Sometimes, Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship members discuss whether science and spirituality complement or contradict each other. They explore where hope, love, and human values fit into a universe of quarks and quasars. In a world seemingly governed by relentless physical laws, how does science co-exist with religion?<\/p>\n
Rev. Gary Kowalski, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Taos, New Mexico, responds by reminding us that many Unitarian forebears, including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, expanded the horizons of both scientific and religious inquiry.\u00a0 They knew that knowledge, like faith, evolves. Beliefs change. Yet, however far scientists expand the limits of understanding, room for amazement, curiosity, and humility remain.<\/p>\n
Another Unitarian, Richard Wolfson, a physics professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, tells about a colleague who began attending his UU congregation, \u201cAfter several weeks, he approached me at the end of a service and said, somewhat perplexedly, \u2018This isn\u2019t a religious society. It\u2019s a moral society.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him what religion was, and he mumbled something that included the word God. I said that, to me, religion is about my relation to the universe, and that every UU service I ever attended was, in that sense, religious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolfson adds, \u201cI\u2019m a life-long scientist, and science is also about my relation to the universe. Although my scientific work is oriented toward discovery and knowledge, it also informs my personal, religious relation to the universe. So I feel no conflict between my religion and my science–they\u2019re closely related…<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more science informs me about the universe and its workings,\u201d he continues, \u201cthe more I feel awe, appreciation,\u00a0and\u00a0reverence\u2026There\u2019s no need for a creator, a guide, or even a greater purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegarding personal mortality, for me it\u2019s enough to have participated, however briefly, in the unfolding cosmic drama. I\u2019ve been here, I\u2019ve done what I\u2019ve done, and when I\u2019m gone there\u2019s nothing that can undo those deeds. I\u2019m content to have been host to atoms that, for my lifetime, have had the privilege of participating in the miracle of consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes, Sedona Unitarian Universalist Fellowship members discuss whether science and spirituality complement or contradict each other. They explore where hope, love, and human values fit into a universe of quarks and quasars. In a world seemingly governed by relentless physical laws, how does science co-exist with religion? Rev. Gary Kowalski, minister of the Unitarian Universalist … Continue reading UUs and Science [#71]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7231"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8864,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7231\/revisions\/8864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sedonauu.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}