Musings: Religion, science show a shared path to unity
Sunrise over the Earth's horizon, as seen from the Space Shuttle Columbia. Globally shared understanding of the universe can help us know we are interdependently inhabiting this planet. Credit: Getty Images/Space Frontiers
Most religious traditions share a core principle: Treat others as we would like to be treated. Those we perceive as others, however, often can be a problem. The power of religion, despite its secular reputation, can bridge those divisions.
Otherness is typically associated with differences in physical characteristics, language, gender, and often religion. Of late, both different sexual preferences and expressions have incurred intense divisiveness. A recognition and even celebration of otherness is essential, however, for there to be any real friendship and community in a nation like ours. How great a gap in otherness can one tolerate?
Some religious beliefs are based on scriptures formulated at least 1,500 years ago and written by people in different languages. All scriptural authors were limited by their knowledge, language, and culture. Despite what all the ancients believed, Earth is not flat, and as most believed, the sky is not a heaven in which God or the gods inhabit and control life on Earth. Scriptures are attempts to express the meaning of humanness and to describe and name the source or sources of everything that exists. We know more of ourselves and the universe today than was possible at the writing of any scriptures.
Yet, in common with these scriptures, we know that everything in existence has come from one source. Thanks to science, we recognize that all that exists is interdependently evolving.
Beginning with our globally shared understanding of humanness and the universe, we can begin to imagine the creative force responsible for all of it and draw the implications of interdependently inhabiting this planet, a pebble in the universe.
I believe most of us can share many beliefs without abandoning the core values embedded in each of our religious traditions.
— Tim Kunz, Baldwin
The writer served in three Roman Catholic parishes.
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