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Spirituality plays a different ballgame than science, so the language used in either of them doesn’t often match up to the other side. New York Time bestselling author and spiritual teacher Rob Bell posits that the two need each other to help describe this modern world. Whereas science deals with explaining cold hard facts, spirituality deals in vagueries that can often help the human side of us a lot more.
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Ah, yes. That word: “spiritual”.
I think the reason why many people run away from it is because lots of what has been done in the name of spiritual or spirituality has been completely crazy. So the problem with that word is it’s easy for a lot of really bizarre unfounded—sometimes even destructive and toxic—ideas can hang out under this word spiritual because you’re talking essentially about that which isn’t accessed through the five senses.
When somebody says, “Well, I just had a spiritual feeling.” Well, you can’t really put that on a spreadsheet. You can’t really take a picture of that. My understanding of spirituality is that this life that we’ve each been given, the very breath that we took and we’re about to take, is a gift. That life is a gift and how you respond to it, what you do with it matters.
So you’ll find in a business people working very hard and making lots of money and yet at some point asking these questions like, what is the point of what we’re doing? Why are we here? Why are we giving this kind of energy to this? Which is fundamentally a spiritual question, because the answer to that question won’t show up in the second quarter financials, and yet why people get up in the morning and come work here is the driving question behind the question behind the question.
So I begin with life is a gift and what you do with it, how you respond to it matters. And when we talk about it mattering we are talking about something that’s true but can’t be accessed in the ways that we normally access things.
And I think a lot of scientists have run from the word spiritual because a scientist deals with hard facts.
And when you get into language of the heart, language of the soul, when you start talking about transcendence you are talking about more than literal truth.
So like if somebody asks me why I fell in love with my wife and I said, “Well because she’s five seven, she’s from Arizona and she drives a Honda,” that’s kind of a weird answer. But if you say to me “Why’d you fall in love with your wife?” and I said, “I fell in love with Kristen because when we got together it was like I found my other half.” Something within you is like okay, now that’s an answer that I get. I understand that answer.
And yet it’s not like I was limping. It’s not like suddenly I actually literally found my other half. I shifted to a different kind of language to describe a different kind of reality. And so oftentimes in my experience the scientist is fine with spirituality when we understand the terms that we’re working with.
This idea somehow that faith and science are at opposition I’ve always found to be complete insanity. Both are searching for the truth. Both have a sense of wonder and an expectation and exploration. They’re each simply naming different aspects of the human experience. One thrives in naming exteriors – height, weight, gravitational pull, electromagnetic force. The other is about naming interiors – compassion, kindness, suffering, loss, heartache. They’re both simply different ways of exploring different dimensions of the human experience.
Well if you think about the past like let’s say 300-400 years of human history, especially the history of the Western world we’ve had this explosion. Some call it the age of certainty, the explosion of scientific rationalism. I mean we have 10,000 songs in our pockets. We have airports and hospitals. We don’t have polio anymore. I mean we have had this explosion of rational, stand-at-a-distance and study and analyze it with a clipboard and a lab coat—I guess now it would be an iPad—But we’ve had this explosion of knowledge about how the world actually works.
Great video! However, I disagree with one point Mr. Bell made. Science is indeed searching for answers, and quite regularly finding them. Religion claims to have all the answers already. They are fundamentally opposite, and cannot be assimilated intellectually in my opinion.
This is precisely why science and "spirituality" can't reconcile. His entire argument rests on vague assumptions, mostly because he's an imperfect creation of evolution. We can all think, but we always pine for some greater meaning that will never be found. And we are doomed to sit here in an absurd world.
Absolute horse shit. More religious circle talk that goes nowhere and has no weight behind it. WTH Big Think?
I can't believe in the last video with this guy I didn't notice he was a complete moron.
He defines spirituality as that which, "isn't accessed through the 5 senses". This is a philosophical error; perhaps if he'd put in the word, "only" his perspective would have been on less philosophically shaky ground. He shares many fine and wonderful things; however, spirituality and the physical world need not be separate realms of experience. Indeed, these are exalted in their unification.
