Unity Church of Castro Valley
Sunday Message for July 11, 2010
Unity of Science & Religion
What we want to learn and practice this week is to appreciate, incorporate, understand and participate in the blend of science and religion.1
OUR UNDERSTANDING INCLUDES THE BEST OF RELIGION & SCIENCE
If you have been studying the Unity teachings for any length of time, you realize that our understanding includes the best of religion and science. The New Thought religions (Religious Science, Christian Science, Unity, and Divine Science, to name a few) by their very names show a keen interest in combining science and religion. To unify these two, we have to respect both the scientific method and the emphasis on faith and intuition found in religion.
It says in scripture, "Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose."2
Ernest Holmes wrote in the first paragraph on the first page of the Science of Mind textbook, "We all look forward to the day when science and religion shall walk hand in hand through the visible to the invisible. Science knows nothing of opinion, but recognizes a government of law whose principles are universal. Yet any scientist who refuses to accept intangible values has no adequate basis for the values which he has already discovered. Revelation must keep faith with reason, and religion with law – while intuition is ever spreading its wings for greater flights – and science must justify faith in the invisible."
Religious people may argue that they don't need factual, sensory documentation in order to accept that prayer works. Some may even say we should not pay any attention to appearances or what is seen in "the outer." (Even though most people respect testimonials that they see or hear other people give. These are considered anecdotal and not "scientific" but are certainly evidence.) However, to say that we should not look to the "outer," but only look to the "inner" is inadequate and shortsighted.
Some of the metaphysical teachings have misinterpreted the original intent and think that it is wrong to ever mention the problem, pain or wound. They have wrongly taught that we should ignore all physical evidence. In psychology this is called denial and is highly dysfunctional.
It is true that we need to release all conditions in the body that are not in alignment with our highest and best good. But before you can let go of a thing – you must pick it up. We must look honestly at what it is that we wish to heal, before we can proceed to heal it.
So I welcome my doctor's diagnosis and explanation of what's happening in my body. It gives me an understanding and starting point for healing. Then I can go to Louise Hay's book to find the possible mental correlation.
If the problem is in the ankles, the probable cause is inflexibility and guilt. Ankles represent the ability to receive pleasure. So a good affirmation to start with is "I deserve to rejoice in life. I accept all the pleasure life has to offer."
If the problem is with the arms, the probable cause is the capacity and ability to hold the experiences of life. A good affirmation to start with is "I lovingly hold and embrace my experiences with ease and with joy."
If the problem is in the back, the back represents the support of life. A good affirmation to use is "I know that Life always supports me."
If the problem is with the face, this represents what we show the world. A good affirmation to use is "It is safe to be me. I express who I am."
We live in a society that respects scientific validation by experimental and clinical testing. These require our senses, statistics and all the procedures of the accepted scientific method.
Yet there have always been scientists and medical people who incorporated the religious in with their professions. In the early 20th century, Florence Nightingale, a pioneer of modern nursing, was a believer in the effects of prayer. She wrote, "Often when people seem unconscious, a word of prayer reaches them"
And then there is Einstein. In a 1930 New York Times article, Einstein distinguished three styles which are usually intermixed in actual religious belief.
A poor understanding of causality causes fear, and the fearful invent supernatural beings.
The desire for love and support create a social and moral need for a supreme being; both these styles have an anthropomorphic concept of God.
The third style, which Einstein deemed most mature, originates in a deep sense of awe and mystery. He said, "The individual feels [...] the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves in nature [...] and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole." Einstein saw science as an antagonist of the first two styles of religious belief, but as a partner of the third style. As he wrote later, "[E]ven though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies [...] science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind [...] a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist."
Today, the fact that different medical studies have been at odds with each other has not stopped physicians from studying or recommending prayer. According to Larry Dossey M.D.: "In 1993, only three U.S. medical schools had courses devoted to exploring the role of religious practice and prayer in health; currently, nearly 80 medical schools have instituted such courses".
At the publication of this Twelve Powers course in 2000, one-half of the medical schools in the United States have a course on spirituality and health. This would not have been done without hard evidence collected in hundreds of convincing studies.
COMPELLING EVIDENCE
There is very compelling evidence for this connection between science and religion. An October 1999 Reader's Digest article (excerpted from "Remedy") summarizes the data. It says: "Just how powerful is the evidence linking faith and health? More than 30 studies have found a connection between spiritual or religious commitment and longer life. Among the most compelling are:3
- A survey of 5,286 Californians found that church members have lower death rates than nonmembers, regardless of risk factors such as smoking, drinking, obesity and inactivity.
- And... Those with a religious commitment had fewer symptoms or had better health outcomes in seven out of eight cancer studies, four out of five blood-pressure studies, four out of six heart-disease studies and four out of five general-health studies.
