parados wrote:Science can be duplicated by a dispassionate tester. Spirituality can not.
Science doesn't require belief to test it.
I'm grateful for all of the advances of technology and the remarkable insights into nature that science has brought us, but it does not change the individual in a deep and profound way. It is not participatory. The scientist must remain dispassionate in order to be objective. Scientists can even be immature and immoral because the only demand on them is to follow the rules of doing science.
The purpose of spirituality, on the other hand, is to change the individual. However, it is not strictly true that spirituality requires belief and cannot be duplicated. Certain spiritual paths require "faith", but not all. There are spiritual rituals or techniques -- meditation, breathing exercises, chanting, yoga, etc. -- that can be practiced without faith in any religious dogma, or even belief in the efficacy of the technique itself. If a person chooses to "test" the spiritual "hypothesis" by practicing a spiritual technique (without accepting untested beliefs), their personal experience will tell them whether the "hypothesis" passes the "test". Did you experience a shift in your awareness? Do you witness beneficial changes in your psychological or physiological state? Does your experience reveal a spiritual dimension that you did not previously recognize? In that sense, spirituality "can be duplicated by a dispassionate tester".
