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Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Murray: There Is No Conflict between Science & Religion (compiled by Tihomir Dimitrov)
1. In an interview for the National Catholic Register (December 1-7, 1996), Prof. Joseph Murray asserts that there is no conflict between religion and science:
“Is the Church inimical to science? Growing up as a Catholic and a scientist – I don’t see it. One truth is revealed truth, the other is scientific truth. If you really believe that creation is good, there can be no harm in studying science. The more we learn about creation – the way it emerged – it just adds to the glory of God. Personally, I’ve never seen a conflict.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).
2. “We’re just working with the tools God gave us. There’s no reason that science and religion have to operate in an adversarial relationship. Both come from the same source, the only source of truth – the Creator.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).
3. In his article “Murray: Surgeon with soul” (Harvard University Gazette, 4 October 2001), John Lenger wrote:
“To Murray, a doctor’s responsibility is to treat each patient as not just a set of symptoms, but as someone with a spirit that can be helped through medical procedures. The title of his autobiography, Surgery of the Soul (Boston Medical Library, 2001), stems from Murray’s spiritually based approach to medicine. Though he has in the past hesitated to talk publicly about his faith, for fear of being lumped in with the televangelist crowd, Murray is deeply religious. ‘Work is a prayer,’ he said, ‘and I start off every morning dedicating it to our Creator. Every day is a prayer – I feel that, and I feel that very strongly.’ ” (Murray, as cited in Lenger 2001).
4. “I think the important thing to realize is how little we know about anything – how flowers unfold, how butterflies migrate. We have to avoid the arrogance of persons on either side of the science-religion divide who feel that they have all the answers. We have to try to use our intellect with humility.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).
5. “There are a lot of moral problems that my Jesuit training has helped me with. In my own conscience, I’ve never had a conflict between my religious upbringing and my science.” (Murray, as cited in Meyer 1996).
James C. Maxwell on Science & Christ (compiled by Tihomir Dimitrov)
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1997): “James Clerk Maxwell is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence on 20th-century physics; he is ranked with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions.”
1. “Almighty God, who hast created man in Thine own image, and made him a living soul that he might seek after Thee and have dominion over Thy creatures, teach us to study the works of Thy hands that we may subdue the earth to our use, and strengthen our reason for Thy service; and so to receive Thy blessed Word, that we may believe on Him whom Thou hast sent to give us the knowledge of salvation and the remission of our sins. All which we ask in the name of the same Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Maxwell, as cited in Bowden 1998, 288; and in Williams and Mulfinger 1974, 487).
2. “I think the more we enter together into Christ’s work He will have the more room to work His work in us. For He always desires us to be one that He may be one with us. Our worship is social, and Christ will be wherever two or three are gathered together in His name.” (Maxwell, as cited in Campbell and Garnett 1882, 312).
3. “I think men of science as well as other men need to learn from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to study science that their view of the glory of God may be as extensive as their being is capable of.” (Maxwell, as cited in Campbell and Garnett 1882, 404-405).
4. In a letter to his wife (December 1873), Maxwell wrote: “I am always with you in spirit, but there is One who is nearer to you and to me than we ever can be to each other, and it is only through Him and in Him that we can ever really get to know each other. Let us try to realise the great mystery in Ephesians V., and then we shall be in our right position with respect to the world outside, the men and women whom Christ came to save from their sins.” (Maxwell, as cited in Campbell and Garnett 1882, 387).
5. In a letter to his wife (June 23, 1864), Maxwell wrote: “Think what God has determined to do to all those who submit themselves to His righteousness and are willing to receive His gift. They are to be conformed to the image of His Son, and when that is fulfilled, and God sees that they are conformed to the image of Christ, there can be no more condemnation, for this is the praise which God Himself gives, whose judgment is just.” (Maxwell, as cited in Campbell and Garnett 1882, 338-339).
1. In his article “Modern Biology and the Turn to Belief in God” that he wrote for the book, The Intellectuals Speak Out About God: A Handbook for the Christian Student in a Secular Society (1984), John Eccles came to the following conclusion:
“Science and religion are very much alike. Both are imaginative and creative aspects of the human mind. The appearance of a conflict is a result of ignorance.
