Science Cannot Explain Everything

Science Cannot Explain Everything

In the beginning there was darkness. Then there was light. Then there was consciousness. Then there were questions and then there was religion.

Religions sprouted up all over the world as a response to some of humanity's most troubling questions and fears. Why are we here? Where do we come from?

Why does the world and nature act as it does? What happens when you die?

Religions tended to answer all these questions with stories of gods and goddesses and other supernatural forces that were beyond the understanding of humans. Magic, in it's essence, were the powers wielded by these superior beings that caused the unexplainable to happen.

Fast forward a few thousand years to the present. In our age and time there is little left unexplained. Science seems able to explain everything with mathematical logic and concrete evidence right before our very eyes. The subject of science is taught in almost every school on Earth. Gone are the days of magic and wonder. The magic of so-called magicians like David Copperfield are a jest. When people attend a magic show everyone looks for the invisible wires and hidden projectors. No one really believes the magician has supernatural powers, except for maybe a handful of children in the audience who still have faith in Santa Clause.

Science does seem to explain all. It has enabled humans to fly, cure incurable diseases, explore the depths of the oceans, stave off death, walk on the moon and wipe out entire civilizations with the push of a button. It is becoming more and more widespread in that people are putting their faith in science above that in the gods. What parent wouldn't rather bring their sick child to a doctor than have faith in the healing power of some mystical entity that may or may not exist.

However strong and almost perfect the view of science is in today's society it cannot and does not cover the entire spectrum of the human experience.

Nor does it explain some of the striking similarities present in the various religions of Earth. These similarities occur in civilizations not only far from each other but also in cultures separated by seemingly impossible to traverse oceans of water. Many of these similarities occur in the cosmological or creation myths of...

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...bsp; Recent scientific studies suggest that the average human uses only ten to fifteen percent of his or her brain. What happens to the other eighty-five to ninety percent of it? Does it just sit there and have absolutely no use? Or does it perhaps contain the universal commonalties of what links us all as a great big tribe of human beings; containing our greatest hopes, our worst fears, our dreams and creativity. Perhaps it does contain a link to the realm of mysticism and surrealism which artists such as Salvador Dali tried so hard to render on canvas. Science doesn't know what it contains. It's in our skulls and we're not even sure what it contains, maybe the answers to our own primordial questions.

WORKS CITED

World Religions From Ancient History to the Present editor: Geoffrey Parrinder, copyright 1971, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd.

Essays On a Science of Mythology Carl Jung, copyright 1949, Pantheon Books Inc.

Myths To Live By Joseph Campbell, copyright 1972, Viking Press

Religions of the World Lewis M. Hopfe, Copyright 1976, Prentice-Hall Inc.

Mythology Edith Hamilton, copyright 1942, Little Brown Inc.

Encarta '95 copyright 1995, Microsoft corp.