 Science v Religion
by Steven Moore ©2011 Science vs. Religion -- ah, the eternal battle. People always seem to be on one side or the other. There's always a division between the two, a long standing belief that if one is right the other must be wrong. It's one of those things that's woven itself into pretty much every society around the world. Few religions allow for a lot of the theories proposed in Science while Science hardly ever allows for the existence of any kind of Creator and more often than not, science relies solely on random occurrences to explain the many wondrous aspects of existence. As it turns out, the more we learn about science, the closer we come to uniting the two. Yet, human nature always seems to interfere. Most people are too sure of their own belief systems to allow for any sort of change. While I personally have always tried to keep an open mind, I find my views and beliefs radically change on pretty much a monthly basis. It's not easy, one idea always contradicting another, everything always having to be rewritten, but eventually you find that you've come full circle. You start to realize that perhaps all those previous ideas weren't necessarily wrong, but just slightly off, and with just a little bit of editing you can assemble all of the pieces together into one glorious puzzle. You just have to stay open to change. Preconceived Notions Today I present you with a few demonstrations that will hopefully allow you to weaken your preconceived notions regarding specific, important subjects that plague us all from time to time. I hope to rattle your cage, shake your foundation and perhaps open you up to new possibilities. I do not wish to change any of your beliefs, not entirely anyway, I just want to help you be more open, and to realize that embracing a new concept doesn't necessarily have to mean the death of an old one. Enough of these rivalries, we were all right, we were all arguing the same point from different perspectives, it's time to come together and unite our ideas. The Unexplanable Things The paranormal, the unexplainable things like ghosts, astral projection, communication with the dead, telekinesis, levitation... most of these things have never really been accepted by science, or religion, and have always been scoffed at from both sides of the fence. It's quite funny considering the military itself has done many psy-op programs to try to control these mysteries. Despite the constant criticism, many reputable scientists throughout history have attempted to explain these things scientifically. Although they all seem to fall short of a verifiable explanation, we've had many who have at least verified their existence.
Crookes began his investigation into Spiritualism in an attempt to either verify, or discredit the many claims of the emerging Medium fad, where people were claiming to be able to communicate with the dead. His interest in these events may have been ignited by the death of his younger brother, who was only 21, but he always exclaimed that it was the duty of scientists to investigate the paranormal and mysterious. Crookes initially set out with the belief that these claims were little more than trickery, but his discoveries soon lead him to believe the contrary and would eventually lead to criticism and social outcasting from his fellow scientific community. The same people who once praised his genius would do no more than scoff at his outlandish claims. To think, that the paranormal could ever be justified in the eyes of science was complete lunacy, it's still considered to be so in the eyes of most modern day scientific scholars.
"It argues ill for the boasted freedom of opinion among scientific men that they have so long refused to institute a scientific investigation into the existence and nature of facts asserted by so many competent and credible witnesses, and which they are freely invited to examine when and where they please. For my own part, I too much value the pursuit of truth, and the discovery of any new fact in Nature, to avoid inquiry because it appears to clash with prevailing opinions." --William Crookes Crookes studied several Mediums of the time such as Kate Fox of The Fox Sisters, Florence Cook who conducted the séance which established connection with the famous "Katie King" spirit and Daniel Dunglas Home, a Scottish medium with the purported ability to levitate to various heights. In his various studies and experiments Crookes was witness to phenomena such as rappings, movement of bodies at a distance, changes is specific people's weights, levitation, the appearance of luminous objects otherwise known as Orbs which are commonly associated with UFO sightings, as well as ghost sightings.
