Question 148: About evaluating science
Question 148: How does the Gospel of Oneness evaluate the claims of science?
The scientific method has, of course, been tremendously effective in making astounding discoveries in the past 400 years that have led to ever higher levels of technology for practical and efficient ways of living on Earth.
Not all scientific discoveries have been applied to make life better. It has been a trial and error application of the discoveries. Special interest groups have used new information for their own purposes. For example, the military has used science to create stronger weapons.
The rise of science has also diminished the influence of religion in society to some extent. It has forced religions to get rid of superstitious beliefs, and beliefs that were just plain wrong, such as the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe.
The scientific method is much needed, but a “Science Establishment” has grown up around it that has the power to fund or not fund projects. It has its own biases now, and it deems that some ideas are too ridiculous or far-fetched to invest any money in.
The science establishment limits itself to a materialistic viewpoint. If something cannot be measured with our senses and our instruments that extend the reach of our senses, then it cannot be regarded as real or proven. Spirit is not allowed in the equations of science because we don’t know how to do that yet. Consciousness itself is just beginning to be studied in serious ways and the research does not get a lot of funding yet.
Although science has shown that life is interconnected and interdependent and that the universe is one organic whole, it does not and cannot say that a higher, undetectable force of Spirit is behind all material forms and energy. However, it has shown that every form is condensed energy, and that invisible kinds of energy are all around us and are influencing all the visible forms.
The Gospel of Oneness is about seeing all life as part of the Spirit of Love that created this universe. It is open to all progress in science, especially in the realm of consciousness. We already have methods to explore our consciousness and our minds such as Patanjali’s eight-fold path of Self Realization. Such methods are for each individual to apply and do take much self-discipline, and one person’s experience cannot be generalized to prove it to others.
The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified. — Nikola Tesla
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” — Nikola Tesla
…to emphasize undivided wholeness, we shall say that what ‘carries’ an implicate order is the holomovement, which is an unbroken and undivided totality. In certain cases, we can abstract particular aspects of the holomovement (e.g., light, electrons, sound, etc), but more generally, all forms of the holomovement merge and are inseparable. Thus, in its totality, the holomovement is not limited in any specifiable way at all. It is not required to conform to any particular order, or to be bounded by any particular measure. Thus, the holomovement is undefinable and immeasurable — David Bohm.
Instead of saying, ‘An observer looks at an object’, we can more appropriately say, ‘Observation is going on, in an undivided movement involving those abstractions customarily called “the human being” and “the object he is looking at”—David Bohm
We have learned that the exploration of the external world by the methods of the physical sciences leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadapted for penetrating. — Sir Arthur Eddington.
I was so startled by their [Tibetan Buddhists] method of training and by its results that I figured we were limiting ourselves by using what we call the scientific method (Barbara McClintock; quoted by Evelyn Fox Keller. 1983.)
