14.12.2014

There is not one way of knowing what is real.

Do we have to make a distinction between what is scientific and what is religious?

One professor that inspires me a lot once told his students never to underestimate their observations of nature and never to throw away intuitions with regard to scientific inquiries. I never heared of a scientist using the word 'intuition' before, it does not appear commonly.

There appears to be a clean line between science and religion. Why is that? Is it because the nature of both entities claim to have their roots of reality stemmed from different universes?

Thinking about my experiences as a former yoga trainee, I remember that I used to believe everything had a spiritual cause that cannot be explained physically. I had no experience in science and I did not even read the popular science magazines. I only believed in dedication, but mainly I was running away to build a life for myself that was protected in some way. I don't claim that yogis are religious people that run away from the facts of life but I believe that there is an extension of yoga that ties itself to religious practices which is the common understanding that there is an energy in life which cannot be explained or controlled. This understanding of God is one aspect of life that divides people into one of the two main categories: believers who feel and sense verus nonbelievers who observe and articulate.

There is one another category that bases itself in scientific facts. If an entity is not observable -obviously not only by our senses because we need intelligent machines to observe things we cannot see or sense in any way- it does not exist. Challenging and safe as it may be -safe in terms of the only unknown being unfound scientific inquiries that are not beyond your control- it is also limited with the imaginable.

Why is the two categories so distinct? Why do people have to or want to choose one or the other? If you are a religious person, do you have to be a stereotype? If you are a scientist, do you have to be black or white? Sometimes what can lead to a scientific discovery may stem from a gut feeling that you have to observe certain phenomenon. The means are scientific but what lead to you research on the subject may not be scientific.

There are two problems of this distinction. One is that religion -the sense of God- is strictly in the hands of people that essentially do not believe in this energy and distribute it in a misleading way (e.g. how religion it is used in politics for voting purposes). The second issue is, science is only understood by few people who elaborately study it, it is a closed door for the public. Think about this issue being the same with health problems, because we don't know the human physiology very well, we have to rely on the doctors that they will treat us well as "we have no choice". What we could do actually is to change the education system so that everybody knows the basic human physiology very well -not high-school-passing-grade-well so that we won't have to rely on doctors one hundred percent. The same goes for any type of scientific research conducted. We can know science to a certain extent so the doors are not shut down when we choose to be a journalist, an English teacher,...

My point is, the essence of reality is not black and white, it seems.

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