Science and Religion
Science and religion are rarely the best of friends and indeed, the same can be said of science and religion, and the paranormal.
In the main, science tends to reject parapsychological phenomena and even though there are many examples of what could be termed paranormal experiences going back as far as the ancient texts, religions tend to call these occurrences miracles and attribute them to God.
In the following pages you can explore more accounts of spontaneous paranormal experiences. As you do, think about the old science/religion divide and why it still remains.
Science and religion have so much that they can learn from each other – if only they would collaborate.
photo credit: woodleywonderworks
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{ 4 comments }
I am certainly thrilled to find that science can explain many religious events in our contemporary world.
I am a mixed bag of beliefs having earned degrees in both neo-pagan areas of study and confirmations and degrees in religious arenas, holding a BA in Religious Humanities. I was named a “Fellow” of my rune Gild at 2000 pagan-fest at Gambla Uppsala in Sweden and titled “Vitki” or Rune-priest prior to that.
I realize to many this seems a tad bit contradictory, however I find The Left Hand Path and Contemporary Socio-Religio views have far more in common than disparaging or conflicting values if one simply looks past dogma and doctrine.
I feel I have a lot to offer my congregation by not being just “another” Minister of the Masses nor Follower of Popularize “Cult”. Only through a truly open mind can a person find the similarities in all things rather than the dogmatic approaches of closed minded doctrine and conformity.
Blessings Be,
Felbain
Felbain, I agree with you about the limitations of dogma. Personally I began life in an organised religion and I think that was helpful because when I walked away from it I was left with a personal void that I have sought to fill ever since. So, in a strange way I am thankful for the formalized start to my spiritual life and happy that I have moved on to explore this life and beyond through other filters.
From your post, it also seems to me that you have many areas of knowledge and interest. Would you be interested in sharing some of this with us? A small guest post on runes or a topic of you choice perhaps
Cheers
Rosemary
The reluctance of most religions to accept the paranormal has for many years puzzled me. You say that religions prefer to attribute them to God. But God is Himself part of the paranormal world. he obviously has no atoms or molecules in his makeup: He is wholly spirit. If you can accept the truth of the resurrection appearances of Jesus, or the 20th century appearances of Jesus, you are accepting the paranormal. If you believe in the existence of God, you believe in the existence of the paranormal.
One of the appearances that is best attested was to Hugh Montefiore in about 1934. At the age of 16 he was thinking of becoming a rabbi and had deliberately been kept by his father from any knowledge or experience of Christianity, yet when a figure in white appeared to him in his study at school and said “Follow me”, he had no doubt that it was Jesus. The change in him was dramatic. “In the morning I was a Jew: in the evening I was a Christian”, he wrote in one of his books. He went on to become Bishop of Birmingham and died in 2005. He accepts that a camcorder would have recorded nothing, and that this was what he called a veridical hallucination – a hallucination deliberately produced by an outside cause, in this case by God or Jesus, and none the less real for being paranormal rather than physically verifiable.
And this is the clue, I believe, to the resurrection appearances of Jesus. They were real, their effects on the disciples (and later on Paul, who equates the appearance of Christ to him on the road to Damascus with the appearances to the disciples) were as life-changing as the appearnce of Jesus to Hugh Montefiore, but if there had been someone there with a camcorder he would have recorded nothing.
The fact that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe in the existence of God, who must necessarily exist in the paranormal sphere if he exists at all, makes it very difficult to understand their reluctance to accept the truth of at least some of the innumerable accounts of the paranormal such as one reads on this website. These accounts testify to the existence of the paranormal sphere; and while they do not prove beyond doubt the existence of God and the continued existence of Jesus (and other people who have died) in that sphere, they must make them more likely than if the universe was capable of being wholly explained by the kind of materialistic “science” favoured by people like Richard Dawkins.
The accounts of the paranormal are so numerous and so detailed that the onus must be on Richard Dawkins and those who think like him to disaprove the existence of the paranormal; and if he cannot do that, he cannot disprove the existence of God – indeed the evidence for the existence of God is at least as strong as the evidence for some of the more advanced theories of scientists. Why then do most religions fight shy of accounts of the paranormal (except when they involve the appearance of Jesus after his death)?
I agree with you Edward. The ancients texts are littered with references to the paranormal – miracles abound. In my thesis there was definitely a disconnect between people reporting the paranormal and their degree of religiousness. People were very happy to report paranormal encounters and categorize themselves as very religious. It is obviously religion that is out of step with society! As I quoted in my literature review, Larry Dossey MD has written a lot on this very topic. Specifically he questions, “what, for example, is the connection between prophesy and precognition? Are miracles just another name for psychokinesis? Is hearing the voices of God or the
angels the same as clairvoyance?” Yes they are the same. A rose by any other name is still a rose…….
Im hopeful that more people today are making up their own minds about not only the paranormal but many other things in life – rather than accepting what religion serves up without question