Eastern Religion For Western Gnostics

Is religion compatible with science? "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra famously attempted to draw parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism. What Capra conspicuously avoided was any comparison between the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – and physics. These religions of faith have no scientific component whatever. They stand in stark opposition to science. There is no middle ground, no compromise, and no basis for mutual understanding. This is a dialogue of the deaf. But, as Capra showed so vividly, the “enlightenment” religions (as opposed to the faith religions) are potentially scientifically compatible.

The West has, in the last few hundred years, been the engine of scientific progress, yet the dominant religions of the West – the Abrahamic faiths – are unscientific and indeed anti-scientific. This has led to an extraordinary and damaging dichotomy in the Western mind. While science promotes atheistic materialism, religion tries to deny the findings of science or it engages in an illogical pretence that the incompatible statements of science and religion can somehow be reconciled or are complementary. It’s a kind of “magic” thinking or Orwellian doublethink where two contradictory ideas are held simultaneously.

But doesn’t the West have any enlightenment religions, the equivalent of the Eastern religions, that might allow science and religion to find common ground? In fact, it does, but you rarely hear about them because of the dominance of Abrahamism. The Western religions of enlightenment mostly exist only in fragments now, having suffered terminal persecution at the hands of Christians in particular.

This book compares and contrasts the Gnostic religion of Illumination – the religion of the ancient secret society known as the Illuminati – with the main Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, and suggests that all four religions can be brought together under one banner – Enlightenment – that may stand in united opposition to Abrahamism: knowledge against faith.