How to Modernize Religion

The possibility of harmonizing science and religion rests on the assumption that scientific and religious worldviews are simply different understanding vantage points of the same ultimate truth. Yet, every effort at reconciling them has failed. Why? It is due to the rational belief that the logic of cause and effect should apply across the boundary separating their respective domains. For cause and effect to remain intact across the full extent of reality, events and actions occurring in the metaphysical domain that reference or pertain to the physical domain should produce observable effects in the physical domain and vice-versa. But, theistic religions have a common and serious flaw that violates the strictures of causality: if one looks for the effects of the activity of the God they envision, they cannot be detected. This indicates a fault with either the logic of cause and effect or with the tenets of a religion’s model. Because the logic of cause and effect has never been refuted, the model becomes suspect.

Humanity is at the threshold of the maturation of knowledge, and science and religion should not remain disjoint if reality’s foundations are not fractured. If a coherent cohesive unitary reality is true, the existing worldview camps must evolve until they converge. Under this assumption, the continuing plethora of conflicting scientific and religious worldviews indicates fundamental misunderstandings. Based on the antiquity of religion and its failure to align with observation, rationality has it that religion’s models must adapt the most. Science is constrained by observation and the requirement to cohere with nature; therefore, if alignment with natural truth is a requirement, the need to transform lies largely with religion. Most of the extant religions arose in the ancient past and have remained fundamentally unchanged, which is consistent with their misalignment with the surveyance of natural history. To remedy this situation, religion needs to take a sharp turn towards conformance with observation. At a minimum, religion needs to accommodate well vetted scientific knowledge (e.g., the reality of evolution, the measured age of the earth, the big bang, etc.). 

The knowledge resources that are required for the modernization of religion have finally materialized. The abstractions that illuminate the themes of the architecture of physical reality are now understood and these themes also constrain the architecture of metaphysical reality. The upwelling of a truth rich, scientifically aligned religious philosophy has had to wait on science to uncover the essential motifs of the natural order. Science has only recently identified these abstractions, which derive from common architectural patterns that span all physical structure and behavior. In order for science and religion to contiguously affiliate, these themes must also underpin religion’s philosophical models. How can the primary themes of the physical realm’s architecture be identified and observed in the metaphysical realm of religion? This question cannot be answered unless the interface between the two realms is recognized. This touch point is known: the physical-metaphysical realm boundary phenomenon is consciousness, which possesses the same architectural understructure themes as the physical realm—the symmetry of existential neutrality and the discreteness of individuality.