In the selfist model, science and religion are identical in what they do to me. I arrive at this conclusion, not by evaluating them in terms of their arguments relative to one another, but in how they impact me directly. If I try to make sense of either of these ideologies excluding myself, I will only conduct an imaginistic exercise. To realize their essential similarity, I must explain them in terms of myself. As the observer of both, I am in the constant. It is my own observation of, and imagination of these two which give them existence. Without me observing them, they do not exist.
How are science and religion the same?
- They both introduce a conceptual framework that reduces me to the role of observer and spectator in my existence by:
- Convincing me that what is important and valuable happens somewhere “outside of me”.
- Introducing a set of values and behaviors deemed acceptable. In the case of religion, as morality and conduct, and in the case of science as achievement and progress.
- Introducing events and facts that I can neither directly nor instantly experience or validate. In the case of religion as imaginary events in the past, and in the case of science as imaginary theories, experiments, and conclusions from the past and ongoing.
- Introducing authorities who represent the values, attest to the events and facts, surrounded by large communities of supporters and detractors.
- Consequently, they disempower me from deciding what existence is.
Once I decide that either religion or science provides the answer I seek, I am drawn toward my thirdself as an observer, rather than my firstself as the creator. As a thirdself observer, I cannot see the answers I seek, only the illusions I am given. I cannot pursue release through descent, only relief through ascent.
My discretion must be oriented toward things I can instantly and directly validate. Which do not draw me into imagined arenas. The proper way to engage religion and science, is to disengage from religion and science. Both are the thirdself emanations, and neither will provide me the release I seek.
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