Religion and Science Unification - Towards Religional Science

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"I do not wish to judge how far my efforts coincide with those

of other philosophers. Indeed, what I have written here makes

no claim to novelty in detail, and the reason why I give no

sources is that it is a matter of indifference to me whether the

thoughts that I have had have been anticipated by someone

else."

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Introduction

Science and Religion are treated by some as contradictory ways of thinking. This is not true. Without claiming

that I hold the key to the "ultimate truth", I will show that these two ways of thinking are not in conflict, butactually two sides of the same coin. You can never know life fully, unless you see the cosmos in both

perspectives.

The existence of God can be proved by both the tools of logic and faith. Religious people are some of the

greatest scientists of all times. Science and religion do not always rely on logic and faith respectively. In an

era when the new advances of science surprise us every day, religion stays powerful and current. That is not

without a reason. No matter how much science advances, there will always be metaphysical questions that

their answer can only be found in other ways. Why we exist cannot be answered inside a lab...

Despite the science-religion "war" that some people like Dawkins are trying to make us believe that exists, the

truth is much more different, more simple and more "friendly". We should not forget that Christianity was

first adopted by the founders of Logic and true Science, the Greeks...And let us not also forget that

all the Greek manuscripts of Aristotle and Plato, the founders of free scientific thinking as regarded

today, were saved from the passage of time by the Greek Orthodox Christians in the Byzantine

Empire and the Islamists Arabs of the medieval times. So perhaps there is not only white and black,

but other colours as well...

The main points of a 'Religional Science' unity that exists but still eludes most people, are depicted below.

1. Science for "how", Religion for "why"

The realm of science (Note: I refer to the physical / exact sciences with the term science in this article) is the

phyisical phenomena world. On the other hand, questions like "what is our purpose in life", "why do we exist"

or "what is reality" are out ofscience's scope.

Science deals with the "how", while religion deals with the "why". Both things are interdependent and

supplementary. Even if science finds out how every cell of the human brain functions, it will still haven't

discovered why it works that way! That is why both science and religion are needed for the quest of truth.

Religion deals with questions science can never answer as the famous ignoramus et ignorabimus ("We do

not know and we will never know", like the "I only know that I don't know" of Socrates) of the German

physiologist Emil du Bois -Reymond states [7] (although Hilbert attempted to deny that there are things we will

never know, Godel with his incompleteness theorem proved that Emil du Bois-Reymond was finally right).

The connection of science and religion can be seen in the diagram I attach below.

cosmos philosophy_english

cosmos philosophy_english Published by Google Docs Updated automatically every 5 minutes

ContentsIntroduction

1. Science for "how", Religion for "why"

2. A higher purpose exists

3. Logic and not only faith

4. Evolution as an accident...

5. New scientific findings

6. Problems with the theory of evolution

7. Evolution theory is not falsifiable

8. Science is driven away from humans

9. The problem of Human Progress

RevisionsView

Religion and Science unification - Towards ReligionalScienceR e l i g io n a l S c i e n c e

This article sets the foundation for the unification of science and religion. These two sectors of human

civilization are some times seen as contradictory ways of thinking. This is not true: both science and

religion work together to complete our knowledge for the world, human and our purpose in life.

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Spiros KakosChemical engineer

Athens, Greece

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It is also very important to understand that science and religion are both based on some kind of faith. Scienceon the faith that an ultimate truth exists and that logic can reveal that ultimate truth and religion on the faith

that an ultimate purpose (and, thus, God) exists (what is interesting to note here is that even though Logic has

been proved by Godel that it cannot prove the truth people still believe in it with no questions asked).

Thoughout science history, science had God as its starting point. The notion of us, humans, being made in the

image of God gave scientists like Newton the power and will to try to understand the universe: "if we are made

in His image, then we have the ability to understand His creation", people said from the time of Saint Thomas

Aquinas. On the other hand, religion has God as its ending point. It tells us how to behave and act in this

world so as to earn a place in the "other" world. Science does not deal with problems of ethics at all. It may

tell you how a nuclear bomb explodes, but it has nothing to say about whether you should use it and how.

Science deals with measurable things, while religion with things that cannot be measured. And the latter

(things for which we cannot speak scientifically) are the ones which distinguish us from animals...

As Albert Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind".