- They have shown that ... People with a strong religious commitment seem to be less prone to depression, suicide, alcoholism and other addictions, according to one research analysis.
- One of the most extensive reviews demonstrates that the connections between religion and health cut across age, sex, cultural and geographic boundaries. It includes more than 200 studies in which religion was found to be a factor in the incidence of a disease, explains Jeffrey S. Levin, a former professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk. Levin found an association between good health and religion in studies of children and older adults; of U.S. Protestants, European Catholics, Japanese Buddhists and Israeli Jews; of people living in the 1930s and 1980s; of patients suffering from acute and chronic diseases.
MORE EVIDENCE
And there is even more evidence. In a book called Prayer Is Good Medicine, author Larry Dossey, MD, includes this statement from David B. Larson, MD, of the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, Maryland, which studies the relationship between spirituality and health:
"Statistically, God is good for you. I was told by my [medical school] professors that religion is harmful. Then I looked at the research, and religion is actually highly beneficial. If you go to church or pray regularly, it's very beneficial in terms of preventing illness, mental and physical, and you cope with illness much more effectively. If you look at the research, in area after area, it's 80 percent beneficial. I was shocked."4
In his book Reinventing Medicine Larry Dossey claims that there will be three eras of medicine, the first dealing with physical medicine (where patients take pills), the second with mind-body medicine (where the body treats itself through psychosomatic methods) and the third with eternity medicine in which patients are affected from a distance via intercessory prayer.
BRINGING SCIENCE & RELIGION CLOSER
So we need to look into bringing science and religion closer. Charles Fillmore expressed the great interest of New Thought in building bridges rather than walls between science and religion. He wrote in 1933:
"That science and religion have not worked in unity is borne out by history. Religion functions in the realm of ideas and science in the realm of facts. By facts we mean anything that may be proved by material tests. Christianity has been very jealous of its revelations and has assumed that they are far more valuable than the discoveries of science."5
Since Mr. Fillmore wrote that, science has continued to explore the physical world, and the further it has looked into this realm, the more we have been led to quantum physics and meta-physics.
No one may be doing more to advance the understanding between science and religion than Sir John Marks Templeton, a legend in the investment and business world, and a long-time Unity student and supporter. He is best known today for his support for research in science and religion. He contributed the chapter "Understanding: Acceleration in Spiritual Information," to Unity School's New Thought for a New Millennium, writing on his favorite subjects of humility, science and religion. Here are two excerpts from this chapter:
"For more than seventy-five years, I have been reading the works of Unity School of Christianity, especially the writings of Charles, Myrtle, and Lowell Fillmore. The Unity School viewpoint is especially attractive because of its willingness to be open and receptive and nonopposing to the writings of other denominations and religions. A desire to increase in understanding speaks of a humility of spirit that can mean serving others, as when Jesus said, It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant.6
Charles Fillmore taught that 'Spiritual discernment reveals that knowledge and intelligence are auxiliary to understanding.' Understanding can both spring from and produce an inner feeling for right relations. It enhances the ability to lay hold of right relationships and utilize them for the highest good of humanity - a quality so pertinent at this moment in history."
"All in all, the voices for the millennium will certainly be calling for greater understanding in all areas of human endeavors - scientifically, philosophically, and spiritually. This will be the kind of awareness that can incorporate increasingly modern scientific discoveries with a higher, more fundamental understanding of the cosmos."7
THE TWELVE POWERS INTEGRATE SPIRIT, SOUL, BODY
The twelve powers integrate spirit, soul, and body. The Twelve Powers study and application developed by Charles Fillmore is truly a holistic and dynamic model of the whole person. The body is honored and involved intimately in the understanding of our divine nature. We develop our Twelve Powers to express this divine nature in our bodies and the world, under the inspiration and guidance of God within, in balanced and productive activity. The Twelve Powers is a spiritual, psychosomatic process-oriented philosophy and practice. It conceives of us as a living system with related aspects that are meant to function in an integrated and harmonious manner together.
While most of science has wanted to confine itself to the material realm and most of religion wanted only to deal with the soul and spirit, we have sought to include all aspects of ourselves in holistic synthesis for practical life understanding, integration, and progress. The Twelve Powers is the new paradigm for the new millennium!
1 Twelve Powers In You TV/Video & book by David & Gay Lynn Williamson & Robert Knapp, MD
2 Corinthians 1:10
3 Reader's Digest, "Faith Is Powerful Medicine," October, 1999, Reprints: 1 -800-289-6457
4 Prayer Is Good Medicine by Larry Dossey, MD
5 The Essential Charles Fillmore compiled by James Gaither, Unity Books
6 Matthew 20:26
7 New Thought for a New Millennium Michael Maday, Editor, Unity Books
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