We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence.” (Eccles 1984, 50).
2. In an interview published in the scientific anthology, The Voice of Genius (1995), Prof. Eccles stated:
“There is a fundamental mystery in my personal existence, transcending the biological account of the development of my body and my brain. That belief, of course, is in keeping with the religious concept of the soul and with its special creation by God.” (Eccles, as cited in Brian 1995, 371).
3. “I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the Self or Soul to a supernatural spiritual creation. To give the explanation in theological terms: each Soul is a new Divine creation which is implanted into the growing foetus at some time between conception and birth.” (Eccles 1991, 237).
4. In The Human Mystery, Eccles writes: “I believe that there is a Divine Providence operating over and above the materialist happenings of biological evolution.” (Eccles 1979, 235).
5. “If I consider reality as I experience it, the primary experience I have is of my own existence as a unique self-conscious being which I believe is God-created.” (Eccles, as cited in Margenau and Varghese 1997, 161).
6. Eccles described the so-called ‘promissory materialism’ thus:
“There has been a regrettable tendency of many scientists to claim that science is so powerful and all pervasive that in the not too distant future it will provide an explanation in principle for all phenomena in the world of nature, including man, even of human consciousness in all its manifestations. In our recent book (The Self and Its Brain, Popper and Eccles, 1977) Popper has labelled this claim as promissory materialism, which is extravagant and unfulfillable.
Yet on account of the high regard for science, it has great persuasive power with the intelligent laity because it is advocated unthinkingly by the great mass of scientists who have not critically evaluated the dangers of this false and arrogant claim.” (Eccles 1979, p. I).
7. With respect to ‘promissory materialism’, in his book How the Self Controls Its Brain (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1994), Eccles wrote:
“I regard this theory as being without foundation. The more we discover scientifically about the brain the more clearly do we distinguish between the brain events and the mental phenomena and the more wonderful do the mental phenomena become. Promissory materialism is simply a superstition held by dogmatic materialists. It has all the features of a Messianic prophecy, with the promise of a future freed of all problems - a kind of Nirvana for our unfortunate successors.” (Eccles 1994).
8. In his book Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self (London: Routledge, 1991), Eccles wrote:
“I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition.
We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.” (Eccles 1991, 241).
9. “Since materialist solutions fail to account for our experienced uniqueness, I am constrained to attribute the uniqueness of the self or soul to a supernatural spiritual creation.
This conclusion is of inestimable theological significance. It strongly reinforces our belief in the human soul and in its miraculous origin in a divine creation.” (Eccles 1994, 168).
10. “As a dualist I believe in the reality of the world of mind or spirit as well as in the reality of the material world. Furthermore I am a finalist in the sense of believing that there is some Design in the processes of biological evolution that has eventually led to us self-conscious beings with our unique individuality; and we are able to contemplate and we can attempt to understand the grandeur and wonder of nature.” (Eccles 1979, 9).
Eccles’ teacher, the Nobelist in neurophysiology Sir Charles Sherrington, too, is a dualist; Sherrington maintains that our nonmaterial mind is fundamentally different from our physical body. Sherrington believes in an almighty Deity and Natural Religion. (See Charles Sherrington, Man on His Nature. The Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology, Cambridge University Press, 1975, 59 and 293). There are many other Nobel scientists, who have explored thoroughly the mind-body problem, and who are staunch dualists: George Wald, Nevill Mott, M. Planck, E. Schroedinger, Brian D. Josephson, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, Roger Sperry, Albert Szent-Gyoergyi, Walter R. Hess, Henri Bergson, Alexis Carrel, etc. (See Margenau and Varghese 1997, ‘Cosmos, Bios, Theos’; see also Popper and Eccles 1977, The Self and Its Brain).
See the chapters on George Wald, Nevill Mott, M. Planck, and E. Schroedinger in this book.
