Spiritual Responses
The question "Are Parts of Human Experience Beyond Scientific Understanding?" provoked interesting and diverse responses from CTT participants. Below is a selection from the opinions that visitors to this web site have sent us. If you want to add your own, click on Send Us Your Thoughts.
I think that the two go hand in hand. Everything came into existence by one of two ways, either by design or by accident. The problem is that many who do the study and research enter the search with their minds already made up or have been lead astray. Remove some of the bogus information (for example Darwin's Theory) and the facts become much clearer. Everything operates according to the laws of the universe and those laws when studied point to the Creator. An example is the following statement, which has a creator - "The fool says in his heart there is no God."
Randy, July 3, 2003
One who, as I do, believes that the human person has a free will believes also and necessarily that human behavior, at least during the commission of a free act, is strictly unpredictable even from a perfect understanding of nature. Otherwise moral evil, which comes into the world only through the actions of men, would be intrinsic to nature herself. The Catholic, however, believes, along with other informed Theists (Jews, Muslims, Protestants), that nature herself is created good, and the very presence of evil in the universe is due to the supernatural freedom of man. (Moreover, we shall never have a perfect understanding of nature because progress is likely to continue until the end of time.) Therefore, the human experience of the free act will always, we believe, defy the attempt to formulate a physical model of it.
Thomas, July 1, 2003
Science has allowed us to expand our mind and our world. It has helped us better understand and comprehend the world around us. Scientific Discoveries are used to benefit us, and improve our lives here on earth. But inside all of us is the question of what there lies beyond this earth. This equates in a need to believe that there is something better beyond this life and gives us hope to live day by day, that there is something better waiting for us. For it is human nature, and ultimately animal instinct, to fear what we do not understand. That is why death remains such a mystery and brings us so many sleepless nights, and horrid dreams. Because as much as we try to comprehend the world around us there may be things that we cannot and should not be able to understand. Because once we know all there is to know we will no longer be able to continue to question the world around us, making life meaningless.
Jessiquita, May 25, 2003
Much of human experience is deeply personal and calls on individual perceptions. Isolating variables for all of human experience in a scientific manner is not possible. For instance, spiritual and imaginative experiences, by nature, cannot be relegated to scientific analyses. They are food for poets and philosophers- not scientists.
G. Griffith, May 22, 2003
I think the answer is not a question of parts but the whole. Scientific understanding fails to see aspects of all human experience, like a linguistics expert studying words and all the while missing the meaning of each one individually and the story as a whole.
Steve Hammond, May 16, 2003
What I think you have completely missed in your discussion was realizing the fact that man is and always will be fallible. Man in itself is not perfect and no matter what new "technology" or "discoveries" are made the room for human error is infinite. We can do nothing but speculate and form theories.
Emily Thompson, April 25, 2003
It is truly unfortunate that Science and Spirituality should be such unhappy members of the same family. God wanted His existence to be unprovable, to be a matter of Faith. And yet He gave us a curiosity and ability to look at His Universe and wonder and discover it's complexities, each discovery, by the way, pointing directly to an intelligent design.
Ken Roswarski, April 24, 2003
I see the factual and the logical as being the gateway to the transcendental. I can see a rainbow and appreciate that the Physics of this wonderful phenomenon explains why it occurs and why each individual sees their own rainbow. This Easter when I saw a rainbow as I walked along a beach on Good Friday around three o'clock, I saw it as a statement that god was reminding me that He has promised not to destroy the world a second time. This was particularly comforting to me with our problems in the Middle East at present.
Malcolm Oliver, April 22, 2003
Saw your show tonight for the first time & just love it--especially tonight's topic (April 13-14) on Science vs. Religion. But why no Jew on the panel of experts??? It is the source from which Christianity & Islam took some (if not all) of their best stuff--unattributed on the show (except for the Moslem's mention of the word "Ru" from "Ruach"). Furthermore, I believe a Jew could have more articulately talked with the Scientist (a real materialist who has made a religion out of Science and has the arrogance of a new believer, by the way). Could've listened for hours. Loved the Christian--ah, so articulate, so precise & correct in her English. Could relate to much of what the Moslem said that seemed to go by the others.
Patricia Kimball, April 14, 2003
Did I understand Nancy Murphey, who claims to be a believer, state that eventually in a 100 years Christians will accept the Science view that there is not eternity and not a soul? This squarely contradicts Christianity. I would like to know to what religious group she belongs. In fact, it seemed the skeptic and the Christian came closer and closer together during the conversation and realized that were frightenly close in their beliefs. Maybe I did not hear Ms. Murphey correctly, so would appreciate finding out if I am wrong. But, if I am correct, you conveniently left out a strong believing Christian point of view.
Lawana Hale, April 13, 2003
I am a thirteen-year-old homeschooled girl and I "love the Lord my God with
all my heart". I watched your (April 13) show on pbs, and one thing stood out to
me; you put science first, and scripture second. You take what mankind
says for a fact, and then you take what God says and try to explain it in
such a way that it fits into science. The problem with that is that man is
not always right.
Name Omitted, April 13, 2003
Science has come a long way in tapping into the energy, forces and principles of nature, but human nature is another story. I believe God has not only set the laws of nature in motion and basically leaves them alone, God has also created the laws of human nature which (s)he molds, guides and directs daily.
Kevin, April 10, 2003
