Amita Manandhar
The Paw Print
Can science and religion ever co-exist together? According to Reverend Michael Dowd it can. In fact Reverend Dowd believes that both Science and religion go hand in hand.
Reverend Michael Dowd is an inspirational speaker and has written two books. One of his recent books “Thank God for Evolution” is a book that aims to build a bridge between science and religion. His wife Connie is also a noted science writer, and has written four books so far. Both of them have been living on the road for ten years, travelling and sharing the sacred view of evolution with several religious and secular groups.
Reverend Dowd gave a presentation on Sacred Science in Adams State University on Monday, Nov 12. In the presentation he talked about how science has changed the way we view this world in a different light. He talked about how humans have evolved from the time when humans believed the world was flat, to now when we have deeper knowledge about the universe.
The world that we live in today is vastly different from the past culture. Dowd said due to these changing times and cultural differences, the old religious scriptures will not be able to empower us to thrive in the present day world, no matter how good and insightful they are. It’s because today we live in a world that is filled with things like drugs, alcohol, internet, social networking, porn, romance novels and so much more that the ancients never had to deal with. Thus, the old scriptures would not have appropriate explanation of the modern human nature abnormalities.
Dowd said our global problems such as sexual deviancy, sex scandals of religious leaders and war, stems from inadequate understanding of human nature. He said that the old religious ideas are not consistent with the changing world because it does not help us understand the inner nature of a person. However, he does agree to the fact that religion is something that has the ability to make people cooperate.
“If you see 50,000 insects working together, you know that they are genetically connected. If you see 50,000 people cooperating, then you know that religion is involved,” he said.
The whole idea of his presentation was to show people a sacred, meaningful and inspiring way of thinking about our inner and outer nature in a way that helps us live with greater integrity, compassion, and love. His mission is to help people cooperate across ethnic, religious and political differences in service of a healthy future.
Dowd believes that there can be a worldwide spiritual revival if all the religion would tolerate and accept the ecological and evolutionary world view. He said if science and religion is to cooperate with each other it will only help the humans to go further and live in harmony.
The presentation was well received by the audience which consisted of both older and younger generation. Alamosa resident Marianne Dunn said that she was delighted to hear the presentation and was glad that Dowd was invited at ASU.
“God is truth, and science is one of the ways that we can arrive to really understand the mystery of God, and also our own existence,” said Dunn.
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