It is stated that Crookes may have already had a certain familiarity with this specific phenomenon and his possible sympathetic attitude towards the subject may have been what lead him to the findings he made. His discoveries can not be easily replicated, but do not take this as a complete leap to discredit Crookes, the phenomena we are discussing is a psychic ability, conditions must be right, it is not something that can always be done on command, so easily. As we learn more about science and the nature of reality we are discovering how much impact our thoughts have on the world around us. Considering this is may be vital to have certain preconceived notions in favor of this ability before entering into any kind of experiment to verify it. Indeed faith in the validity of said events may be necessary in order to achieve success. First a few basics for those of you less familiar with quantum concepts of reality. The Double Slit Experiment:
Superpositioning
Scientist are currently working on The Glass Sphere Experiment, which is an attempt to create a glass sphere appear in two places at once, under the laws of superpositioning. Several other experiments have been done including one which can be seen here, which demonstrate superpositioning on a bigger level then that of the quantum world. It's one thing to have an electron in two places at once, but what about a 3D object? What about a living organism? How about a human? One day science may advance that far, right now it's one step at a time and this glass sphere experiment seems to be the next step in the process. One last example of quantum reality Dr. Masaru Emoto and the message in water:
[*The three videos above were all clips from What the Bleep do we Know, Down the Rabbit Hole. There are many other sources on the subject, I just chose these clips because they are demonstrated in a very easy to understand way, which is good for those less familiar with the subject.] The Law of Attraction Let's go back to William Crookes, and his experiments. It is likely to surmise that Crookes' success may have been attributed to The Law of Attraction which, in summary, states that similar attracts similar. Theoretically, by merely focusing your thoughts positively on "anything" with enough concentration, focus, time and energy, you will eventually obtain that which you desired. This radical new way of thinking can easily be justified by scientific theories in this modern age of quantum reality. It all ties together quite easily, and to further expand the connection, the general concept of The Law of Attraction sounds strikingly familiar to the old Biblical phrase "Ask and ye shall receive." Prayer As A Method of Focusing Thoughts On further investigation, one could make the observation that the most commonly accepted religious practice of obtaining what you desire, or receiving what you have asked for, is through the act of prayer. Prayer, taken from a scientific and more literal stand point, is the act of one person focusing their thoughts, and emotions on to one or several tasks, putting out as much positive energy as what is reasonably conceivable for there are few things in this world more powerful than the power of faith. Intense devotion to one concept or idea with unwavering belief, such a thing is a powerful mental tool and focused properly could be used to obtain everything you ever dreamed of, through the use of controversial ideas which are growing in popularity and continuing to get more justification as we continue to expand our knowledge of science and the universe. All of this can be combined in Crookes' investigations to help lead to the manifestation of certain Discarnate Entities. His belief combined with the powerful faith of the other participants in these séances could have been directly focused through the medium which may have also had some predisposition towards the paranormal, ultimately resulting in certain "unexplainable" phenomenon. Unfortunately this was all before the age of the camera phone, otherwise his claims could easily be refuted simply by the lack of any handheld recordings. Remember though, this was a highly credible scientific genius who had won many awards and was highly regarded as a brilliant mind among the scientific community. There were similar great minds who agreed with his findings such as Alfred Russel Wallace, Oliver Joseph Lodge, John William Strutt, and William James -- all great scientists who eventually came to be big supporters in spirituality. Now am I saying these unusual phenomena where the mere manifestation of a few imaginative minds? Not at all, quantum reality and the law of attraction merely set the stage for what was to happen, that which made the conditions rife for such miraculous and seemingly unexplainable events to take place. Multiple Dimensions & Multiple Realities I present to you, Michael Roll, founder of The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom, which in their own words is described as, "a non-profit organisation founded by Michael Roll to present the censored secular scientific case for survival after death -- the case for a separate mind and brain, the scientific proof that we all survive the death of our physical bodies, irrespective of our beliefs."
The idea of multiple realms, worlds or rather alternate dimensions which are all part of the Multi-verse Theory which states there are an infinite number of alternate realities co-existing side by side, are not a new concept but rather they've been around for awhile. One might view Heaven and Hell as alternate realities. Perhaps when we die we simply transition into another one of these realities. The thing about his ideas that has the religious side up in arms is that, according to Roll, our actions in this life do not dictate whether we do or do not transition to another realm of existence. This idea is backed up by many recorded accounts with "ghosts" or "inter-dimensional beings" which, on pretty much all cases, have stated something to the effect of "There is no place here just reserved for Christians or anybody else, we all survive the death of our physical bodies." Roll and his colleagues have recently released an article titled Science Confirms Survival, which describes the study they've been conducting involving an in-depth analysis of recorded scientific experiments:
"Each features repeated appearances by, and communication with, entities from the next level of existence who have experienced the event known as death, and yet maintain consciousness, remain articulate, and sometimes become visible on this physical level. At times these visitors from etheric realms can be touched, felt, and even held tightly by incarnate humans. Fully authenticated and documented visits to living family members, friends, and researchers have long proven the reality of these manifestations, but their cause and origin has remained inexplicable in the context of heretofore known laws of physics." All this leads back to the Law of Attraction. The conditions must be right. Those conditions are not yet fully understood but it is no leap to estimate that "faith" can be a strong variable in the equation.
