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Searching For Faith and Finding Knowledge

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Contributed by: Carl Dietz on 2/7/2008

In recent years there has been considerable friction between proponents of religious faith and proponents of scientific knowledge. Rarely does either side find anything instructive about this friction, instead each side stakes all of their beliefs on a single point of contention. Yet both sides have much in common, and often our human folly is that we pay less attention to our own ignorance than the ignorance of those with whom we disagree.

In the modern world, knowledge has steadily become a word that refers to explicit facts rather than personal experiences, a definition heavily influenced by the scientific method. And while simple facts are easily confirmed, more complicated facts require carefully constructed proofs and methods before they can be understood.

Interestingly, as complex facts are compiled, new knowledge discoveries require increasingly complex associations of facts and therefore new ideas become more difficult to accept or refute. Complex knowledge requires faith in those who communicate the knowledge to us, and for many of us, we prefer to accept the credibility of another person rather than attempt to understand how all the facts have been assembled. In other words we simply have faith in somebody else to have made no mistakes when the person organized the facts and his or her associations. You could almost call this form of belief a branch of scientific religion. Ironically these beliefs are often short-lived and replaced by newer but just as short-lived beliefs.

Faith is everywhere. To the scientific-minded individual, his or her faith in scientific facts, illuminates every sensory experience. To the spiritually minded individual, his or her faith that science cannot explain every mystery enables meaningful answers to the questions science does not attempt to answer. A deeper and more satisfying meaning emerges for many of those individuals who examine unanswerable mysteries.

The search for answers to life's most spiritual questions almost always becomes a search for faith. We each have a deep and persistent urge to understand our own existence. Our inquisitive nature enables scientific discovery as well as spiritual discovery. Much of what we experience is incomprehensible, regardless of how many scientific explanations are reported by others. A brain researcher may report to his colleagues that mind is simply a function of brain and that it rises out of the increasing complexity of the brain. Such an explanation of mind works fine for somebody wholly focused on the brain, but it does not explain how or why the brain ever developed in any organism. And if the brain researcher then adds that brains develop to enable more complex life to exist, that highly speculative answer cannot explain why any simple organism bothered to develop from a pool of chemicals. Or why chemicals developed from molecules, or why the so called "Big Bang" bothered to bang, or bothered to be so big. (And so on, and so on.)

Searching for faith and meaning in life does not mean you are deficient of some fact or experience. It means you are alive and well. The search for answers to life's most interesting questions is a long tradition that goes back before recorded history. And it is the same search as the search for facts and knowledge. Religious belief has developed side by side with scientific belief in every culture across time. What we may perceive as a contradiction between the two, is simply an opportunity to review our knowledge sources and update them with new information. Discovering new information is not a challenge to our faith; it is a furthering of our faith and our ability to discover more knowledge.

Four hundred years before Christ, Socrates often told the citizens of Athens, the only wisdom he experienced was the wisdom of knowing when he did not have the answer. He explained to his peers that by knowing his knowledge was incomplete, he was capable of learning. If he assumed he already had all the answers, no learning was possible. Today we have a more modern way of saying the same thing: "The mind is like a parachute; it only works when it's open."

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

Submitted By: Charles Arnot

posted on 2/8/2008 @ 8:05:34 AM

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I agree, the snippy attitude our entire country has is sad. How did we all became selfish kids who call each other names instead of learning for all our days. Now I read that the new Republican Party is trying to eliminate public education. I am voting for the Senator from Arizona, just because the home schooled Christian Militia does not like him.

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Submitted By: Mame Shroyer

posted on 2/7/2008 @ 10:35:45 PM

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having trouble making this "ratings" thing work.

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Submitted By: Mame Shroyer

posted on 2/7/2008 @ 10:33:09 PM

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Amen. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I really know. "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." --Albert Einstein "How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?" --Albert Einstein "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." --Albert Einstein

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Submitted By: Rebeccafaith Zimmerman

posted on 2/7/2008 @ 12:55:54 PM

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Often times I find myself as an outsider, for I am frequently contemplating the meaning of life, and the meaning of my life in particular. I found your words comforting and provoking, as I am now bundled aside thinkers like yourself, philosopher's such as Socrates and scientists/churches celebrating the same search for meaning. Very refreshing piece, thank you for contributing.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFO

Carl Dietz

Monument , CO

Carl Dietz has posted 4 stories and 1 comment since joining on 2/7/2008. Carl Dietz 's average story rating is 5.

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