Ahhh, Religion. What a spiritual yet contraversial subject - all based on what your personal faith is (or isn’t). Me, I am a believer in God and a Catholic who adores the blessed Virgin Mary. *NOT worships Mary ABOVE God - as many non-Catholics untruly ‘claim’ that we do* (sorry just clarifying here, since this particular comment hits home with me!) I also love the whole principal of Buddism, a very peaceful and NON judgemental way of spirituality. Their belief is simple - lead a moral life, be mindful and aware of your thoughts and actions, develop wisdom and understanding. Now how lovely is THAT!! They are also tolerant of all other beliefs & religions, and they don’t try to covert people...like some of those religous zealots who “know it all” and think ‘their way is the ONLY way.’ I believe in faith (as well as past lives) & beleive that not everything can be explained by science....there are mysteries in this world & some things just don’t have an answer. Anyway, the following is a great article on GOD by mind-body-consciousness expert Deepok Chopra, who debates the book “The God Delusion”
by Richard Dawkins, an athiest.
Peace, Love & Namaste. Lisa
Recently there has been alot of books about God from scientists responding to the debate over intelligent design. These books raise a chorus of skepticism that God exists, most in no uncertain terms. SCIENCE stands for rational thought - FAITH for superstition & unreason.
Dawkins has written extensively on evolution, holds a chair at Oxford, and speaks out loudly against any possibility that God is real. He makes many points to support his claim that religion is nonsense and that there isn't the slightest shred of rational proof for God, miracles, the soul, etc. Since this is such an important issue, I (DC) want to argue against in some detail.
"Science is the only valid way to gain knowledge. Nothing about God is needed to explain the world. Eventually science will uncover all mysteries; those that it can't explain don't exist. "
This is the bedrock of Dawkins' argument, as it is of most skeptics and scientific atheists. In his new book Dawkins expresses his position with deep disdain for those who disagree, and his poisonous tone weakens his argument. Yet there's no doubt that with current advances in genetics and brain research, scientists have more confidence than ever that mysteries are being unraveled as never before. By the same token, something as primitive as faith in God looks more and more pointless and misguided. At best God is a matter of personal belief, at worst a superstition that blocks progress.
The unfairness of this argument is that it squeezes God into a corner. Dawkins makes it an us VS them issue. Either you are FOR science (reason, progress, modernism, optimism about the future) OR you are FOR religion (unreason, reactionary resistance to progress, clinging to mysteries that only God can solve). He goes so far as to tar ANYONE who believes in God with the same brush as extreme religious fanatics. Sadly, the media often follow his lead, erasing the truth....which is that many scientists ARE religious and many of the greatest scientists (including Newton and Einstein) probed deep into the existence of God. Not to mention the obvious fact that you don't have to go to church, or even belong to a religion, to find God plausible.
But let's leave Dawkins' heated and unfair rhetoric aside. Is science the ONLY route to knowledge? Obviously NOT. I know that my mother loved me all her life, as I love my own children. I feel genius in great works of art. I have seen medical cures that science CAN’T explain, some seemingly triggered by faith. The same is true of millions of other people. I know that I am conscious and have a self, even though Dawkins (along with many arch materialists) doesn't believe that consciousness is real or that the self is anything but a chemical ‘illusion’
created in the brain.
A materialist could analyze the brain functions of a Mozart or Beethoven down
to the last synaptic firing, but that would tell us nothing about why music exists, why it is beautiful, where great symphonies come from, why inspiration uplifts the listener, or in fact any relevant thing about the meaning of music. The world in general has meaning, deep meaning at times. This cannot be dismissed as a delusion, or an artifact of chemicals. The same analogy comes to mind whenever one hears that brain research will eventually explain ALL human thought and behavior. If a scientist could map every molecule in a radio as it was playing Beethoven Fifth, there would be a complete diagram of the symphony at the level of matter. But the radio isn't Beethoven. It isn't his mind or a diagram of Beethoven's brain.
For thousands of years human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it's a straw man to set God up as the delusion. IF HE IS, then so is truth itself or beauty itself. God stands for the perfection of BOTH, and even if you think truth and beauty (along with love, justice, forgiveness, compassion, and other divine qualities) can never be perfect, to say that they are ‘fantasies’ makes NO sense.
Science knows about objective reality, the mask of matter that our five senses detect. But the mind goes beyond the five senses, and it does Dawkins no good to lump the two worlds of inner & outer together. In fact, insofar as brain research can locate centers of activity that light up whenever a person feels love or pleasure or sexual arousal, these subjective states leave objective traces behind. That makes them more real, not less. In the same way, the brain lights up when a person feels inspired or close to God; therefore, we may be getting closer to the connection between inner and outer states, not further away.
Deepak Chopra, MD is a speaker and best-selling author of more than 35 books, including Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, which has sold more than 2 million copies. Chopra’s books have been translated into more than 30 languages, with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide. In 1999 Time magazine selected Dr. Chopra as one of the Top 100 Icons and Heroes of the Century, describing him as “the poet prophet of alternative medicine.”
