| God and Science, Personality |
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Published on Perspectiva magazine
Year 1 - Nš 1 - June 1996
Many people consider religion and science to be separate concepts, incompatible. There are scientists that define themselves as atheists because they think that science explains it all. Some of you, my classmates and friends at the ITBA, have criticized my posture and defended your own using this argument. In this manner the spiritual part of existence is forsaken. On the other hand, many religions consider science to be a risk to the innocence of the human being. Some religions forbid their followers to receive certain medical treatments, such as blood transfusions, even at the risk of losing a life. In this manner the physical aspect of existence is forsaken. There are those who do not abide to any extremist posture, even if that causes great confusion to them. My intention is to give a small look of my view on the matter. What if science and religion were actually converging to the same thing?
Since I became aware of my reason and my faith, I have always been attracted by topics widely considered weird. Ghosts, UFOs, life after death... What is God? What are we humans? This and many other questions haunted me since I was about 8 years old.
On the other hand, I had always been interested in science, the chemistry of things. I said I liked chemistry because it was everywhere, from the smallest possible thing to the largest, chemistry covered it all. The idea I had about chemistry has an analogy to my present concept of God. They both are everywhere.
When I was about 16, I felt a great thirst to know The Truth, I still feel that today. One day, while watching a movie showing the life of a woman (Shirley MacLaine) who discovers the etheric aspect of being, I realized that it sounded awfully good, in fact, it even sounded familiar to me. Mediums, extraterrestrials, reincarnation... those words resonated in my mind and in my heart. I call it resonance, because I feel it like that: it's like being re-tuned to things that had been there all the time, but hiding.
I began to wonder about these things, and to read. Above all, I like books that offer true and concrete testimonies. I felt thrilled to be accessing all that information. However, a very important part of me was terrified about what I might find. In spite of the fact that most of what I read didn't seem to have a scientific explanation, it made more and more sense to me.
My approach to these topics was always with a great deal of scientific skepticism, much of which (unfortunately) I haven't lost. This is the way I make sure that what I write today is, for me, as clear as Newton's Law of Gravity is. It is timely to clarify that I became an atheist at 12 and remained so for the next six years. I considered God to be for those who needed help and support when they were lonely or sad, and I was beyond that. How wrong I was!
I also what to point that, for me, religion is not a concept bound to any one religion in particular, but it covers all forms of dogmatization of God that there exist.
Each human being has three aspects: physical, spiritual and mental (personality, individuality). Each has a different function and between them there is a link: personality is the telephone between the spirit and the body.
Theorems, models, laws, observation through the senses, those concepts sound familiar to us, the are the basis of science. Science, in general, occupies itself with the material aspect of existence, the things of the body. On the other hand, religion uses words like: faith, belief, will. Religion occupies itself with things of the spirit.
And personality? Where does it stand in all of this? Simply, science and religion have forgotten the most essential thing: the individual. It was individuals who created science and individuals who believe in some religion; however, neither posture contemplates them. It is here where my conception enters the scene.
Science and religion point in the same direction: the mind, the individual, personality. They will end up unified in the end; a phrase I once read sounded like this: "when all the scientists finally climb the great mountain of knowledge, they will find a bunch of religious guys that had been there for a long time."
The knowledge that is meant in this case is not the one you would imagine, "what we can know"; it is the supreme knowledge: knowledge of oneself. Jesus, and many other notable men, said: "know yourself, and that truth will set you free." What they meant to say is that everything that is worth knowing is within oneself and the way to get it to the surface is by looking inside. The "religious guys" mentioned are not Catholics or Jews or anything of the sort, but the people who have discovered God inside themselves and they have discovered that they are a part of God. This is, for me, the true religion.
And that is what life is for: to learn and know oneself and come back to being God. But that, is another story.
