Some time around the 17th century, the old Gods and Spirits were sent into exile by the science of Newton and the philosophy of Descartes. It’s taken longer to exile Christianity in Western countries, but the mechanistic world view prevails. New Gods have risen: Science and Rationality.
Most of us pay them lip service, using Rationality to justify doing what we want to post fact, and Science to give us seeming control of the physical world. We worship them, we live our lives by our ideas of what they are, we think things should ‘make sense’ and be ‘understandable’, we live within a myth without knowing that we do, we lock up or pathologise people who do not conform to the rational model.
I’d like to suggest that Science and Rationality are Gods, as much as Apollo, Zeus, Gaia, the Holy Trinity or any of the rest. This would not be a problem if we realised that they are Gods – instead we believe them the whole of reality.
Don’t get me wrong – Science and Rationality, and a mechanistic model have a lot to offer. They bring great benefits: Modern Western medicine, machines and ways of working that can free us from want and create luxuries, ways to explore the physical world and understand how many things work.
Yet like Christianity before, the way we have used and worshipped Science and Rationalism has demonised much that is valuable, blinded us to other ways of being, and so impoverished us.
I worry about this because a mechanistic universe that is bare of meaning is a cold place to live, and may give rise to a bastard son, Utility. If we reduce the whole to its parts, we can neglect that whole, lose our sense of place, raise Man to a God in a barren world. We may recognise that there is more in the world of Science itself; ask a mathematician about the beauty of maths, the wonder they find in proofs, how problems are solved by the irrational ‘aha’ moment.
When you next look at your children, stroke your cat, see a sunset, smell a flower, complete a satisfying task that only you will ever know about, solve an equation, feel a sense of achievement… then ask yourself if what you love and what you want is rational, or if what you find wondrous is better felt.
Instead I would offer you Love embracing Science, Beauty sitting in the lap of Rationality, the pulse of the World Tree beating as a heart that links us all. These are myths, fantasies, but so are Science and Rationality. You can make a choice about what you worship, and when you worship it.
Science and Rationality and the Age of Reason – I’m all for them as part of a pantheon. But there is so much more, and they become a way to deny the sublime if we worship them alone.
Now I’m off to play with Jessica the cat. She’s just a minor Spirit, but she’s beautiful. May you feel your own wonder today.
