Can Scientists and Religious Leaders See Eye to Eye?

If we just take God out of it

might there not be something

that your scientific beliefs

can't explain?

My name is Matt, 41 years old

I'm a pastor.

I'm Gyokei, 40 years old

I'm a minister of a Buddhist church

I'm Andrew, I'm 42

and I'm a chemist.

I'm Jess, I'm 36 and

I'm a volcanologist.

I'm Don, I'm 64

I'm a paleontologist and geologist.

I'm Amy, I'm 53 and I'm a rabbi.

[producer] I believe this universe

was created.

This is literally my greatest fear

that I'd be all alone in this circle

I believe that this world

was created, I've placed my faith

in a God that is infinitely creative

in what he's made

He then deserves my worship

and my affection.

Seriously, last night I was

talking to my wife

I was like, what if there was a question

that I'm the only one that agrees to

She said just stay where you are

Like I don't know

The big problem is the minute you start

talking about a creator and I battle

creationism most of my entire career

as an evolutionary biologist

and paleontologist.

It brings in a whole category of things

that violate my rules as a scientiest

as well

and when I step back right now

especially when I step back

to where I started as a religious

person when I was younger

I look at this and I say

you know, if anything, what we see now

about the universe shows

how poorly designed it is

how sloppy it is and

how painful it is

and all these things which don't

speak to a very benevolent creator

because if anything it makes him

look bad.

I don't believe in a supernatural God

I'm a re-constructionist Jew

For me I don't rely on a supernatural

creator in order to remain astounded

at the beauty of this world

It's sloppy, it's the world right

We're sloppy, the world is sloppy

But it's also incredibly magical

and worthy of awe

and respect

and that it's here is amazing

that we're here is amazing

I wanna live in relationship to that

amazement.

[producer] Science can answer

moral questions.

I never looked to science to

go like, is murder right or wrong

I look to science to say how many

murders were committed last week

you know, that' s what I want to know

and then say there's a trend

what is the cause of these murders?

and then we use

different tools, I guess is the

best way of putting it

to assess whether or not

we should be murdering people.

Where do those morals come from then?

I think they're innate in humans

All societies have had certain things

that they agree on

regardless of religious background

and so on

we don't require a deity or

any kind of religion

to give us those things,

we come with them as part

of our species

and for me, it's not so much a science

can answer moral questions but

science certainly can guide us

in a lot of ways

especially when moral questions and

conflict with reality we've now

learned it

[producer] there are things that

my beliefs cannot explain.

I've got serious gaps in my faith

that require a supernatural answer

I mean, I can't understand and fathom

the complexities of the universe

all on my own

I'm a Christian

at a church service,

someone had a hurt shoulder

and they said my shoulder hurts

can you pray for my shoulder to get better

I'm gonna be honest with you

I have about 5 percent faith

that's gonna work out

but I prayed for him

I put my hand on his shoulder

and I said, you know,

I want this shoulder to get healed

in Jesus name

and I walked away thinking

Oh no, another disappointed person

who didn't get healed today

Well the next morning,

that person called me

and said

you wouldn't believe it

my shoulder feels 100 percent

better

I still don't have a good answer

to that but I just know

every time I get an answer

or an opportunity to

exercise my faith

in a supernatural way,

I wanna take that opportunity

cause I just don't know what

the answer might be

It could be something terrific.

I totally agree with you.

I liked it when you said

5 percent,

I pretty much feel the same way

But in my hometown in Japan,

we have this kind of service

to sort of console the spirits

in the land

when we chant for like an hour

half an hour maybe

then everybody feels so

peaceful

but then I can't quite

explain, logically

and that's sufficient in that situation.

Science is all about understanding

what we can understand

and in science you're pretty much

not allowed to even consider

the supernatural because it's

beyond testable hypothesis,

it's beyond anything that you can

evaluate in any,

in what we might call,

an objective manner

we are comfortable with the idea

that we do not know something

and we say we do not know something

and that someday we might

find the answer or we may not

There's a lot out there

that we can't explain

that has absolutely nothing to do with

my beliefs

I was raised Catholic and

I'm just as confused now as

I was then, about what's really

going on, you know

there is this small amount of stuff

we can explain,

I don't need to have a belief

about it,

I don't even need to go beyond

that and just decide that

it's magnificent and terrifying

all at the same time

and just kinda leave it at that.

So I think your answer to

the question would have been yes,

I mean, cause I think you might agree

that there's stuff that you

can't even know to test yet

so, maybe there's something beyond

scientific theory and proof that we

don't even know yet.