2. A higher purpose existsWhat is more, there is a higher purpose in life. I don't know what that purpose is. I may never find out! But

many things we know and experience indicate that something of "higher essence" is part of our existence -

that we are partly made of something more than dust. Luminous being we are, not this crude matter! Science

may never understand why we come to tears when we listen to an old favorite song (even though it may

explain thoroughly the chemistry and the mechanism of tears), why we laugh, why we may love someone so

much that we may give our life for (and I am not talking about the love a mother has for her child - which may

be explained by the theory of evolution since the mother has that love to protect her child - but I refer to all

other kinds of love a human may excibite, like the love a human has for his/hers friend etc), why we are good,

why we excibit altruistic behaviour by helping people unknown to us while at the same time risking our own

lives (and without ever wanting that to be known so as to get a reward of some kind), why human strives for

creation, writting, poetry, why we may give our lives for higher ideas like freedom, why people kill themselves (if

surviving was the ultimate thing we had in mind like the theory of evolution implies, then we would never even

consider killing our selves) and so on...

3. Logic and not only faith

Before someone counter-argues that all these are "indications" and not scientific proof, I will argue that saying

that is completely wrong. It is a great mistake of the atheists and the agnostics to claim that every argument in

favour of the existence of God is "not-logical" or simply "false". The job of every scientist and open-minded

person is to question everything. It is not thus logical to say that "we can and must question everything and we

must not be dogmatic", but have exceptions on that rule! If we are to question everything, then the dogma of

the modern materialistic age that "God does not exist" must be questioned also...

We must bear in mind that for things that relate to all these metaphysical questions (like what is our purpose

in life), there is little hard (i.e. not like "I watch the universe and calculate the law of gravity") evidence to rely

on. We have to rely on "soft" evidence, like the abovementioned indications, since they are all we've got. And

we must note that at least the ones that argue that there is a purpose in life have some indications to basetheir arguments on - while the ones that claim there is absolutely no purpose in life don't even have

indications, they just have speculations! The theory of evolution is based on some fossil. And it really explains

well some things in micro-level: how some species evolve and change over time. I admit that the theory of

evolution really works well up to a point.

However explaining how fish evolved and went to the land, doesn't mean that we have explained there is no

purpose in life or that there God doen't exist! This is a huge logic leap that isn't at all explained by the ones

that favorite the theory of evolution. Most importantly: the theory of evolution explained the "how" up to a point

(the "up to a point" phrase is really important and that is why I keep repeating it), not "why"! Even if everything


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is one day explained by the theory of evolution...why do all specied follow the laws of that theory?!?!? Maybe

because of another law that says that all species must follow the rules of evolution? And why that another law

exists? etc etc...We must all accept the fact that humanity has so little knowledge about our existence (we

don't even know how flu works!) that is really funny for someone to argue that he has found the purpose of our

life or that we have no purpose in life!

I do not like it when someone tells me that "you may believe that God exists, but science has shown that the

theory of evolution requires no God to exist" for many reasons:

Firstly I am a scientist and my logic tells me that something of "higher essence" exists. All the indications that

I mentioned in point 2 say that to me. These indications also say the same thing to other scientists as well.

Being a "scientist" doesn't necessarily means that you don't believe in God. This however is my logic - the

logic of someone else may reach to a different result when having the same data.

The logic of Godel (the most importan logicologist after Aristotle) said that God exists and he even found alogical proof for that (seach Yahoo for Godels proof)! The logic of the scientist that led the project for decoding

the human DNA for the first time (Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project), also told him

that God existed!

Secondly, it is true that I believe God exists ("faith"), but I have also some strong indications to argue in favour

of my opinion ("logic"). On the other hand, the ones that argue he there is no God also believe (have "faith")

that he doen't exist but without any evidence of God's inexistence (in particular they argue that even though the

theory of evolution doesn't explain everything right now, they believe that one day it will! OK, when it does, I will

change what I write in this site - no problem)! They have no proof for that.

Thirdly, humans have many more tools to reach truth. We have our feelings and our intuition. And my feelings

and intuition tell me that something "hogher" than us exists. If someone else have the feeling that we - humans

(or some alien species we have not yet discovered) - are the highest level of spirit in the universe it is ok by

me, but they have as much "hard proof" as I have. We don't know whether our logic or our feeling / intuition are

better guides for the truth...Many mathematitians have used their intuition to formulate theorems that every

mathematitian believes today but are still unproved...

Science and religion, religion and science should work together to fill in the pieces of the puzzle of human

existence. Until we have some better clues, we have to rely on the indications we have and not to "believe" we

have the correct answer to everything!

