Our Dual Realities - Spirituality and Science

Our world has been divided between believers in religion and spirituality and those of science, and material realities. The most devout believers of each of these two worlds swear upon their beliefs and are even willing to die for them.

Whereas these are admirable qualities, they’re hardly something today to give your life for. It’s very arguable that both science and religion have been inspired by the same, one and only God, our Heavenly Parent. Indeed we have witnessed how inspired our messengers from God have become upon stumbling on a law or principle affecting mankind or nature, be it scientific or religious.

In this short presentation I want to introduce the problem of people not understanding religion. This is an essay that’s directed both to religious / spiritual people as well as the non religious.

As much as the study of science is not for the sake of science itself nor for the benefit of a scholar or an institution or a nation sponsoring it alone, the study of religion is not to memorize and recite holy texts or speak praises of a leader, and aim for superiority above another, but to lead to restoration of our minds.

In both cases we have a very serious task of making all of mankind whole and happy; this happiness also includes God Himself. We’re here to improve our lives, all peoples’, for the sake of giving God wholesome children through whom He can live an existence of giving substantially, and also for man to exercise the third blessing of dominion over the cosmos.

Man’s beginnings How old is mankind? This is a classic. Are we 6000 years old as a species or are we hundreds of thousands of years old? Depends on who we ask. Religious people have died giving their lives in belief that God spoke the literal truth in the Adam & Eve Bible story of being only 6000 years ago. Scientists stand fast behind their findings using all their state of the art scientific equipment showing evidence that our human existence dates back to even hundreds of

thousands of years or more.

Religion was never meant as a competition to science. It can’t compete. It has a different purpose. Religion is by force symbolic, filled with figures of speech, using poetic license as its style. Thus, it’s easy to see where confusion and animosity have its roots.

Clarifying religion Very clear has become the need to clarify the different roles, both of religion and science; the Divine Principle and Unification Thought; Science has the role of making our physical, material lives better. The material world is the base for mankind’s bodies to grow strong, with the purpose of fulfilling the three blessings. As our bodies grow, Heavenly Father can live more wholesomely in us. By making stronger bodies, we can learn better and be more in tune with our environments.

As we perfect ourselves and have the parental experience with our families, we naturally expand this heart to include creation. We see how our relationship with creation has also evolved.

Animals which used to be considered our possessions, pets, have become our children. Often this is seen in homes that have become empty nests, where children have moved out and couples remain alone. They end up bringing in something that could even symbolically take place of the missing children and consider them so. The desire to continuously take care of someone or something as family continues.

Even without empty nests people adopt animals to be part of the family. Much consideration is given before leaving an animal behind.

This is the third blessing. Animal communicators are talking of animals who are asking not to be called pets because it’s a heart of ownership rather than one of being a member of the family.

We see that with the merit of the age, God through mankind’s development, is able to also come closer to His creation, having a relationship of deeper heart. The spirit of oneness can only exist as an extended family, not one of

ownership, something resembling master-slave.

Restoration through symbolism As mentioned before, Father has repeatedly mentioned that Adam & Eve lived 6000 years ago but that humankind is many hundreds of thousands of years old; Father even hinted at millions of years old. The study of the background of the Bible is in itself very interesting; we can clearly see how Heavenly Father can be very sorrowful at our history and background. There was an evolution of ideas and thought processes. Symbolism might have started with the worship of celestial bodies, ultimately morphing the idols into an anthropomorphic level where we are studying and worshiping events which actually represent ancient beliefs; the weekday names are an example.

Heavenly Father is forever working to raise His children from whatever levels we are at. The Principle states that God works with results. Whether good or bad, high or low, our Father in Heaven is constantly, unendingly fighting to subdue our satanic nature.

When I first presented my idea of there being no angels to a friend a few years back she asked me why I was doing this, I interpreted this to mean why I was rewriting the Divine Principle as it were. I had to do a lot of thinking. For sure it was not my own energies that was pushing me; I definitely felt it was Heavenly Father egging me on. Still, that egging didn’t answer her question as to why. I had to keep studying and praying.

We often study O-D-U in individual and family context. Societal, world and cosmic are less emphasized. As the providence had not yet reached that level, it was not so important.

I also searched from the point-of-view of how to witness and bring God / True Parents to atheists, agnostics, and generally to people uninterested in God or religion.

At the same time I’ve seen spiritual / religious people believe blindly what they’re taught. Some have not developed an analytical, critical thought process which would lead to a deeper understanding of the Divine Principle, religion and science, material difference, i.e., putting religion in context.

To be frank, I didn’t have the answers. Understanding came when I began analyzing the angel question, do angels exist, i.e., did God indeed ever create an angel?

Gradually this led me to see that religion and material are indeed two different worlds each needing clear parameters. Most religious people do not know how or where to divide their offering in half. We’re not taught. Few can give a clear answer.

If O-D-U cannot be processed in our minds on a cosmic level, perfection and dominion cannot take place on the cosmic level; we have a subject and object.

Religion is a course all mankind must undergo for the purpose of restoration through indemnity. We do not know the facts of the origin of the Fall, nor the process. When and where did the original Adam & Eve story take place? True Parents have hinted many details. There was no snake. No apple. Eden was just a symbolic place of no sin, etc. The big question, of course, is if there was no angel turned Satan then what was the Fall all about? This is possibly THE main stumbling block to accepting the non angel as fact; not as traditional Bible scholars understand it.

In addition, in the Principle there is a person mentioned who had no parallel in history. He wasn’t explained. His ideas weren’t expounded on. His name remained just that, a name in the all important Divine Principle.

Swedenborg some 500 years ago spent 30 years traveling through spirit world, learning its secrets. He said he never encountered a single angel in the sense we traditionally study the angel in the Principle and Bible. The angels are bodies of people fulfilling missions, given names such as Gabriel, etc.

In the Bible and other Unificationist member sources of trust we read directly and indirectly a confirmation of this idea and its history. Indeed, in the Unification Thought we also see the angel is never mentioned, whereas Satan is mentioned only once.

To establish our cosmic level O-D-U we need to have clear thoughts and understanding. The third blessing means we are in charge, have dominion. i.e., we must understand what we are responsible for, lords over. In this example, it

means it doesn’t include angels which are us with our imperfect thought patterns.