11. In his article “Scientists in Search of the Soul” (Science Digest, 1982), the science writer John Gliedman pointed out:
“Eccles strongly defends the ancient religious belief that human beings consist of a mysterious compound of physical body and intangible spirit. Each of us embodies a nonmaterial thinking and perceiving self that ‘entered’ our physical brain sometime during embryological development or very early childhood, says the man who helped lay the cornerstones of modern neurophysiology. This ‘ghost in the machine’ is responsible for everything that makes us distinctly human: conscious self-awareness, free will, personal identity, creativity and even emotions such as love, fear, and hate. Our nonmaterial self controls its “liaison brain” the way a driver steers a car or a programmer directs a computer. Man’s ghostly spiritual presence, says Eccles, exerts just the whisper of a physical influence on the computerlike brain, enough to encourage some neurons to fire and others to remain silent. Boldly advancing what for most scientists is the greatest heresy of all, Eccles also asserts that our nonmaterial self survives the death of the physical brain.” (Gliedman 1982, 77).
12. “We can regard the death of the body and brain as dissolution of our dualist existence. Hopefully, the liberated soul will find another future of even deeper meaning and more entrancing experiences, perhaps in some renewed embodied existence in accord with traditional Christian teaching.” (Eccles 1991, 242).
13. “I do believe that we are the product of the creativity of what we call God. I hope that this life will lead to some future existence where my self or soul will have another existence, with another brain, or computer if you like. I don’t know how I got this one, it’s a pretty good one, and I’m grateful for it, but I do know as a realist that it will disappear.
But I think my conscious self or soul will come through.” (Eccles, as cited in Gilling and Brightwell, The Human Brain, 1982, 180).
14. In his book The Human Mystery, Sir John Eccles said: “The amazing success of the theory of evolution has protected it from significant critical evaluation in recent times. However it fails in a most important respect. It cannot account for the existence of each one of us as unique, self-conscious beings.” (Eccles 1979, 96).
15. Sir John Eccles maintains that the will of the human beings is free, and that’s why he denies the so-called physical determinism: “If physical determinism is true, then that is the end of all discussion or argument; everything is finished. There is no philosophy. All human persons are caught up in this inexorable web of circumstances and cannot break out of it. Everything that we think we are doing is an illusion.” (See Popper and Eccles, 1977, 546).
16. “With self-conscious purpose a person has a great challenge in choosing what life to live.
One can choose to live dedicated to the highest values, truth, love, and beauty, with gratitude for the divine gift of life with its wonderful opportunities of participating in human culture. One can do this in accord with opportunities. For example, one of the highest achievements is to create a human family living in a loving relationship. I was brought up religiously under such wonderful conditions, for which I can be eternally grateful. There are great opportunities in a life dedicated to education or science or art or to the care of the sick. Always one should try to be in a loving relationship with one’s associates. We are all fellow beings mysteriously living on this wonderful spaceship planet Earth that we should cherish devotedly, but not worship.” (Eccles, as cited in Templeton 1994, 131).
17. In his letter to Erika Erdmann (December 19, 1990), Eccles said:
“You refer to protection of our Earth as the most urgent goal at present. I disagree. It is to save mankind from materialist degradation. It comes in the media, in the consumer society, in overriding quest for power and money, in the degradation of our values (that used to be thought as based on love, truth, and beauty), and in the disintegration of the human family.” (Eccles 1990).
18. “I repudiate philosophies and political systems which recognize human beings as mere things with a material existence of value only as cogs in the great bureaucratic machine of the state, which thus becomes a slave state. The terrible and cynical slaveries depicted in Orwell’s ‘1984’ are engulfing more and more of our planet.
Is there yet time to rebuild a philosophy and a religion that can give us a renewed faith in this great spiritual adventure, which for each of us is a human life lived in freedom and dignity?” (Eccles 1979, 237).
The Role of Revelation in Science
Alexandru C. V. Ceapa suggested in his work posthumously published here that comtemorary physicists deny the role of Divine revelation in the making of modern physics and yet Einstein’s derivation of the Lorentz transformation in his 1905 paper on Special Theory of Relativity (“STR”) and his later disregarding of it were the most striking proof that revelation played an essential role in the making of STR. Ceapa’s work challenges all truth seekers to think deeply about the origin of scientific insight and creativity and examine closely the ontological basis of the pillars of modern physics, e.g., Einstein’s STR. If doing so shall assist us move “toward an exciting rebuilding of modern physics” as Ceapa hoped, he had not fought in vain and his work should not be forgotten.
