not very coherent, I guess.
This idea probably sounds silly to some and doesn't make sense but its the way I've come to understand my thought process. This way of processing information isn't stupid, I have an IQ of 130, but its not the norm and I didn't fit in in standard schooling and wasn't really considered a particularly bright student. I only came to understand why I felt smart enough but wasn't perceived that way later on in life. Once I did I was able to pursue knowledge and understanding in a way that made sense to me.
I also have a strong inclination towards spiritual beliefs and thanks to the article it seems that may have something to do with an intuitive thought process.
One point to make is that its important for intuitive people to not stop the learning process at an intuition but to check it and understand it, to give it a rational grounding in reality so you don't end up off in airy fairy land.
Religion mistrusts Science.
Science is a companion to Buddhism
Rationality is the bedfellow of Buddhism.
You post led me to think that living would be hell on earth for me at times if it was all about "what was to come" after death.
If religion restricts its claims to the subjective, personal world of a practitioner there is no problem, as science is silent on such issues.
Compassion is the big disconnect. Is compassion rational?
What do you mean by compassion being 'the big disconnect'...?
@Person;
My feeling on the gateless gate is that the quickest way to get to your destination is to see that you are already there. I think it points to our Buddhanature, or the kingdom of God for our Christian-Buddhists.
assert everything, negate everything. okay whats left?
life.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/09/thinking-god.aspx
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Actually I'm not very sure what this mean, but if he see that a union between science and religion is good and posible, I believe it too.
Not religion in general.
For instance; I was raised with the Christian idea that Jesus was the son of God; who died for our sins and was raised from the dead; and so our sins are paid for and we can all go to heaven when we just accept that fact and pray for forgiveness.
At some age I started to think about that. And it simply made no sense at all. Try it, it’s complete rubbish. The psychology of it is weird.
“People do what people do and I’m hurt over it, okay, so I kick my dog, or my kid, or myself (because I can’t bear the injustice) and now I can forgive everyone (because justice is done). What kind of idiot thinks like that? God?”
I’m not out to insult Evangelical Christians here; I’m just recounting an awakening I had as a kid.
At the time I didn’t lose my religion, I just started looking for a deeper meaning to it; outside Protestantism. I bought a little book by Meister Eckhart and religion looked a lot more spacious and beautiful to me.
For me (which means I am not trying to start a debate) it’s the same in Buddhism. I can’t ignore the rational, analytical and critical thinking I do. I just have to fit it in. And it shapes the way I experience my Buddhism (if that’s what it is).
I think it forces me to get to the heart of it. It’s a process of pruning. It’s not bad for a tree to get pruned down. If it’s alive it will keep flourishing.
So I guess my point is that irrational isn't the opposite of rational in the context of the article.
I did?
Billy Graham was quite clear about it.
For example, let's start with Catholics. You commit a sin, you go to Confession, and it is the clear intent of the sacrament of Confession that you are "heartly sorry" for your sin. And, when the Priest is giving you absolution, one of the last things he says is to, "Go and sin no more."
Take my father. He was an alcoholic by choice. If he ever went to Confession about that, I don't know. But if he did -- through most of his life -- I assume it would an invalid confession because he would you tell honestly, "I like to drink", and he knew perfectly well that he was going to drink again. INVALID CONFESSION.
Now, there was a time when he was around 60 that he totally quit drinking. That would be a different situation because he had made a firm decision that he had been wrong to drink all those years and never drank again. Had he gone to confession at that point for drinking, I would say it was a VALID CONFESSION.
You can't just say the words. You've got to act on the words. And, in my opinion, in confession there is the act of getting forgiveness that is symbolic, but the expectation that you actively make amends. I know not all Catholics take it that far.
Well I wasn’t Catholic and sin was not about drinking.
The way I was brought up sinfulness is a human condition. Something we are born with and which will never go away.
Improving our behavior is futile.
We need to be forgiven no matter how hard we try to do what’s right because we will always be unworthy in the eyes of God.
The only remedy is to be forgiven on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We are far off topic now, I know.
But it shows how bizarre religious beliefs can get and how we need some rational thinking to escape them.
Not so sure we're off topic because we are discussing what is rational behavior and belief within a religion.
First, the splitting of the mind into intuitive and analytical thinking is such a vast oversimplification of the reasoning process that the premise of the study must be challenged. Psychologists have known for a long time the mind is not an "either-or" computer. All reasoning is intuitive and all reasoning is analytical to varying degrees.
Even the reporters in this case, who like to overstate the results of studies like this, had to point out someone saying "I believe in God" is not really saying anything about a person's religious life. However, if I was writing a critique of the study without actually reading the thing, here's the main objection:
People are not stupid when it comes to recognizing patterns, and people have been trained to give the expected response in a testing situation. All the study did was show this to be true. By "priming the pump" with exercises that require mainly logic and deductive reasoning, the subjects were informed of what they were being tested for, and tended to respond with what they thought were the expected, right answers.
They should have included a group of people who were primed with inspirational stories of miracles and articles about people who used their religion to help others, and then the subjects would have figured out the pattern also and tested much more positive for religious beliefs.
Conclusion of this study: people are good at taking tests.
does this kinda thinking,
and
non-thinking
make you a good, wise and kind person?