4. Evolution as an accident...

If there is not purpose in life, then we should accept the sayings of the theory of evolution, which claims that

we are an accident of nature, that we exist because we just...happened to exist! And why do we exist? For no

perticular reason! This is in every way illogical: by saying that we exist with no purpose in life, you null the

value of human life, you tell everyone that being a human or a...banana is exactly the same! And you choose

to ignore all the indications I mentioned above: if there is no purpose in life and if man is so completely stripped

off anything of "higher value", then why do we everyday strive to get out of our body and grow spiritually?

5. New scientific findings

New findings in science point towards a different look to our world. Telology (existence of a purpose) seems to

find its way through physics. No scientific theory indicates that the cause must always exist before the result.

Quantum mechanic experiments (e.g. the experiment of the two holes) show that an electon may "decide"

whether it behaves like a particle or like a wave during its course only after a human have watched it. And it

"decides" for the whole length of its existence - not only after it has been recorded in a particle detector but

even before that! Moreover, the law of physics seem to have limits. Moreover, the universe has a specific

amount of processing power (if you look at every particle as a bit of information, then the universe is like a giant

computer - according the theory of information nowadays) and this means that it (the universe) can calculate

for example the position of planets up to a specific decimal point! Higher accuracy has its limits even for the

cosmos itself! The world laws of physics are not so platonic - perfect as once we thought they were. That,

along with the fact that the human watching the experiment of the two wholes help the electron determine its

existence, creates more room for telology: if the human decides for the electron, maybe he decides for theuniverse laws as an observer of these as well (or, in other words, the planets move the way they move so as to

obey their "purpose" of behaving in the way the human observer wants them to)? Like the electon that its whole

existence is determined by its goal ("purpose") to look like a particle or wave at a certain point of time, the

human life may be the way it is because of a higher purpose we have in the universe, or because of a higher

purpose the universe has for us. Maybe the universe has the higher purpose to be explained by us and we have

the higher purpose to reach the higher mental level and connect to the "universe" itself ("theosis"). We still do

not know, but the window for the truth is open.

6. Problems with the theory of evolution

Furthermore, some things for the theory of evolution are yet unanswered: How does a system evolves in

something more functional over time? We know from physics that every system's entropy (quantitative

measure of the disorder of a system) increases over time (law of thermodynamics). How species then evolve

by pure luck? Scientific experiments with flies and other insects have shown random mutations over time, but

none of these mutations has led to a better species.

7. Evolution theory is not falsifiable

According to Carl Popper scientific theories must be always falsifiable: i.e. if you are to compile a new

scientific theory, you should state in what way or in which case your theory will be proved wrong. For example,

a theory stating "all frogs are green" ir proven wrong when a black frog is discovered. However the theory of

evolution can not be proven wrong in any way: after you see a specied alive and well, you name / baptize it as

'fit for survival'. If you see a species extinct, you name it (again after you observe it) as 'not fit to survive'. No


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matter what you observe in nature, the theory of evolutions works after the observation and not before it in a

way that makes the theory unfalsifiable! The most notorius example of that is the case of the fish coelacanth

(Latimeria chalumnae). That fish was thought to be extinct from the Cretaceous period, so the evolution

biologists claimed that it was not fit for survival, thus it was extinct. However on 1938 the fish was discovered

to be alive! One could think that this would lead to the conclusion that the theory of evolution was wrong about

coelacanth. But No! After the fish was found alive and well, the evolution biologists simply said that "the fish

was fit for survival and, thus, it survived"! As simple as that! And life goes on...

8. Science is driven away from humans

The most important thing to say about todays science is that Science has stopped to have human life as its

primary focus for a long time now. In its effort to explain everything, it has forgotten that its main purpose is to

serve human and improve our lifes. By telling people that we are nothing more than dust and water certainly

doesn't help in that direction (although it will certainly grant some people a good funding to go on researching

why people are so similar to bananas...). If you axiomatically think the world is consisted only of particles andphysical laws that govern their behaviour, then no wander you cannot find any evidence of spirituality in the

unverse. If you axiomatically think that there is no purpose in our existence, then it is more than logical that

you cannot find any proof for the existence of purpose in the cosmos...

Science must re-unite with philosophy and - as in the times of Aristotle and Plato - try to reach truth with a

more holistic way of thinking. Science must understand that the dogmas on which it relies are wrong. Science

must understand that not all things are measurable (like moral, emotions, love) and that there are things we

will never know via science (see Godel "incompleteness theorem" for that). See the Limits of Science knol for

more details on the wrong way modern science has taken.

