This is another bush era rant against Christian fundamentalists, at a time in history when it really seemed like the fox was running the henhouse. (I won't excuse the pun, as a reference to the evil Fox News). Not that an entire ontological theory can be neatly be stuck into a nutshell, but in a nutshell what I believe is that religion and science were once one and the same thing, two halves of a complete circle which have been violently separated for hundreds if not thousands of years, which are slowly coming back together. At some point in history, perhaps with the advent of the “donation of Constantine” which was a document that surfaced in italy in 750 A.D. which was alleged to have been written by emperor Constantine to entrench papal rule which led to the great evil of the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church. Ah! the roman catholic church.

As evil as Nazi germany was for instance, and as depraved and deplorable the diseased minds that perpetrated the shoah (The jewish term for the holocaust), why can't the catholic church be held to the same standards for their long and glorious history of systematic murder and torture of those who would not bend to their will? The pedophile priests have given rise to a great public relations quagmire but the Catholic Church is not the only organized religion to have been exposed as a great lie inimical to the human soul and spirit. Take some other examples, Ted Haggard and the evangelicals, Jimmy Swaggart, the crazy westboro baptist church and also in my own experience religion is nothing more than a mental disease that should not be tolerated. The maintenance of the façade of righteousness destroys the soul. Empty churches of any stripe and flag and waning influence of the god salesmen in general is excellent news for mankind. These people are totally fucked in the head, whether you're talking about the extremes such as Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, guys who shoot at abortion doctors in the US in the name of Jesus, or African tribespeople who burn people alive who have been accused of witchcraft.

So anyway, back to the great science vs sprituality dichotomy. In ancient times, alchemical and hermetic orders merged science and religion into a holistic search for the truth (in very simplified terms). Fast forward to the early 1900’s with Planck and Einstein, rapidily releasing revelation after revelation onto the world, it seemed only a matter of time before the fundamental laws of the universe could be clearly explained. Yet cold logic and determinism which holds that there is nothing more to a human being than the electrical and chemical reactions in the body and the brain, just doesn’t gel with me as the ultimate solution. I do not say that lightly, I and many others have personally experienced glimpses of the “other”, something clearly transcending ordinary reality. Of course mainstream science totally shoots this down with its cold logic, but still phenomena and experiential testimony still remain to attest to there being a lot beyond what we see. The only defence left for the determinist in the light of all the evidence of what we will bundle up and call “the paranormal” is to debunk by suggestion everyone who does experience something beyond the normal is either lying or insane.

Both Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell have gone on radio and TV, the public record, to attest to the reality of UFO’s. These are ASTRONAUTS for gods sake, highly trained professional observers who were put through some of the most rigorous psychological and physical vetting for any vocation anywhere. Wouldn’t you think there might be something to it? Now fast forward to 1998, the discovery (since proven beyond doubt) that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and now our mainstream scientific worldview takes an enormous hit. Here was something at the fundamental level of the physical world that is not explained comprehensively and consensually in any theory that current exists. Theres a long list of very big turds in the punchbowl and elephants in the living room, such as the Higgs Boson. If this particle is never experimentally observed then we lose the missing piece of the puzzle in our understanding of the quantum world which no less than gives matter its mass. I'm not very well versed with any of these concepts in any great level of detail and I'm not pretending to be but I have done enough personal research to be basically aware. My point is into the mainstream scientific debate I see increasing elements of what we may like to call paranormal or metaphysical, and I interpret this is the two halves of this circle slowly coming together.

Modern science and the scientific method since classical greek times has been responsible for lifting mankind out of the mire of superstition and ignorance and has made life on earth for human beings at least much better in many ways, but at what cost? Im sure religion has had some benefits as well, but it just strikes me that the basic urge to explore and explain that lies at the heart of both science and religion is just not satisfied either by blind faith or cold determinism. The truth lies somewhere in between. From the first forms of life, the very basic prokaryotic and eukarotic organisms that over hundreds of millions of years slowly converted the earths atmosphere into a composition capable of supporting complex multicellular life, then to us. There's far too many marriages of convenience that allowed us to be here for me to believe in either a rather cranky old fart with a white beard and a magic wand, or that merely chemical and electrical interactions between molecules gave rise to everything. So that’s why I say “and I wont give you the satisfaction of giving me more than I can lose”.

Think for yourself and when the scientist or the holy man come knocking on your door asking for your soul, lend them an ear but DO NOT make the mistake of becoming certain of anything. When the two half spheres of objectivity and subjectivity become a full circle, to once again encompass the genius of the human mind, then perhaps we will realize our place in all this, and explain the universe in terms that can be printed on a t-shirt. I think that’s the destiny of humanity, but I'm not certain of it!!