1. “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” (Einstein, as cited in Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, London, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1973, 33).
2. “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is.
That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a Universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.” (Einstein, as cited in Denis Brian, Einstein: A Life, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1996, 186).
3. “If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity. It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can.” (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, New York, Bonanza Books, 1954, 184-185).
4. “After all, haven’t the differences between Jew and Christian been overexaggerated by fanatics on both sides? We both are living under God’s approval, and nurture almost identical spiritual capacities. Jew or Gentile, bond or free, all are God’s own.” (Einstein, as cited in H.G. Garbedian, Albert Einstein: Maker of Universes, New York, Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1939, 267).
5. “Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a Spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a Spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979, 33).
6. “The deeper one penetrates into nature’s secrets, the greater becomes one’s respect for God.” (Einstein, as cited in Brian 1996, 119).
7. “The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior Reasoning Power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.” (Einstein, as cited in Libby Anfinsen 1995).
8. “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior Spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann 1979, 66).
9. “The more I study science the more I believe in God.” (Einstein, as cited in Holt 1997).
10. Max Jammer (Professor Emeritus of Physics and author of the biographical book Einstein and Religion, 2002) claims that Einstein’s well-known dictum, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” can serve as an epitome and quintessence of Einstein’s religious philosophy. (Jammer 2002; Einstein 1967, 30).
11. “The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations.” (Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, New Jersey, Littlefield, Adams and Co., 1967, 27).
12. “In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views.” (Einstein, as cited in Clark 1973, 400; and Jammer 2002, 97).
13. Concerning the fanatical atheists Einstein pointed out:
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium for the people’ – cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.” (Einstein, as cited in Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology, Princeton University Press, 2002, 97).
14. “True religion is real living – living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness” (Einstein, as cited in Garbedian 1939, 267).
15. “Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.
… This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior Mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.” (Einstein 1973, 255).
16. “Strenuous intellectual work and the study of God’s Nature are the angels that will lead me through all the troubles of this life with consolation, strength, and uncompromising rigor.” (Einstein, as cited in Calaprice 2000, ch. 1).
17. Einstein’s attitude towards Jesus Christ was expressed in an interview, which the great scientist gave to the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929):
“- To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?
- As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.
- Have you read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus?
- Emil Ludwig’s Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot.
- You accept the historical Jesus?
- Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” (Einstein, as cited in Viereck 1929; see also Einstein, as cited in the German magazine Geisteskampf der Gegenwart, Guetersloh, 1930, S. 235).
1. “The more I work with the powers of Nature, the more I feel God’s benevolence to man; the closer I am to the great truth that everything is dependent on the Eternal Creator and Sustainer; the more I feel that the so-called science, I am occupied with, is nothing but an expression of the Supreme Will, which aims at bringing people closer to each other in order to help them better understand and improve themselves.” (Marconi, as cited in Maria Cristina Marconi 1995, 244).
2. In his letter to his wife Maria Cristina (London, 17 March 1927) Marconi wrote:
“I know how much you love and cherish the beautiful Nature – the expression of God’s Will – where one can find the ideal eternal values: the Truth, the Beauty and the Good (and you possess the three of them).
The harmonious unity of causes and laws forms the Truth; the harmonious unity of lines, colors, sounds, and ideas forms the Beauty; while the harmony of emotions and the will forms the Good, which in being the ultimate expression of the Eternal and Supreme Creator brings man to completion and drives us to seek absolute perfection.” (Marconi, as cited in Maria Cristina Marconi 1995, 260).
3. “Every step, science makes, brings us ever new surprises and achievements. And yet science is like a faint light of a lantern flickering in a deep and thick forest, through which humanity struggles to find its way to God. It is only faith that can lead it to light and serve as a bridge between man and the Absolute.
I am proud to be a Christian. I believe not only as a Christian, but as a scientist as well. A wireless device can deliver a message through the wilderness. In prayer the human spirit can send invisible waves to eternity, waves that achieve their goal in front of God.” (Marconi, as cited in Popov 1992, 298).
