Today’s blog is about the relationship between science and religion, yin and yang. It was inspired by a friend of mine who wrote a poem about how angry she was that religion stole her relationship with God by making him into a judgemental, hail and brimstone one.
It’s interesting because Matias de Stefano says that Christianity, Islam and Judaism all came from the desert, where the sun (equated with light & God) is harsh - if you do not follow the rules of society you can die in the desert. So God is seen as punishing, fierce and paternalistic. Conversely in the Tropics, the sun is nurturing, giving life to plants and people, and so in Vedic, Taoist and forest people’s spirituality God is seen as nurturing and maternalistic.
Remember the darkness of Kali Yuga ignorance has a purpose - it is darkest just before the dawn, and suffering forces us to evolve. The Church’s deliberate misguidance so the few could control the many is what happens when the yin-yang energies become imbalanced and yang reaches its zenith. Yang or the divine masculine is all about action, getting things done and creating order and structure. That’s what western religions were aiming to do, to create order. But when yang gets out of balance it becomes rigidly structured, fearful of change and so becomes controlling, dominating and obsessed with power. Hence church doctrines and attempts at world domination, and of course the subjugation of the divine feminine with all its wisdom traditions and intuitive spirituality.
When the yang has spent itself, as is always the way when things get out of balance, the yin has a chance to rise, which is where we are at now with the age of Aquarius and people’s search for the spiritual truth inside, bypassing the middleman of old outdated religious structures. The yugas, the equinoxes and changing zodiac signs are natures way of correcting the imbalances, as we move from the polarities of Pisces towards the divine feminine of the Aquarius age. The cosmos creates the energies of transformation so that things cannot remain stagnant for long.
So yes, church doctrine was all about power so the few could control the many. But it also came from a fear of change, a concern that all would lead from order to chaos and destruction. Ultimately it’s existential fear that drives these things; humanities fear of death, the new and unknown.
Here’s an interesting thought about church dogma. Without the church getting so out of yin-yang balance and attempting world domination, we would not have science, which pushed back against religious and superstitious ideas by meticulously following the scientific method to find truth. We would not be communicating like this through the internet without that tension in history. We would not be connected in the way that we are had the church been any other way. Just as the darkness of WW11 ended up creating a huge shift in consciousness towards unity (the EU, the UN, women's liberation, the end of colonialism and so on), so the church stranglehold precipitated a new scientific worldview and way of life.
Now of course the scientific worldview is starting to get rigid and dogmatic, which will create crises and opportunities for new growth and perspectives to rise out of that. So we cannot see things so black and white, as this is good and that is bad. All has its purpose. ‘Snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place’ as the zen saying goes. All is perfect. Light always prevails in the end.
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