Jan 16 2009
Does Science Negate Spirituality?
The other day I wrote on my personal blog about an article from Science Daily regarding a study that associated high caffeine intake with hallucinations. The study authors found that people that consume the caffeine equivalent of 7 cups of instant coffee or more per day are three times more prone to hallucinations. I made a tongue-in-cheek joke about that explaining a bit why IT people seem so odd at times. This post received a lot of comments on my journal but I want to quote a particular one here because I think the comment author raised a good point. Robb comments:
What’s to say that the IT people are not just prone to thes “hallucinations” are not actually experiening these things for real? I mean, come on, most religious experiences can be called “hallucinations” by those that don’t believe in that religion, or the potential for their expriences.
I think Robb captures an essential debate of our times. As science begins to understand more about how our minds work, discoveries are being made about how the brain functions during religious experiences. But does it really matter? I think most of us that belong to a spiritual path would say that science is only beginning to understand what most spiritual traditions have none for centuries. So if a scientist says that during meditation a certain area of the brain is active, does that make meditation no longer “spiritual”? I certainly don’t think so. Spiritual practices and experiences manifesting certain physical states doesn’t make spirituality any less “true”. In fact, those of us that have a belief in such experiences would argue that we exist on multiple dimenions–some dimensions that science has not yet been able to discover. Could it just be that the parts of the brain that become active are the parts capable of perceiving this other dimension or reality?
I think some day science’s understanding will help support spiritual practices and expereiences rather than bebunk them. I look forward to that day. But I don’t believe that knowing an experience is due to some physical change negates the truth or value of that experience.
