Answering Quora - Does spirituality provide anything that science cannot provide?
Recently on Quora, somebody posed the question, Does spirituality provide anything that science cannot provide? Below is my answer.
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This question presents a false dilemma. Of course there are many, many aspects of our lives that science doesn't address, but why should we turn to spirituality to address those areas when there are other, better human endeavors to address those parts of our lives?
Science is great at what it does - answering objective questions. It's by far the best method humanity has developed for this purpose. But really, that's its only purpose. Science has nothing to say on right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, awe-inspiring or mundane. Surely, we may find wonder in some of the findings of science. Looking up at the night sky is so much more marvelous knowing what those stars actually are. And science can help inform our actions, using our morality that comes from elsewhere. We wouldn't even know about global warming nor its consequences without science. But our emotional reaction to the night sky, or deciding to do something about global warming, are not part of science itself. Science has only given us the objective information, and then we use other parts of our humanity to react.
The problem with 'spirituality' is that it's plagued by so many historical connotations and associations, that it's hard to know what people really even mean by the term. Just take a look at the Wikipedia entry, Spirituality, for how many different ways people use this term, from Christians ("A spiritual man is one who is Christian 'more abundantly and deeper than others' ") to Muslims to Buddhists to Hindus to New Agers and a whole bunch of others. The one thing that most of these definitions have in common is the mystical or supernatural. But if the mystical and supernatural aren't real, then those versions of spirituality aren't based on anything real. At best, they're noble human endeavors entangled with outdated superstition. So, why not just drop the superstition and focus on the noble parts? But once you do that, is 'spirituality' really the best term to describe it?
We're human beings. We have worries and passions and morality and wonder and all types of subjective concerns. We should spend time reflecting on and fostering these aspects of our lives. We should read literature, go to art museums, study philosophy and ethics, take time during the day to pause and reflect, or even meditate if you want to take that reflection further. But these can all be secular pursuits. There's no need to pretend there's anything mystical about them.
Image Source: Wikimedia with further editing by me
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