I’ve just read (er… listened to) Huston Smith’s, The Big Picture. Like many others, I was first introduced to his perspective from his seminal work, The World’s Religions (I knew it as the Religions of Man). It was the first book on comparative religion that didn’t downplay or condemn every other religion but the author’s own. His refreshing illumination of the subject continues to inspire me.

But this latest work seems to be a “summary essay” on his entire work, that is, the validity of the search for “meaning, values, and purposes” offered by the world’s religious traditions as opposed to the more limiting, but logical, option offered by our modern, scientific world view.

While he doesn’t attempt to prove the existence of an alternate reality or “superior world,” he barely skirts this conclusion when he poses the statement that doesn’t hunger indicate the existence of food. But just like thirst doesn’t prove the existence of water, that longing in our heart doesn’t prove something more than this world. But like a guy in a desert looking for water, no one can fault someone for searching.

Scientific inquiry doesn’t even pretend to address the “fundamental whys” of our existence— meaning, values, and purposes. Those issues of quality can’t be measured, and are appropriately left to the realm of philosophy, religion and walks in the woods.

So while the religious traditions of the world can give meaning to a person’s life, they often come under scrutiny due to various practitioner’s intolerance, hypocrisy and irrational ignorance… the latter occurs especially when a religious tradition oversteps its bounds into the realm of the scientific, i.e. the provable.

Dr. Smith makes 5 points of separation between the cultural/religious traditions and our modern/scientific view-point:

1. Spirit vs. Matter. In religious traditions, spirit came first, and created matter. In science, energy-infused matter came first, and consciousness sprang out of it.

2. Higher or Lower. Traditionally, humans are viewed as coming from a higher source. Scientifically, humans arose and evolved from lower forms.

3. Absolute Truth vs. Relative Meaning. Traditionally, an absolute truth that explains this world exists (essentially in another world), and we need to discover it. Modern view-points place all meaning as being derived from the human mind (illustrated best by the philosopher, Immanuel Kant).

4. Belonging. Since our religious traditions have stated that the world has an ultimate meaning, and since we humans feel the need for such meaning, we “fit” this world. Scientifically, humans seem to be an abnormality and the fact that we have this longing for meaning makes it even more difficult to live in a meaningly universe.

5. Happy Ending. Traditions generally gives us two endings: one for each of us individually, and one for the world as we know it. Each of us, after death, are rewarded, and eventually most traditions give a god/messiah/savior/prophet who shows up at “the end” to clean the mess we humans have made of the world. Scientifically, this is looked at as “wishful thinking” and we need to clean up after ourselves.

In my opinion (and I believe in Dr. Smith’s), religious traditions and spiritual experiences can live comfortably with a modern, scientific world. But I’m afraid they should be compartmentalized into different buckets in our brains.

Each has something to offer us, and we would be better to somehow integrate the two. For instance, this last point of Dr. Smith’s that he called a “Happy Ending” can certainly give us hope in the future and alleviate our anxiety, however, we also need to take greater responsibility for ourselves… not just in morals, but environmentally as well. If I hear another Christian say that we don’t have to worry about the environmental consequences of global warming, as “Jesus will be showing up to cleanse the world,” I will just scream.

But acceptance of a meaningless world is a big pill to swallow, and many of us who have had some sort of mystical experience, want to go deeper into this mystery of life… a mystery that our traditions want to offer. Ultimately, the meaning we attribute to this world, is from our own device, but what’s wrong with that? I like this quote of Dr. Smith’s:

Life comes at us like a gigantic rorschach test… saying what do you make of it? How does it strike you? Moreover, it comes at us fired point blank… It doesn’t stop asking questions.