Science VS. Religion? Not!

Science and religion are not opposites. Science is a system for studying reality. Religion is a kind of belief system. Not all belief systems are religious—the view of Dawkins and Hitchens and others that religion is a fraud is a sort of belief system but not a religious one. Religion is a deep experience of one’s place in the universe. It actually has nothing to do with god; god is just our anthropomorphic attempt to ascribe a reason for this deep experience.

The experience is so sweet and profound—and fleeting—that people who have it tend to cling to it and want to replicate it and extend it. They turn to the people who run their religion in the hope that if they follow instructions, however fanatical, they will regain the experience.

I like Buddhism because it acknowledges this trap and has devised a technique—meditation—for transcending it. This, of course, is only my religious truth. Yours may vary.