Huston Smith writes as a comparative religion scholar. He puts the contemporary tensions of religion and science into perspective. I have included quotes and points from his book, WHY RELIGION MATTERS in blue.
“The downside of Truth is the danger of fanaticism. Because
absolutes brook no alternatives, conservatives are tempted to invade their
neighbors’ autonomy and try to force Truth down their throats.”
“Liberals face the opposite problem, for the danger that
stalks relativism is that it will bottom out into nihilism.”
*But Absolutism and dogmatism are at different axes:
Absolutism relates to belief; dogmatism is a character
disorder
*The opposite of absolutism is relativism
*The opposite of dogmatism is open-mindedness
Absolutism and Relativism are the two poles for a discussion of belief and faith.
*Spirituality names what people generally consider to be good
about religion. Spirituality is a human attribute so it is exempt from the problems of religion.
but
"It is a bad sign when spiritual, an adjective, gets turned
into a noun, spirituality, for this has a dog chasing its own tail.
Grammatically, spirit is the noun in question, and spiritual its adjective.
Spirituality is a neologism that has come into existence because spirit has no
referent in science’s world. . .”
Spirit not spirituality then would be the subject for a discussion of belief and faith.
“We generally assume that the findings of science have
retired the traditional outlook [that values and knowledge stem from the same source], but that has been our big mistake, for those
findings pertain to the physical universe only. . .whereas the metaphysical
question is whether that universe is all that exists.”
Is the physical universe all that exists? - the question for a discussion of belief and faith.
“If science cannot tell us what (if anything) is outside our
universe, what can? Nothing definitively,
but it would be foolish not to draw on every resource available.
Inclusively, things are neither as science
says they are nor as religion says they are. They are as science, and religion,
and philosophy, and art, and common sense, and our deepest intuitions, and our
practiced imaginations say they are.”
