I was going to let this go, but it's been bugging me too much. This New Scientist article is an interview with Michael Heller, who’s won a major award that is geared towards “spiritual realities.”Here’s part of it, where the interviewer asks:
What do you make of the current debate between science and religion, in which the two are often presented as mutually exclusive?The question bothers me. A lot. I'm disappointed that Heller took it as posed.
It assumes that there is this unitary, singular point of view called “religion.”
This does a tremendous disservice to the wonderful breadth and variety of religious beliefs out there. Of course, “religion” for most Westerners means “Christian” – or possibly one of the other monotheistic religions. But you have Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, the beliefs of First Nations of North America, the aboriginals of Australia, to people who don't have any well articulated system of religious thought but just feel "spiritual" – just to name a few.
Is it not possible that some religious beliefs really are mutually exclusive with science? And is it not possible that some religious beliefs are completely compatible with science?
I've read many experiences of "religious" ceremonies done with ayahuasca, and the attendees described things that meshed entirely with science. Things like DNA copying and encoding, I wish I could find the link, because I'm just rambling. It was on Deoxy.
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