Christine Chau - Week 4

Modern Interpretations of the world and universe has led to many believing there are only two things that can explain how we have become who we are today. god or science. It's either or, and anything besides that sounds atrocious. Trust me, speaking to my significant other about the spiritual world and how we can use that to interpret our lives and the way things are to specific people, he simply said "isn't that stuff fake?" Our western cultures in schools have told us that there is only science and the experiments of those that are only available to explain the phenomenon of the world. On the other hand, there are those who don't believe in science and truly vouches for the religion aspect of how the world has become. God is the one who determines things, god made it happen, god this, god that. If we really think about where science and religion came from, it came from people, people believing in something and writing it out to prove so. God is based in the bible, a book that guides millions of people in this earth to keep them sane. Just like science, backed up by papers after papers from experiments and research. When these have been going on for so long and have been dominating, it's hard to think that something else can explain our natural world. In "We Are Not Alone" The Shamans of The World Tells Us, a quote from Martin Rees resonated with me because people simply don't stop for just a couple of minutes and take the time to realize how science and religion could have brain washed us into thinking of something is only one way. "I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can't conceive [...] it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains". Just as society is a construct, science is too. A construct for all of us to believe the observations we see in the world. My question is how are we able to open a dialogue that is more comfortable for westerners to open to the idea of spirituality and shamanism?




I chose this photo because I think it represents a lot of people and their views. A lot of are stuck between knowing science is real and we believe in climate change, and evolution, but perhaps there is spirituality within as well.

Image: https://sweetinstitute.teachable.com/p/science_spirituality_mental_health_religion_vs_spirituality