On Spirituality

By Barrie Hammond

Humanists prefer the word “spirituality” to “religiousity” believing it encompasses a broader spectrum of questions and appreciations than does the terminology of religion.Another dichotomy Humanists often make is that between science and religion. Perhaps the word spirituality may reduce this other division between science and religion since most Humanists agree that we need both science and spirituality. Benjamin Bloom used two words for high level thinking in his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. His words in this book were “analysis” and “Synthesis”. Today we might use the words science and spirituality since much of what we have learned scientifically has come from analysis and much of what we know about saving the earth comes from spirituality. Bloom was right in that we need both analysis and synthesis, just as we need both science and spirituality. Science is a cognitive approach to knowing which includes actions like locating genes, splitting atoms and observing trends in nature such as how acid rain affects trees. Spirituality is a more intuitive way of knowing which looks holistically at how knowing about genes and atoms might help humanity, and how acid rain might affect the maple syrup market. Spirituality need not be considered in conflict with science. They are mainly different ways of knowing. Without science we would have trouble feeding people, but without spirituality we night not be alerted to the fact that 1.2 billion people are suffering unnecessarily because this food is not shared equitably. Science might lead us to an “us” and “them” compartmentalization or to a fragmentation of people. Spirituality might signal that such a dichotomy is not humane. People appear to span a belief system from certainty to skepticism. I sense science and spirituality might help to reduce this span by showing that there is more to knowing than either reason or intuition.