A call to self-transcendence
In ancient times, men gazed at the stars at night and this lifted their thoughts beyond the toils and worries of everyday life. A gaze that lifted them beyond themselves and the world to the transcendence will naturally lead to greater self-transcendence. In modern times, however, men no longer look at the stars, but at the television.
Television in general, during the peak viewing hours or the so-called prime time, presents prime-less programs. Far from being a call to self-transcendence, television leads man to meddle even more in the most immediate and urgent, in the day-to-day affairs. Someone once said that contemporary men walk in circles, at odds with each other, because they no longer look up to heaven.
In one village there was a boy who threw stones at the moon; of course, he never hit his target, but he was of all the boys, the one who threw the farthest. So, what apparently seemed to be a nonsense, like throwing stones at the moon, served a purpose, the purpose of self-transcendence, the purpose of becoming a better stone thrower. The same happens with religion, which apparently seems to serve no purpose but in the long run its effects are noticeable and undeniable.
Search for meaning
Religion is no longer present in people's daily lives, because it no longer explains anything and has no practical applications that make life better and more pleasant. Science, on the contrary, explains more and more things and has practical applications for everyday life that make our lives more comfortable.
Science indeed does explain many things, but it does not explain the most important thing: it tells us that the world began with a "Big Bang," but it does not tell us who caused this big explosion or what was there before, and the purpose of the Big Bang. It tells us that since that big explosion, the world continues to expand and will expand until it expends all its energy and dies, but it does not tell us what is beyond the end of the world. Most importantly, between the "Big Bang" and the end of the world, it does not tell us what is the meaning of life, for what do we exist or why do we exist.
It is true that we can very well live without these questions, like the agnostics do by burying their heads in the sand; they think that in ignoring these questions, is the best way to answer them. With this kind of attitude, there would be no progress in any branches of knowledge. Science is born from asking questions and looking for answers.
The spirit of a human being is like a child who has just attained the age of reason. By the age of seven, the child gains self-awareness and discovers that he exists. He then questions everything and everyone, searching for reasons to satisfy his restless spirit. Usually, he clings to his parents or some adult he trusts and bombards them with a succession of whys, looking for the ultimate or primal reason for the uncaused cause.
This often leads adults, who do not want to admit God as the uncaused cause and the primary reason for everything and everyone, to a dead end. At that point, they tell the child to shut up and call him a nuisance. Thus, the child stops questioning himself and questioning others, and like the adults who are his mentors, he puts an end to this exercise of seeking the whys of everything and is content to live in pure mundanity, as do the rest of the living beings who have also stopped questioning themselves.
Science and the rest of the knowledge and instances of society all disagree on the problem of death. Only religion presents a coherent solution. The most intellectual ones, like Karl Marx, say that it should not worry us, because while we exist, death won’t exist and when eventually death comes to exist, we won’t exist.... The more materialistic ones say to make the most of life as one only lives once.
The conflict between science and religion is like the conflict between love and money. Nobody denies that having money has always been important and is increasingly more so, because with it one has access to an ever-increasing number of comforts and pleasures. Despite the undeniable importance of money in living, everyone agrees that love is even more important. Money cannot buy love, but love can buy money; without money life still has meaning, but without love it has none.
Technology, spirituality and ethics
If science, the general theory of things, is translated through technology into practical applications that make our lives easier, then religion, an even more general and more encompassing theory than science, is translated into day-to-day spirituality and ethics.
Science through technology does not tell us how to live our lives but it does lead us to a form of materialism and consumerism, that is, to filling our homes with junk.
Religion not only gives meaning to life but through spirituality and ethics, it shows us the path that leads to the fullness of life, to self-realization, that is, to the happiness that we all desire. What technology is to science, spirituality and ethics are to religion.
If technology contributes to the material well-being of the body, then spirituality contributes to the well-being of the soul. While science and technology are concerned only with the material well-being of man, spirituality aims at the well-being of the person as an individual being, ethics aims at the well-being of the individual as a social being and as an integral part of a community.
Those who live in pure worldliness will say that both spirituality and ethics can exist and subsist without religion. In fact, this is the tendency of the postmodern man.
This takes us back to the inquisitive child we compared previously to the true spirit of the human being. Faced with an ethics without religion, we are forced to conclude that if what really counts is what goes on down here, there is no ultimate reason for things, and if there is none, why should I be good if being bad, I get more things, more money and more pleasures?
Spirituality without religion is comparable to Buddhism, the path to enlightenment, an individualistic and selfish personal improvement that inevitably leads to a society of elites and castes that still prevails in the homeland of Buddhism. Religion calls spirituality to altruism, to say that we ought to love others as we love ourselves; that is, whatever good that we seek for ourselves, we ought to seek it in equal measure for others.
Conclusion: Since human beings are naturally religious, life in pure worldliness is a polytheistic religion that consists of the love of power, fame and pleasure and sees money as Zeus, the father of the gods.
Religion makes us free from attachment to material goods when we love God above all things; it gives us the joy of living when we love ourselves as God loves us, it builds a just and peaceful society when we love our neighbour as ourselves.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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