The Metaphysical Question

My dad is a religious man. He wasn't always so and the story of how he got converted is a one that he loves telling often. Me while on the other hand, I'm not. I believe in the physical. Things that have been tried and tested by science.

My father is also a smart man. High IQ. The works. So I have never for a long time reconciled how a smart man would believe that sins can be forgiven, healing can occur by prayer alone and a faith in a Man found in the sky.

But when you think about it, religion is older than science. People have believed in the supernatural for so long that even the most hardened of scientists has once or twice thought; Is there more to this?

And it reminds me of the last two centuries where man came from believing that disease was caused by humors and spirits to proving the existence of germs.

How those scientists must have been ridiculed; telling people that there were these small things that could not be seen, that were causing some of the most dangerous diseases of their time.

So, are the forces behind religion the next greatest scientific discovery? Are there things present in the universe right now that we cannot perceive using our limited 5 senses, but which something tells us is there?

Another example. It might surprise you to know that numbers do not exist in the physical world. They are an abstract concept only in our brain that are used to explain the physical world. Yet they form the basis of much of science today. Is religion so different?

Is it that those who believe in science alone have closed themselves unnecessarily to a perhaps important aspect of our existence?