"Simply put, the British investigative group's contention is that these appearances of and contacts with "deceased" persons are manifestations of natural physical laws, the validity of which has been proven by recent and startling discoveries in mathematics and quantum physics. These are fields of study directly related to the structure and behavior of electrons, protons, neutrons, and other sub-atomic particles." Ghosts & Manifesttions Another investigator who worked to verify the validity of these paranormal cases was one, Dr. Glen Hamilton, who is best known for the thousands of photographs he took of "ghosts" during séances, and as is quoted from the same article on Roll's website:
"His research sessions were also marked by manifestations of, and communication with discarnate entities. All of these occurred under closely-controlled, replicable, conditions, including a battery of fifteen flash cameras which photographed the apparitions from all angles simultaneously. Scientific observers who were present at these experiments included four other doctors, two lawyers, and two engineers. All of these witnesses stated unequivocally that "time after time, we saw dead persons materialize." In well over a century, there has never been an explanation put forth for these hundreds of scientifically validated manifestations and communications being anything other than what the experimenters claimed them to be, that is, paranormal, or "psychic" phenomena." If we are to examine these phenomenon from a more current perspective as Roll has done, we might note that the strange way in which sub-atomic particles act, posing more as a wave of potential possibility, rather than concrete matter. Roll has suggest the sub-atomic particle known as a neutrino may be responsible for these paranormal occurrences and ghostly apparitions. Little is known about the neutrino. It is described as "an elementary particle that usually travels close to the speed of light, is electrically neutral, and is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected, "like a bullet passing through a bank of fog." So in other words it's matter, that can pass through other matter, seemingly unaffected by it. Quite mysteriously, neutrinos have an extremely small mass -- but not zero. Could "ghosts" be entities made up of neutrinos? Could our soul be comprised of neutrinos? Assuming ghosts are the souls of people who are deceased then one must also assume the the human soul is able to transcend this plain of existence. One again, assuming these entities are comprised of neutrinos, you now have a justifiable basis for a scientific explanation for the existence of the soul and how it can transcend into alternate realities, passing through matter, but also being able to interact with it. Another scientific researched into this phenomenon is Ron Pearson, who was inspired by Crookes' earlier experiments. Pearson believed that Crookes was right, but he lacked the mathematical theory to back up such controversial claims. Pearson took it upon himself to discover and prove those theories and he believes he has accomplished this. Pearson has recently gained popularity for being on BBC radio and several news stations around Britain. They were not too found of his ideas at first, being as how there's no separation of church and state in The UK, but he is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Pearson also believes he has found the mathematical solution for the existence of "ether" which Crookes fought tirelessly to prove. Pearson says his experiment can prove it.
[The above is a clip from a BBC special called "The Science of Eternity" and is certainly worth a view.] The claims of the above mentioned researchers are being ridiculed from both science and religion, when in actuality it has the potential to unify the two by confirming ancient religious beliefs with modern day scientific theory. It may be controversial in nature but that doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. It will be a long time before each side is willing to put aside its prejudice in an attempt to unify, but until then the works of such great people will continue to go on. You can learn more about Ron Pearson's ideas here. This is just a small part of the puzzle which I will explain in further detail in the next segment of "Can Science & Religion Coexist" on viewzone.
Most of the sources I used are directly linked within the article, through the use of the interactive links, but here's some of them anyway:
http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/snyder.html
COMMENTS: Just quickly read the article. It is my belief that science and religion can coexist, and that they should coexist. It is our job to put them together is a cohesive, functioning, workable unit that allows science to prove religion and religion to prove science. In general the scientific community is way too opposed to working with the religious community. To the point that the scientists’ science has become their religion. If you don’t accept what they believe then you are out. And the scientists can be very passionate and aggressive in these viewpoints. Case in point. When someone comes along in an effort to say Darwinism may not be right. Ho boy, does the scientific community get up in arms and works to discredit that someone. Brent
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Sometimes orbs are visible to the naked eye while other times it is only in examination of photographic or video recordings when the orbs are noticed. Cookes was also witness to the appearance of "phantom figures' as well as the appearance of writing without the use of a human agent specific circumstance which "point to the agency of an outside intelligence." He eventually joined 
Their entire theory revolves around the concept that paranormal events, supernatural phenomenon, and ghost stories can all be rationally explained using subatomic physics. Consequently their ideas also justify the idea of a "soul" or something similar to it which would be the conduit for transportation from this realm to the next.