4. In a letter to his wife Maria Cristina (Paris, 1 April 1927) Marconi said: “Do not think that I am ungrateful to God for His goodness and benevolence, to which I owe so much, everything. But God has given me this eternal and almighty love and I feel that He has done it for my own good and, I dare believe, for yours too.” (Marconi, as cited in Maria Cristina Marconi 1995, 248).
5. “I believe it would be a great tragedy if men were to lose their faith in prayer. Without the help of prayer I might perhaps have failed where I have succeeded. In allowing me to attain what I have done, God has made of me merely an instrument of His own will, for the revelation of His own Divine power.” (Marconi 1942, 20-21).
6. Concerning the problem of the origin of life and the failure of science to solve it, Marconi said:
“The mystery of life is certainly the most persistent problem ever placed before the mind of man. There is no doubt that from the time humanity began to think, it has occupied itself with the problem of its origin and its future – which is undoubtedly the problem of life. The inability of science to solve it is absolute. This would be truly frightening, if it were not for faith.” (Marconi 1934).
7. “Science alone is unable to explain many things, and most of all, the greatest of mysteries – the mystery of our existence. I believe, not only as a Catholic, but also as a scientist.” (Marconi, as cited in Morrow 1949, 14a).
Summary: In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., we call all men and women of Science and Religion to rise up in the pursuit of truth.
Preamble
Over the course of human history mankind brought forth on this planet, two chief systems for exploring Nature and Life, one of them is Religion and the other Science, both conceived for seeking truths, and both dedicated to the survival and advancement of mankind. We hold these truth to be both spiritually and scientifically approachable that all forms of existence are interconnected, that they possess certain fundamental and unalienable properties - that to describe this inter-connectedness and these properties, successive theories shall be constructed by us, deriving their explanatory and predictive powers from the approximations of laws of Nature and Life - that whenever any theory becomes inadequate of these ends, it is our duties to modify it or to abolish it, and to establish new ones, laying the foundation on such principles and organizing the structures in such forms, as to us shall seem most likely to reflect our understanding and knowledge of Nature and Life.
The Ongoing Struggle
We are now engaged in a great war over and within Science and Religion, testing whether they so conceived and so dedicated can be reconciled and advanced. We are also engaged in a silent struggle in Science, testing whether our yearning for truth and our love for mankind can conquer our own shortcomings – close-mindedness, arro- gance, hypocrisy, selfishness, rivalry, comer- cialism and intolerance of alternative views.
Call for Reflection
So, on this day and in this era, it is appropriate that we - scientists, theologians, all other learned scholars – both formally educated and self-learned – and indeed all who love truth and mankind - reflect on the status of Science and Religion and our own moralities and conducts with the great hope of advancing and unifying both so as to better serve the needs and desires of mankind in the new millennium and bring the same into a new era of unprecedented enlightenment and progress.
The Religious Age
Before the advent of Science, various types of Religion were the main sources of knowledge guiding mankind in their struggles of survival and understanding of Nature and Life. And some would say that for a long stretch of time in history mankind was in a dark age.
Scientific Revolutions
Five hundred years ago, a great polymath, jurist and astronomer Copernicus on whose and other giants’ shoulders we stand today, started the scientific revolution. His momentous work, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, came as a great beacon light to Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Maxwell and others who continued and completed the scientific revolution. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of the dark age. However, these great men themselves were all deeply religious. What they had helped mankind to free from was not religious faiths which we all are entitled to have as precious as liberty and as vital as air but erroneous religious dogmas. One hundred fifty years ago, a great naturalist Darwin and a great priest and scientist Mendel on whose paths modern biologists continue their work today, started the modern revolution in biological sciences. Their respective monumental work, On the Origin of Species and Experiments on Plant Hybridization, came as great guiding principles to modern biologists including Watson and Crick and countless others who continued and completed the revolution in biology. Darwin’s work also created an earthquake in Religion greatly shaking the already weakened ties between Science and Religion.