9. The problem of Human Progress

Humanking progresses. We learn new things, we generate new ideas, we read history and try to make the

future better. Our society progresses in all sectors. Some darwinists claim that human progress does not

actually exist, that it is actually a mere illusion. They say that the only real progress is the one conducted viarandom mutations and natural selection. I disagree. We progress in all sectors, even if this progress is

sometimes very slow. Even if someone denies progress' existence in one particular sector, he will not be able

to deny the fact that humans progress in a way in some fields. This progress indicates that we are not only

influenced by our environment, but we also infuence it back. We are not evolving only by adaptation to our

environment (as the theory of evolution claims), but we also evolve via our own free will. The fact that we design

new life forms or improve our own genome via molecular biology, clearly shows that the notion of 'design' is

something that is not just a theological idea but rather a part of reality. We progress because we have free will

and because we are consious of our ability to formulate our very own optimized designed future. This provides

evidence that we are not the same as the other species. Maybe the structure of society dictates how some of

our human traits of 'higher essense' - like the free will -are expressed, but one cannot deny that humans

inherently have some traits of such nature...

However it must be noted that for the last 50 years, the progress that was promised by the materialistic based

science at the end of the 21st century is not delivered. In contrast to the recent past when scientists' thought

was more holistic, we cannot claim that today we have made substantial progress on many sectors [6].

Science today only collects vast amount of data, without suggesting any essentially new theories for the

cosmos. Having CD-ROMs and DVDs is not progress...

I certainly hope that will lead science to go back to more holistic ways of thinking, as it used to think back in

the good "old" days of Aristotle or even Albert Einstein...

10. Post-Modern Philosophy

Wittgenstein a pioneer post-modern philosopher thought that all philosophical problems are actually

misunderstanding caused by the limitations of our language. For example, the phrase the pig hereres is

neither true nor false. That phrase is nonsense: the words used have no meaning. Thus, we cannot claim

anything about its truthfulness.

In the same way, the phrase God exists cannot be true or false either. In that phrase we use the word God

without knowing what God exactly is and the word exists without having defined exactly what existing

means. So, that phrase is nonsense too.

The teachings of Wittgenstein were wrongly used by many atheists to claim that no God exists. The Vienna

Circle attempted to make such a misuse and that is why Wittgenstein did not go to their meetings.

The reality is quite different. Wittgenstein in his work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was clear on one thing:

the things that are of real importance in life are the ones for which we cannot speak about! We may

not be able to answer the question does God exists?, but that does not mean anything about Gods actual

existence!

Conclusion

As the Interacademy Panel (IAP - Global network of Science Academies) stated on an announcement it

made for the theory of evolution on 21 June 2006: "Human understanding of value and purpose are outside of

natural science s scope. However, a number of components scientific, social, philosophical, religious,

cultural and political contribute to it. These different fields owe each other mutual consideration, while being

fully aware of their own areas of action and their limitations. While acknowledging current limitations, scienceis open ended, and subject to correction and expansion as new theoretical and empirical understanding

emerges" [http://www.interacademies.net/Object.File/Master/6/150/Evolution%20statement.pdf].

As a final conclusion one could say that we must stay humble in front of the wisdom of nature, search like a

scientist, believe in human and its higher value like a theologist and work all together to discover the truth!

Links - Other resources

1. Please refer to http://www.geocities.com/spiros_lidar/index for the Greek version of this article.

2. See the Evolution and Intelligent Design - The way to an agreement for arguments in favour of the existence
http://knol.google.com/k/spiros-kakos/evolution-and-intelligent-design-the/2jszrulazj6wq/3#http://www.geocities.com/spiros_lidar/indexhttp://knol.google.com/k/spiros-kakos/the-limits-of-science/2jszrulazj6wq/5#


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of purpose and/or something of 'higher essence' in the Universe.

You can always contact me at [email protected] or at [email protected] for your comments, or

simply add your comment here.

Bibliography

1. Common sense - Human Logic.

2. 'Metaphysics', Aristotle.

3. 'The Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man', Alfred Russel Wallace (S165: 1869/1870).

4. 'Evidence for Belief', Francis Collins.

5. 'Types, Tableaus, and Gdel's God', Fitting, M.

6. Les Vrais Penseurs de notre temps (1989) (True Thinkers of Our Time), Guy Sorman.

7. ber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens ("On the limits of our understanding of nature"), Emil du Bois-

Reymond, 1872.

8. "Reflections on Gdels Ontological Argument", Christopher G. Small, University of Waterloo

[http://www.stats.uwaterloo.ca/~cgsmall/Godel.final.revision.PDF]

Comments
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