The relationship of science and religion: new facets of an old problem

Abstract

The article analyzes the problem of the correlation of science and religion in modern condi­tions. The main programs of its solution are highlighted, which proceed from the irremedia­ble differences between these most important spheres of spiritual culture (or types of cogni­tive experience). The first program subordinates science to a religious worldview and insists that the adoption of religious principles by science can ensure genuine scientific progress. The second program, on the contrary, declares religion to be a system of irrational beliefs and subjects it to harsh criticism. The third program, which goes back to the theory of “dual truth”, asserts the possibility of non-confrontational coexistence of science and religion, since they do not have any points of ontological intersection. There are stated five argu­ments in favor of a synthetic program, where the differences between science and religion do not exclude the possibility of dialogue and the search for “conceptual bridges” between them. This concerns both the phenomenon of faith and the problem of evidence in the field of scientific and religious knowledge. The arguments are given that along with the “exter­nal” experience of science, we can talk about the “internal” spiritual experience of religions, where there are invariant traditions of experimentation with consciousness, during which it can move to a qualitatively different level. The facts of convergence of religious and scien­tific experience are stated through scientific and experimental study of the brain of adherents of ascetic Buddhist practices in a state of deep meditation. It is also pointed to historical epochs where science and religion interacted quite harmoniously, and these were the epochs of cultural flourishing. At the end of the article, the thesis is expressed that present science and religion face serious challenges in the form of abnormal but reliable facts (the phenome­non of the Buryat Khambo Lama Itigelov), to which they must respond together in order not to contribute to the growth of irrational religious beliefs and irrational disbeliefs in science.