For centuries the discrepances between religion and science have been planted into the minds of the small children at school. And still are we not able to give them a better answer. Religion and science have different stories to tell about the origin of the world and other items. Must it be that way? Will not bouth sides say something about the same reality? Has religion and science something in common, if they are studied with an open mind? Or can they perhaps be unified? To inquire into this is the objective of this book.

This book (approx. 200 p.) is expected to be published in Norwegian in 1999. The author wishes to get in contact with a suitable UK or USA publisher. After the Table of Contents you will find a synopsis.

1	INTRODUCTION
2	WHAT SHOULD A COMPREHENSIVE VIEW CONTAIN? How is reality? - Objectives and means on earth - Objective and purpose in a larger context
3	THE CHOSEN RELIGIONS Buddhism - Hinduism - Islam - Judaism - Christianity - and five small religions
4	WHAT DO THE RELIGIONS SAY ABOUT THE KEY ISSUES? The origin - Summary - The primary sources - Notions - The key issues (The nature of God - The human nature - Relationship between the earth and the "other side" - Paranormal phenomena - Goals - Teachings - Rules of conduct - Objectives) - Commentaries
5	WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON? A comprehensive view - Notions - What do they have in common?
6	OUTCOME FROM THE PROJECT ALONG THE BORDER OF INSIGHT
7	SKETCH OF A COMPREHENCIVE VIEW ON EXISTENCE Introduction - Main features of development - Additional descriptions and explainations - Commentaries
8	HOW DOES THIS CORRESPOND WITH CHRISTIANITY OF TODAY? What do we mean by christianity? - Are the scriptures correctly translated and interpreted? - Supplementary descriptions - Some additional questions conserning christianity
APPENDIX: On some so-called mystics Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373) - Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) - Zarathustra (ca.700 b.Chr.) - .Pythagoras (ca.600 b.Chr.) - Augustin (345-430) - Huineng (675-751) - Al-Halladj (858-922) - Hildegard from Bingen (1098- 1179) - Dejal Ud-din Rumi (1207-1273) - Angela from Foligno (ca.1250-1309) - Master Eckehardt (ca.1260 -1327) - Julian from Norwich (ca.1342-1415) - Teresa av Avila (1515-1579) - Isak Luria (1534-1575) - Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) - Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824) - Luice Buchmann (1884-1944) - Rudolf Steiner 81861-1925) - (Johannes Greber (1874-1944) - Martinus (1890-1981) - Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) - Other forms of contact with the supernatural - Commentaries

© Johan Lem

Synopsis to

          CAN SCIENCE AND RELIGION BE UNIFIED?

From page 49, The "other side"
What does the Gita say about "the other side"? Does it exist, and what does it eventually look like? The Gita comments on how it is on "the other side" on several occasions. First of all; it sais there is a life to come. And it give some description on how it is. There are good and less good worlds, and is sais something about who will come there. It seems to use the terms gods and goddesses about what is called engels in other religions; pure entities of transparent matter living in non-material worlds. In addition humans seem to exist on "the other side" during the time between two incarnations on Earth.

"Those being devoted to the gods, come to the gods, and those devoted to the ancestors' spirits, come to the spirits of the ancestors. But those offering to me, come to me." (6,74,25). "And those listening with faith and without dissatisfaction, are liberated to the beautiful worlds, where they live who are doing well." (6,121,71). "Happy is a warrior who by chance comes in such a struggle; it is an open door to heaven." (6,36,32). "If you die, you will come to heaven; are you victorious, you can enjoy life on Earth. So, stand up, Arjuna, be sure that you shall fight!" (6,36,37).

"Dubious and ignorant is the non-believer destroyed. Not this world nor the world beyond is present to him, nor pleasure." (6,51,40). Lead astray by different kinds of thoughts, caught in the net of confusion, dependant on satisfying one's lust, one falls down into the nasty hell." (6,107,16).

Relations between the Earth and the world beyond
Thus, there is a life after death. How it will be depends upon the persons level of development when he or she died. There is reincarnation. It will continue until one has reached a level, where a new live on Earth is not necessary any longer. In spite of this, such a person may be incarnated anew in order to help other people in their development.

"The wise ones who have diciplined their consciousness, let the fruits of their action go. Liberated from the chains of their action they will come where there is no suffering. When your consciousness has come through the chaos of blindness, you will become indifferent to what you hear and what you have heared of traditional knowledge. (6,38,51/52).

