Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Can Religion Be Scientific?


“Discovery and Revelation: Religion, Science, and Making Sense of Things” is an exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. In this relatively small space, they examine the intersections of religion and science in American culture. Three prompting questions frame the exhibit: “What does it mean to be human? What do we owe each other? What is our place in the universe?” In this exhibit, you  will find the Apollo 8 flight manual and Charles Darwin’s 1860 book, “On the Origin of Species”. This collection is meant to cause us to think, and reading about it certainly got me to thinking! I did not know there was something called Thomas Jefferson’s Bible, one in which he had excised all references to Jesus’ healings and metaphysical teachings. There is a portrait of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells were used after her death, without her or her family’s permission. Corporations have made billions of dollars from these cells, with nothing benefiting her family. In the portrait she is holding a Bible and the question is asked: What do we owe each other? The purpose of this exhibit and its fascinating items and facts is not to give us answers, but to cause us to ask questions of ourselves and our beliefs. In the center of the exhibit there are eight figures with the question,” Can religion be scientific?” Of course, the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, is one of those eight. I look forward to finding more information on this!

“Jesus established what he said by demonstration, thus making his acts of higher importance than his words. He proved what he taught. This is the Science of Christianity.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 473:26-28


“All magic is an attempt at reconciling the irreconcilable. All religion is the recognition that the irreconcilable cannot be reconciled. Sickness and perfection are irreconcilable. If God created you perfect, you are perfect. If you believe you can be sick, you have placed other gods before Him. God is not at war with the god of sickness you made, but you are. He is the symbol of deciding against God, and you are afraid of him because he cannot be reconciled with God’s Will. If you attack him, you will make him real to you. But if you refuse to worship him in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made.” 

A Course in Miracles T-10.IV.1:1-9

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