Archives 2005:
Vol. 4, Numbers 1-12
Read past articles including:
Standing up for Humanity
Unity in Diversity
Thought and Imagination
Imagination and Healing
Lessons of Katrina
Intelligent Design or Evolution

June, 2002
Vol. 1, number 6

Chapter I
The Search for God
(continued) Part 3

from the unpublished book
Science, Religion, and the Search for God: Bridging the Gap
by Richard Sidy

Even though both science and religion may lead to "God-consciousness" — albeit via different paths — that has not resulted in their cooperation (nor should it justify their competitiveness). They must be pursued together for the needed balance, safeguard, and completeness. They must be intertwined for people to experience the fullest measure of their potential, creativity, and service to the world. Just as man and woman are needed to create a child, so science and religion are needed to give birth to the inner Self. Human beings are neither totally matter nor totally spirit.

Scientific orientation organizes one's knowledge of the world. It gives context and order to one's sense impressions. It improves observation and reasoning, and it stimulates action for the sake of material survival. The scientific mind gives the tools for adaptation and creativity.

Religious orientation makes one able to adapt emotionally and psychologically in order to develop relationships with others. Happiness, love, and sensitivity to the needs of others are considered essential qualities for social success. Religious awareness refines the emotions and serves as a prime motivator for creating unity, beauty, and dedication. It is from this part of one's nature that goodwill may grow.

Scientific and religious orientation represent only two limited human faculties. Nevertheless, these faculties are the ones that dominate people's lives in terms of motivation and action today. Religion appeals to the emotional nature. Through religion a person worships ideals and seeks personal happiness, love, and relationship with others and with something greater than oneself. People frequently seeks their identity through religion and seeks also psychological security and a basis for faith. People of strong religious orientation can easily be manipulated by clever and emotionally exciting people because they are driven by feeling and by blind trust in those who can stir their passions.

Scientifically oriented people are focused on the side of their mental nature concerned with material existence. Such people feel secure when they "know" something or are in control of their day-to-day existence. These people feel that what is real is provable according to laws of matter. A mental materialist of this type can be controlled and manipulated by logic and reason. This is dangerous when the mind is used to satisfy pride, selfishness, and prejudice or when motivated by desire or fear.

If only one of these orientations dominates a person's life, the search for God or meaning will be one-dimensional. The searcher will be like a wanderer in a house of mirrors. Eventually, unable to find God, he will fall down and worship his own reflection. The true search for God is multi-dimensional. Only with the two wings of emotions and mind does one achieve the balance needed to fly above the maze which one thinks is reality.

(Continued in Part 4, July)