All Quotes By Tag: Science

“Religion said to surrender and believe.Science said to experiment and know.Love said to fall and feel.I chose the latter path.”

“We have implied that asceticism, when considered as a whole, can assume various meanings at successive spiritual levels. Simply defined, that is to say as “training” or discipline, an ascesis aims at placing all the energies of the human being under the control of a central principle. In this respect we can, properly speaking, talk of a technique that has, in common with that of modern scientific achievements, the characteristics of objectivity and impersonality. Thus an eye, trained to distinguish the accessory from the essential, can easily recognize a “constant” beyond the multiple variety of ascetic forms adopted by this or that tradition.”

“The cosmic perspective is humble. The cosmic perspective is spiritual—even redemptive—but not religious.”

“Forced indoctrination exacts blind and ignorant obedience.”

“Being born as mediocre is fate, but to die as one is FAILURE.”

“True understanding is an indivisible land of liberation beyond all judgement and all conclusions.”

“في الماضي، كان العلم يُهدي إلى الله. فكانوا يقولون بصوابٍ: قليل من العلم يُبعد عن الله، وكثير منه يردّ إليه”

“One night I begged Robin, a scientist by training, to watch Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ with me on PBS. He lasted about one act, then turned to me in horror: ‘This is how you spend your days? Thinking about things like this?’ I was ashamed. I could have been learning about string theory or how flowers pollinate themselves. I think his remark was the beginning of my crisis of faith. Like so many of my generation in graduate school, I had turned to literature as a kind of substitute for formal religion, which no longer fed my soul, or for therapy, which I could not afford…. I became interested in exploring the theory of nonfiction and in writing memoir, a genre that gives us access to that lost Middlemarch of reflection and social commentary.”

“Further, in the modern story, reality is that which is observable, measurable, and repeatable – the kinds of phenomena available, accessible, and verifiable to the five senses. Thus, reality comes to equal the scientific method. It should come as no surprise that in such a world the life of the spirit is ignored or marginalized (as well as a great many other nonmaterial things.) This view of life subsequently birthed in human beings a ravenous materialism as matters of the soul were ignored or reinterpreted within this tightly controlled version of reality. When the life of the spirit is ignored, people will seek to feed the hunger of a neglected soul with the only nourishment available: in our context, the consumptive acquisition of material goods.”

“How can we find spiritual meaning in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond oneself. . . . Does scientific explanation of the world diminish its spiritual beauty? I think not. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. (158-159)”

“Let us accept the possibility that there is, at death, not an abrupt cessation of energy, rather a dispersal. This seems more than reasonable to me. Mind you, I’ve owned a series of old cars, and I”m used to turning off the motor only to experience a series of rumblings and explosions that would shame many a volcano. This is the sort of thing I’m conceptualizing, a kind of clunky running-on. And just as some cars are more susceptible to this behavior, so people vary in the length of time, and the force with which, their energy sputters and gasps. . . My example is overly dramatic, but it is not wholly unreasonable, and it serves to make this genetic mutation a player at the evolutionary table. You see what I’m getting at: a biologically and evolutionally sound model for the soul. (I didn’t say I’d achieved it.) Let’s conceive of the soul as an aura that human beings wear on their backs, cumberson as a tortoise’s carapace. Some are larger than others.”

“It seems that scientific research reaches deeper and deeper. But it also seems that more and more people, at least scientists, are beginning to realize that the spiritual factor is important. I say ‘spiritual’ without meaning any particular religion or faith, just simple warmhearted compassion, human affection, and gentleness. It is as if such warmhearted people are a bit more humble, a little bit more content. I consider spiritual values primary, and religion secondary. As I see it, the various religions strengthen these basic human qualities. As a practitioner of Buddhism, my practice of compassion and my practice of Buddhism are actually one and the same. But the practice of compassion does not require religious devotion or religious faith; it can be independent from the practice of religion. Therefore, the ultimate source of happiness for human society very much depends on the human spirit, on spiritual values. If we do not combine science and these basic human values, then scientific knowledge may sometimes create troubles, even disaster….”

“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the descernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.”

“The most telling and profound way of describing the evolution of the universe would undoubtedly be to trace the evolution of love.”

“I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition…. we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.”