How Science and Faith diverged: A Story
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
Science is built on the following principals:
- Hypothesis
- Experiment (Evidence/Risk)
- Conclusion
(a quick disclaimer: I am not a scientist, so my explanation of science is overly simplified and I welcome any and all refinement from my scientist friends)
Faith is built on the following principals:
- Love (hypothesis)
- Trust (experiment/evidence/risk)
- Surrender (conclusion)
At the root of science is inquiry.
At the root of faith is inquiry.
Both REQUIRE curiosity as a fundamental principal.
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Things diverge the moment agenda (or "intent") is added to either.
Add an agenda to science, and it turns into justification (creating hypotheses merely for the sake of proving oneself wrong or right, otherwise known as reactivity/defense mechanisms).
When science has an agenda, the conclusion is skewed (this is one of the reasons why so many of us hate Monsanto, and all of their supposed self-funded scientific studies that demonstrate how "safe" RoundUp is, and why we all care so much about publicly funded, or at least non-biased scientific studies).
In faith, we would use a different wording in this case: it is "out of alignment" or "the transmission is not clear" or "it's incongruent" etc...
Add an agenda to faith, and it also turns into justification (or any other flavor of reactive/defensive behavior, basically).
In effect, both things lose their implied meaning once agenda enters the game.
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The only real difference between science and faith is that one explicitly requires measurement, and the other explicitly cannot be measured. They are otherwise exactly the same.
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There are two things that need to be investigated here:
Our propensity toward rampant unconscious agenda (which can of course be deactivated by a disciplined practice of curiosity).
Our propensity to put ourselves (and others) in boxes that ultimately separate us from one another.