We originated from chemical reactions and are driven by chemical reactions. Spirituality is the result of chemical reactions in our brain. That's it why talking for 7 minutes in circles. 3:06 faith might be looking for something but I am 99.99999% sure it will not find any truth. There is a slight possibility that faith finds the truth but it is not much better than guessing.
The only comparable element I see shared between science and spirituality (aka faith) is one of intuitive inquisition. They perhaps borrow from one another to interpret the world to some extent, yet follow vastly different methodologies for producing outcomes aimed at assessing entangled versions of "The Truth". Although one relies heavily on anecdata while the other utilizes data pulled from its exclusive reserve of valid experimentation and relative source material.
I am spiritual and skeptical.
No.
Science and spirituality are in direct conflict with each other.
They are literal opposites.
Science is about taking a rigorous, academic approach to truth seeking through comprehensive methods of error checking.
Spirituality is just feeling good about stuff – it has never even been given a solid definition
Newton and Clark Maxwell had no problem with these 'separate, but equal' matter's, just for starters.
If spirituality is something that is not related to the truth, you're basically saying "spirituality is bullshit". I found it incredibly awesome to find out that meditation is scientifically proven to be good for you.
So what you CAN say is "although we don't know the facts, spirituality is still good for you based on those unknown facts". That is what I believe
Pop open a few skulls, microtome the brains dendrite by dendrite, figure out how thoughts are formed, like how we think we can explore how our brains feelings work through confirmation bias, and figure out how to fix the wiring.
And then find the answer was to make Big Think videos to calm the emotionally ruled while they eliminate everything but reason, while the scientists listen to altruistic genes to welcome them back.
'big think'..
Science is a methodology. Religion acts directly in contradiction to that methodology. They are not compatible without one being severely compromised.
The idea that a meaning even exists is a religious one. When science asks "why" it is only searching for causality.
I've come to find out that to me spirituality and science are very similar, while I'm positive that a lot of people use a very different definition with the term 'spirituality'. That's why I try to avoid that term all together.
Also there's absolutely no need for spirituality to be considered scientific. If people see it, they will see it. I've learned so many important things that REALLY matter in the past 10 months trough insights, meditation and mindfulness, more than I have in the past 10 years while being totally obsessed with science.
It's a constant search for truth trough trial and error, setting a hypothesis, exploring, adjusting to new concepts, or rather seeing the foolishness in old ones. Seems very sciency to me 🙂
I think it's mostly strong atheists who see science and spirituality as forces opposed to each other, and that perception is much stronger in the West because not only is Atheism much more present in Western culture, but also because of the history of the Catholic church.
Quote: "Politics and religion are obsolete. The time has come for science and spirituality."
Often quoted by Arthur C. Clarke as one of his favorite remarks of Jawaharlal Nehru, (who was attempting to nudge India into the direction of non-violence and tolerance), some of the earliest citations indicate that Nehru may himself been either quoting or paraphrasing a statement of Vinoba Bhave.
I got a question for bill nye is it possibable other life forms exist not counting anything that life on earth
Science can help you find meaning, trouble is lot of people don't know what science is. Science is a way of thinking, a way to help you arrive at a conclusion. People might give up finding meaning in trying to reduce human suffering or, restore the environment because they don't know how it can be done. So then they turn the self, which is funny because spirituality in a broad definition means 'a relationship with something bigger than yourself'. So science can shape your meaning.
What that woman needs is not that ritualised BS he suggests, she needs science to come up with a cure for MS.
I like the way Rob is expressing himself however ultimately he fell in 'love' due to various attributes that triggered chemicals in his brain to form a bond. Also, the lady who's child was diagnosed with MS does not need a prayer or a hug or kind thoughts, she needs a cure for MS that science can ultimately provide. I'm fine with a certain definition of 'spirituality' living in harmony with science, but lets not kid ourselves that all of the answers we all seek won't eventually be derived through science exclusively.