Cosmic religious feeling

| The following articles were submitted as a Philosophy class requirement |

The Baby and the Bath Water

By M. Scott Peck

First of all ‘the baby and the bath water’ is an idiomatic expression which means rejecting the essential along with the inessential. This means that something good is eliminated when trying to get rid of something bad. Now, M. Scott Peck says scientists tend to throw the baby out of the water regarding religious matters. They see the bad things done through belief but reject the good things about the ‘belief’. Science itself is a religion. He states that scientists can be very fanatical to science, as to theists to their faith. The basic notion of scientists is that the belief in God is ignorance. But religion is questionable and so is science. The maturity of scientists is the awareness that science may also be subject to dogmatism as any other religion.

It is plainly natural for humans to question, or doubt the common norms, but this doubt does not have to ‘not see’ and separate the good from the bad. As he said, “Behind spurious notions and false concepts of God there lies a reality that is God”. Faith is constantly being put to question and this is unavoidable. It is a process from simple belief, to doubt, and from doubt to a more intellectual form of belief. There are acts inevitable questionable for some religion but is being supplied by other religion. When we become sceptic about religion then, it is advisable that we see it through a wider view, see religion as general and not specifically judging based on one form of belief, for in every religion there is always an error.

Being too objective is bad for it results in bias. There is no single definite explanation of the belief in God therefore he suggests we don’t plainly stick to one side of the coin and be more sophisticated regarding religious matters. A balance of judgement then is crucially essential.

Religion and Science

By Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein observed that religion has sources. First, is that religion comes from fear. It is rooted from the dependence of man into something more powerful that anyone or anything else in which all they feared would depend. It results into the belief that one must go in favour of this ‘being’ through acts of offering sacrifices. Second is the search for belonging, affection, support and love, or simply to supply human social and moral needs. This is what he noted to be the basic and primitive notion which is a naïve idea.

On the other hand, men with exceptional level of understanding, has this different point of belief. He calls this cosmic religious feeling. It is a belief in a God of no limits, “…knows no dogma, no God conceived in man’s image, no church whose central teachings are based on it”. It is a feeling of non satisfaction with individual existence and a search for something beyond what humans can perceive.

He points that, “Man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties; no religious basis is necessary”. The idea of being punished if we do something wrong and the idea o f being rewarded if we become obedient with religious commands will be very restraining to man’s growth. It limits man and so as it limits the meaning of religion. Cosmic religion feeling is a great source of strength and determination in spite of failures.

Lastly, he said that, “Serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people”. Scientists are basically more open-minded, not biased, in endless search for truth, looks at proofs, and always disregard ignorance. With this statement I could conclude that what religion truly is, is a religion not contained in a box. Religion is not naïve. It requires an excellent level of understanding to be truly religious.