One hundred years ago, a great physicist Planck and another great physicist and Swiss patent clerk Einstein on whose shadow modern physicists stand today, started the modern revolution in physics. Einstein’s momentous work, Special Theory of Relativity, came as a shocking reckoning that there seems no place for spirituality in the universe. At the same time, Planck and Einstein’s respective monumental work on the quanta came as a great jumping board for the quantum leap of Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac and many others who continued and completed the quantum theory of the modern revolution in physics which seemed to revive spirituality as chance, chaos and probability.
Aftermath of the Revolutions
No doubt that Science has brought mankind unprecedented material wealth and pro- sperity. Yet, the very wealth and prosperity have displaced spirituality from many among us. The very revolutions have created a deep gulf between Science and Region as reflected by increased hostilities and seemingly irreconcilable differences between Science and Religion. The very same revo- lutions have also produced dogmas, arrogance and intolerance of alternative views in Science. On the other hand, it may be said that the enterprises of Religion seem to lack innovations and are unable to cope with or adapt to the new environments.
Thus, after all these revolutions, the modern human is not spiritually enlightened or free. After all the revolutions, the spiritual lives of many among us are sadly crippled by the manacles of mechanical view and the prisons of random chance and chaos. After all the revolutions, we live on a lonely island of stale spirituality in the midst of a vast ocean of material wealth. After all the revolutions, many among us are languishing in the corners of alternative sciences and find themselves scientifically in exiles on their own planet. Indeed, after all the revolutions, the moralities of many among us are degenerating, many among us become selfish, mean-spirited, non-collaborative and too commercial, and some among us even become hypocritical, untruthful and are driven by money, power and fame. So today we dramatize these depressing and shameful conditions.
A Promissory Note
In a sense, all men and women of Science and Religion need now make a promissory note to mankind. A note promises that all of us in Science and Religion shall rise above ourselves and shall work and struggle together for the survival and advancement of mankind, and that all truth-seeking men and women shall be guaranteed the rights of freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard in the pursuit of truth.
It may be said that today some among us in Science and Religion would have defaulted on this promissory note if made earlier. Instead of honoring these obligations, some among us would have given mankind a bad check, a check which would have come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the banks of Science and Religion would be bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there would be insufficient funds in the great vaults of Science and Religion. So all of us in Science and Religion should make good on the promissory note — a note that will in the long run give mankind the riches of knowledge and the security of truth.
Fierce Urgency
Let us remind ourselves the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of silence or to take the tranquilizing drug of innocence. Now is the time to make real progress in Science and Religion. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of mechanical and spiritless material world to the sunlit path of living universe. Now is the time to lift Science and Religion from the quick sands of arrogance, close mindedness, intolerance and hypocrisy to the solid rock of glorious path to truth. Now is the time to make freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard a reality for all truth-seeking men and women.
Warning
It would be fatal for the establishments of Science and Religion to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering heat of many truth-seeking men and women’s discontents will not pass until there is an invigorating atmosphere of freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard in Science and Religion. This is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that we needed to blow off steam and will soon be content will have a rude awakening if the establishments of Science and Religion return to their businesses as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Science and Religion until all truth-seeking men and women are granted their rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will come to shake the establishments of Science and Religion until the bright day of freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard emerges.
Precaution
There is something else that we must say to all truth-seeking men and women who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the glorious path to truth. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard in the pursuit of truth by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into personal attacks or worse. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting negative forces with positive forces. The marvelous new rebel which shall engulf the establishments of Science and Religion must not lead us to a distrust of all scientists, theologians and priests in the establishments, for many of them, as evidenced by their silence, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their yearning for freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard is inextricably bound to ours. We cannot walk alone.
At this critical moment, we must also ask ourselves the soul searching question: Are we really for truth and the greater benefit of mankind or our self-interests? And do we want to go down in history as hypocrites or truth-seeking men and women? And so, as John F. Kennedy would urge: My fellow seekers of truth: ask not what mankind can do for you but what can you do for mankind.
