Lens of Scientific Materialism

What do the rational, mechanistic, objective tenets of science have to do with violence and social unrest? Sure science has given us incredible machines and technologies that have compressed space and time beyond basic human capacities. But through the rationality of scientific methods and industrial age, we have also developed certain lenses through which we view the world. Capitalism and governments are results of scientific rationality. Education is an outgrowth of mechanistic objectivities that presume all children learn in the same ways, according to some predetermined model. ‘If all matter is fundamentally identical, then, put through identical experiments (“education”), it should turn out identical.’ Why are we surprised all children don’t excel in the same environment? Since the birth of agriculture 10,000 years ago (probably before), we have been struggling to control an infinitely diverse reality (nature) with dogmatic efforts to ‘finitize’ the world and subdue it with scientific rationality- a tool simply made up by this culture. We didn’t discover the laws of the universe; we saw what every species has seen for millions of years and called it something different. And for what benefit? Today’s society is the most unequal in the history of the planet (both between humans and between species [with humanity subjecting all other species to its audacious quests of ‘progress’ and ‘enlightenment’. ]). 2% of the population owning 50% of (what all culture calls) “resources” is NOT progress. There are more slaves today that EVER before. 90% of original forests are GONE, and ½ of all waterways are undrinkable. This is not enlightenment. We’ve gotten more ‘intelligent’, yet all the more ignorant of how to live without destroying one’s own habitat. ‘But we can make changes to the system; we can create technology to cover up our mistakes; we can turn the rain on and off; we can live in bubble cities not subject to the uncontrollable elements; we can cure all diseases, and finally, conquer nature once and for all.’ This is the dubious ‘Ascent of Humanity,’ the quest of modern science and technology to control, rather than form relationships [symbiotic and interdependent] that value the Earth for what it is: a living, breathing organism that gives us life. Depression rates increase every year; violence increases every year; social unrest is becoming more acute- all in the shadow of this ‘progress;’ all in the shadow of these ideologies of rationality that disparage the sacredness of the world and transform it into a sanitized laboratory. But… we’re only looking through one microscope. What we see and feel depends on what we believe. It is through these ‘belief templates’ that we truly do create our reality. We can change it whenever we want. When one template begins to create suffering- that spans across ALL species- it’s time to change the template. Do you believe that LOVE is a mere chemical reaction between ‘neurons’ in the brain?