"Arjuna, neighter here nor on the other side shall he be destroyed. No one doing the good, my friend, will have an evel faith. He arrives at the heavenly worlds of the good ones, and after having lived there for an infinit number of years, will he who has lost his way, be born with honest and good people. Or he is born into a diciplined family, and such a birth is still more difficult to achive." (6,62,40/42). Comment: All people being in the cyclus of rebirth seem to be called people having lost one's way.

From page 89 - 4.46 Commentaries
As judaism is so closely connected with juish history, the historian can to a certain degree control the correctness of some of the information in the holy skriptures. And this comparison takes continuously place. What we see is that some of the information in the holy scriptures correspond with what the historians have found. Other questions are open in the sense that - untill now - the historians have not found a counterpart in (the acheological) reality. And in some cases the historians mean that they have discovered wrong information in the holy scriptures. We take some central examples from IV.1,97: Excavations show that Jerico did not exist at the time (c. 1350 b.Chr.) when Josua - in accordance with the bible - conquered the town. Before that, Moses shall have led the people of Israel out of Egypt and to Israel. However, the first indications of settlings in this region did not start untill c. 150 years later. And nothing indicate that they were hebrews.

As we have seen, the paranormal phenomena have plaid a central role for the jews, their belief and history. Was it only phantasy or real paranormal phenomena? Such phenomena have been reported throughout their history - over a period of c. 1300 years. Many paranormal events have had a large number of witnesses. In addition the phenomena have been carefully documented by people who must have known the serious consequences of rushing through one's work or of wrong reporting, although it - as the scriptures tell - has occured. It is, on the other hand striking how the hebrews repeatedly fell back to idolatry in spite of all the signs they had seen.

The scriptures tell about a rough time with wars and brutality. And - by our standards - the God of Israel used drastic means - perhaps due to the unfaithfulness and idolary of the people? Or due to the risk that false prophets should foil the plan of God? Was it so important what the Lord wanted with the jewish people, that what was nessecary to do - also with their neighbours - had to be done to assure that the Lord might achieve His goals? We also see that the Lord often uses human helpers, but not always: (2.King. 19.35): "The angel of the Lord went that night out and killed 185 000 men in the camp of the assyrians." In the next example the people had to do the job themselves (Esra.10.44): "All of them had married foreign women, but now they sent away the women and the children." As to Esra, this happened according to the will of God.


From page 92 - 4.54 Notions
To better understand the quotations below it will be helpfull first to discuss some notions, and we will do it in an alphabetic order.

Two notions of death
NT uses the notion of death in two connections, and it is important to keep them apart at the many places in the NT where it is of interest. We have taken the following from (21): "... Be faithful into death, and I shall give you the crown of life. Those who have ears, hear what the Spirit has to say to the communities! The one who wins, shall not be struck by the other death." (R.2.10).

Both notions of death are used here. To keep them apart the text uses the notion "the other death". Obviously the first death is the earthly death, that all human beings shall go through. If one is faithful to God until that death, one avoids the other death. Obviously, it consists of being unfaithful to God, to turn one's back against God, to get into opposision to God or deny him. Then one is in the kingdom of death. By being faithful one attains on the other hand the crown of life on the "other side": One lives in spite of death. One lives a conscious life in the kingdom of life - that is the kingdom of God.

In the opposite case one dies to the part of the "other side" called the kingdom of death. One is dead in the two meanings; physically and spiritually. It is, however possible too, to live in opposision to God on Earth. Then one is (spiritually) dead, even if one lives (physically) on Earth.

While NT uses two notions of death, there are even tree notions of life. All of them are illuminated by what has been said: The first one referes to the normal (physical) life on Earth. As said before, one can - in spite of this - be spiritually dead, if one is in opposision to God. In addition one may live spiritually, if one lives in the light of God. In that case one lives in a twofold sense, both physically and spiritually. The third notion of life is linked to the fact that life is conscious. In all cases conscious entities are involved. Even those who are physical and spiritual dead - lasting in the kingdom of death - live in the sense that they are conscious entities with the ability to think and experience the horror which is described at so many places in the NT.

Eternity
Aeon is the Greek word that mostly is translated to eternal. However, eaon has more meanings. Mostly the meaning of this word is age or era or a very long period of time, or only period of time. But the meaning may also be "without beginning and until now" or "from now and without an end" or "eternal" in the meaning without beginnng and without end. In the NT aeon is translated into "eternal" although it seems that a nearer reason not has been given.