And I'm not saying God

If we just take God out of it,

might there not be something

that your scientific beliefs can't explain

That's right, certainly

but

it also, in my philosophy,

I don't see any point in putting

in any kind of supernatural label on it

as an explanation,

it's just not solving the problem.

[producer] I believe in life after death.

Well I'm so glad you're with me

Cause I didn't want to be here all by myself

I mean I just see purpose for our lives

that extends beyond the here and now

there's an eternity that God wants

to have with us

his love for us is so deep

that it desires to have a

continued relationship with us

as far as time goes on.

Because I lived in Long Beach

I go down to the beach and I see

the waves in the ocean

at the beach they come ashore

then they leave

we compare that to life

we take different shapes and

different forms

and the length of the wave

we have no idea

you show up in different locations

which you have no control

the idea that we

this momentary shape that we have

this life, and trying to preserve it

we kind of miss the whole point

that we are actually that greater

oceans.

In my limited capacity

as an individual human,

like in this form, in this shape

I have no idea, how could I possibly

have any idea on what that

being an ocean is gonna mean

or be

so I know that I will continue

to be part of the universe

but not as me

not as this

I would agree with that

I mean, I see no evidence from anything

that I can observe, or anything that

goes on that's more than just wishful

thinking that humans in some

form can exist in some afterlife

where they'r recognizable and

their identities carry on.

When I was a kid

I asked my dad

If our pets would be waiting for us

in heaven when we died

and my dad said no

and I was shocked

and I was like why would there

not be pets in heaven

and my dad's like

well there are animals

and i'm like why not my animals?

and he's like they're just like

a generic cat and a generic dog

and I went, wait what?

At that point, I started to question

wait a minute, what happens next?

And I'm kind of with a lot of you

guys here

and just saying that look

you know

wouldn't it be great if we could go on

and on and on but I think

because we don't see any evidence for it

I have to be in the camp of

well we get this one shot

make the most of it

do the best you can

and then when it's done

you know

don't have any regrets

live with doing as much as you could

that is good

so that you will live on

in the memories of those who

stay behind.

I'm so sorry your dad told you

your dog's not going to heaven

What a crushing thing to hear as a child

All good dogs go to heaven

That's what the movies said

It must be true.

I think he was trying to like

let me down gently

but I don't know

Like some days, I'm like totally zen

I'm totally like totally there

Like it's okay

It's all one and I will just not exist

I'm usually not as afraid of death

as I am of dying

I'm afraid of dying

Like I've seen some really bad dying

I'm very afraid of pain and

of the process of dying but

I lost both my parents from cancer

So i've witnessed both processes

My mum died

Over 30 years ago and it was

It was painful to witness that

how my mum's health kind of deteriorated

And my dad

went through the same process

but then he was writing letters

and it just really coincides with

Buddhist teachings that I'm

having a wonderful day and I'm really

grateful for everybody who supports us

We have a saying that,

every day is as you say, the greatest day

I can see that, you know,

intelectually I can understand it

but I just wasn't sure if I could

feel, if I would be able to say something

like that.

[producer] It's important to question

one's own beliefs.

Man I'm such a skeptic

and that includes questioning

my own beliefs

especially if I form a hypothesis

and I'm working on an experiment

I mean you always kinda want it to go

a certain way and you have to

do your best to remove that

bias and a lot of times

if you're in research

it just doesn't work.

One of the things I tell students

cause I work with students a lot

with my non-profit organization

and I tell them

as they're journeying to becoming scientists

and they come from all sorts of

different backgrounds

I just say

look, don't ever work with anyone

who's afraid to admit that they don't know

something or that they're wrong

like those are really important qualities

whether it's in science

or any aspect of life.

The whole fun in being a scientist

is trying to break things

and I actually wanted to start a journal

of scientific mistakes

so that we could

share with each other what went wrong

because too often we only talk about

the successes

and I think it's very valuable

to also know what failure is

and what it teaches us.

Questioning is such a healthy thing

I always think it's a healthy thing

So whenever I see younger

monastics or priests

like yeah, go ahead and question

question me or question what you do

and then be okay

and you need to understand

understand intellectually

but at the same time,

I want you to understand there are things

that's beyond this

intellectual understanding.

So that's an unrecognizable part of

understanding that comes

only through experience.

Nice meeting you!

Hey guys, this is John

and I'm Kendra

thank you so much for watching

this episode of Middle Ground

make sure to let us know what you think

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