Can Science and Religion be reconciled?

Oh dear...

Unscientific supposition.

"Spirit" is not mind.
Keep trying.

 

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The way I originally reconciled the two, several decades ago, was to begin from an objective science position. I asked myself the question, if religion was indeed only in the imagination, how can the imagination become so strong that it can convince millions of people that the god effect was real?

At the same time, through my observations, people being religious and having this particular unconscious imagination induction, did not preclude these same people also having the ability to do everything else in life, including being good at science. It was not exactly a pathology, since it did not preclude a normal life, education, science, career, socialization, etc.

Any science approach that could answer these questions, would need to first explore the human psyche, to see if there are unconscious processes, that can infiltrate consciousness, to the degree that the experience becomes real. Yet beyond this infiltration effect, it would not necessarily alter normal behavior, beyond conscious choice.

As an example, in 1938 Orson Wells did a radio show where he simulated an alien invasion; War of the Worlds. This radio program created wide spread panic. There was no reality basis for this panic, yet there was wide spread panic. It was all in the imagination, yet it appeared so real to so many people, the panic needed to be calmed down with a disclaimer.

In this particular example, there may have been a forboding about a possible impending World War II (1938), that was already triggering unconscious fear in America, even though the US had not been invaded and was not in the war. This radio program may have tipped the unconscious scales of fear, so there was a conscious confusion due to the composite induction. Whatever the explanation, the panic was unconscious and involved the imagination turn a radio show into a presumed perception of a Mars invasion. This impacted religion and atheists, alike.

The question became, what parts the human unconscious psyche could generate such output? In modern times, I tend to think global warming may be a war of the worlds effect, that seems to work best on those without the religious induction already engaged. Maybe that same place in the deep parts of the mind, when already engaged, were harder to trigger with a secondary subrountine. But like religion the effect, will appear very real.

Possible answers to this line of reasoning was a way to reconcile, at least for me. It involved learning about and then exploring the aspects of the unconscious mind that we don't have full control over. If I could induce this effect and then observe it, I could learn more. But I needed to induce it in myself so I could see deeper than the shallow surface.

This line of reasoning also made sense to me, in terms of the normal atheist reaction to religion, which even I had been guilty of at thag time. The athiests never seem to get past an unconscious need to restrict religious peoples' behavior that might trigger the special effect. The very mention of such behavvior, tends to activate a strong sense of rage/denial.

Logically, one would not need to overcompensate for an entire life, unless they were running away from something. This meant to me that maybe these same effects were being dammed up within atheists, and there was a need for group conformity, less some member let the wall down, via any semblance of even partial acceptance relgious phiosophy. In modern times, it now makes sense that global warming might impact atheist more, since the wall could come down, unconscious, with the apparent logic, to create their own war of the worlds effect.

The final stage, after this thought processing, involved leaving the atheist herd and trying to remove the wall, that, as a scientist, I had constructed. This way I could see if my hypothesis was correct. It was an interesting effect, when I approached the wall. There was fear. But once through the wall, the fear changed to interesting discovery.

 

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There is no big mystery, people believe all kinds of delusional things. Baseball players believe their lucky charms help them win the game. We remember correlations that support our beliefs but ignore those instances when data contradicts our beliefs.

 

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Blah blah blah. Not an ounce of rationality.
Why do you persist in this particular delusion?