Demand
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who ask, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as mankind is short-changed by hypocrisy and repression in the establishments of Science and Religion. We can never be satisfied, as long as our intellectual properties, cultivated and harvested with sweat, cannot gain entries into the journals and electronic archives of Science and Region guarded by the establishments. We can never be satisfied as long as young generations of men and women are stripped of their inquiring minds and robbed of their intellectual freedom by signs stating "Establishment Science Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a scientist outside the establishment cannot get his paper published in a peer-reviewed journal and a scientist in the establishment believes he has nothing for which to write. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until freedom and equality roll down like waters and opportunity to be heard like a mighty stream.
Creative Suffering
We are not unmindful that some among us have suffered great trials and tribulations. Some among us are still in the suffocating environment of suppression. Some among us have just left from areas where their quest for truth left them battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of establishment tactics. Some among us have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that un- earned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to your work, go back to your study, go back to your laboratory, go back to your seminary, go back to your place of worship, go back to the backwaters of alter- native science, go back to the forgotten paths of spirituality knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
We have a Dream
We say to you today, fellow scientists, priests, theologians and all truth-seeking men and women, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, we still have a dream in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a dream deeply rooted in the pursuit of truth and the struggle for the survival and advancement of mankind. Let us remember that neither Science nor Religion is above truth.
We have a dream that one day the sacred enterprises of Science and Religion will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed: spirit of collaboration, cooperation, honesty and tolerance in the pursuit of truth; and freedom, equality and opportunity to be heard for all truth-seeking men and women.
We have a dream that one day in the halls of Science and the towers of Religion scientists, priests and the theologians will be able to sit down together at the table of truth-hood.
We have a dream that one day even a fundamentalist church, sweltering with the heat of religious zeal, sweltering with the heat of anti-science, will be transformed into an oasis pursuing truth.
We have a dream that young generations will one day study in institutions where they will not only learned established sciences but also exposed to alternative scientific views and be judged not by their particular views but by the content of their character.
We have a dream today.
We have a dream that one day, all truth- seekers, men or women, will be treated equally by every institute – university, college, church, seminary or school - on every corner of Earth.
We have a dream today.
We have a dream as that of Martin Luther King, Jr. “that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the [truth] shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
This is our hope. This is the faith that we go on in the pursuit of truth. With this faith as that of Martin Luther King, Jr. “we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of [Science and Religion] into a beautiful symphony of [truth-hood and scholar -hood].” With this faith we will be able to study together, to work together, to struggle together, to pray together, to stand up for truth and knowledge together, knowing that we will be truly free one day. This will be the day when everyone will be able to sing as Rumi “I am so tipsy here in this world, I have no tale to tell but tipsiness and rapture."
Let Freedom and Knowledge Ring
And if Science and Religion are sacred enterprises of truth this must become true. So let freedom and knowledge ring from the prestigious colleges of Harvard. Let freedom and knowledge ring from the mighty ivory campuses of Yale. Let freedom and knowledge ring from the advanced institutes of Princeton!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of America!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of Europe!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of Asia!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of Africa!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from the academic institutes of every nation!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from the journals of Science!
But not only that; let freedom and knowledge ring from the journals of Religion!
Let freedom and knowledge ring from every religious institutions of every nation. From every corner of Earth, let freedom and knowledge ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom and knowledge to ring, when we let them ring from every university, every school and every church, from every state and every country, we will be able to speed up that day when Religion and Science of mankind, by mankind, for mankind shall be unified and united.
Tribute and Resolve
And let us now pay tribute to those who have greatly contributed towards the advancement and reconciliation of Science and Religion. But, as Abraham Lincoln would declare, in a larger sense we cannot compose anything proper to honor those heroes. The brave men and women, living and dead, who struggled, have already done so, far above one’s poor power to add or detract. The world may be little notice what we say here, but it can never forget what they have done. It is for rest of us, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored we take increased devotion to the cause for which they have given their full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dedicated shall not have fought in vain, that Science and Religion of mankind, by mankind, for mankind shall have a new birth, and that mankind shall advance and shall not perish from the earth.
Acknowledgement: The layout of this Essay (Cyberspeech) “We Have a Dream” is based on Martin Luther King. Jr.’s speech known as “I Have a Dream.” The Essay is also fused with languages from the Declaration of Independence the chief drafter of which was Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It also contains a modified quote from John F. Kennedy.