From page 125 - The "small" religions (summary)

As to Bardo Thödol a trinity is the origin to all that has come into being. The human being is in a development process towards perfection. This process comprises normally more than one life on Earth. There is an "other side" that also includes a hell. In the perfection there are paradicelike spiritual kingdoms.

The Kaldeic Oracles say that the Father is the origin source and the top of the leading hierarchy in heaven, the "second spirit" however, is the creator. On the "other side" there are worlds with good and bad spirits. The bad ones can bother the humans and even occupy them. The evel has come into being through some sort of fall of man. There is reincarnation which continues until the soul has reached a state where reincarnation is not necessary any longer. The development taking place on Earth shall re-unite the humans with the Father. A divine sparcle within the human soul makes this possible.

As to Gnostisism the human is a consequence of a cosmic struggle between Light and Darkness. There are several condensation levels in the creation. The human being consists of body, soul and spirit. The spirit is a divine sparcle the nature of wich is eternal. In the humans it is obscure. The human being achieve salvation by means of insight, and insight is also necessary for the development of the world.

Also the Sufism tells that there is a divine sparcle in the heart of man, being in harmony with the total existence. But egotism lies like a dark carpet over this divine sparcle. The path towards God is an inward way of insight combined with purification. Trance and ecstacy create connection with the spiritual world.

Sentral in sjamanism is the development of paranormal abilities on a fundament of strong self dicipline and - in some cases - morality. These abilities open up for access to a spiritual world in which the experienced sjaman gradually feels at home like in this vorld.

From page 132 - The scientific method
The scientific method in its most stringent form sais that there must be documentation from experiments confirmed by other corresponding investigations if something shall be accepted as real. In general this is OK, but it appears to be very narrowing if the principle is used uncritical and generally. A claim or an insight does not become right through such experiments. But the consequence of this attitude is often that what one believes is supposed to be right until the opposite has been proved. Unfortunately, this is not a scientific attitude. The Earth was a globe even at the time when all thought it to be flat. In spite of this someone realized that it was a globe out of his own observation and logic thinking. As long as one does not know, one must say and think: We do not know. What we have observed may indicate this or that. Both or all views must be equal, have the same urge to support their correctness. One may be inclined to believe in this or that solution, but one interpretation is not more "probable" than the other. In most cases probability is out of question. Either it is so or not.

The authority of this scientific attitude is also weakened by another question. Is it sure that all that exists can be captured or measured by our (now existing) instruments? No one has made this plausible, and it is unreasonable to assume something like that. What then about those realities that cannot be captured this way? Shall they be neglected by science? Shall one say that they do not exist or that they are at least of no interest because they are "unscientific"? Scientific research cannot exclude facts as uninteresting or non-existing. It would be unscientific. Therefore focus has to be directed towards the scientific method and make it more in correspondance with the facts that one is going to investigate to-day. Consciousness research is one such field - and many socalled paranormal phenomena. Some of them are accessible to on-going experimental research. But it is too superficial and unscientific to say that phenomena that out of their natur cannot be investigated by normal scienfific methods, therefore cannot be investigated.

Parts of the scientific world have realized that one cannot exclude parts of reality from scientific investgation because one has established too narrow limits to what is accepted as scientific methods. The effort is then to use as scientific methods as possible. This is the reason why we in this book treat special states of consciousness and several paranormal phenomena like other scientific phenomena. The precondition has been that observation and experience show that they are real phenomena.

From page 140 - Hypothesis on the nature of consciousness
If you klick here you will come to the full text of this chapter.

From page 153 - Main features of a development model
Something cannot emerge from nothing. That seems to be an obvious and generally accepted point to begin with. Among all existance of to-day something has to be origine, while the rest has come into being as a consequence of the origine. Being origine means here that it exists without having come into being. It is also thinkable that the origine does not exist in its origial form any longer, that it has changed its state in an irreversible process, and that this process started a new process that brought about what is not origine. One may also think of all existance as origine. That would however oppose all human experience. We have to think of the Earth as being without life four billion years ago, and that the universe came into being 10 to 20 billion years ago.

What may be thought of as genuine of what exists to-day? For obvious reasons we can think of the following "candidates". Some sort of energy, some sort of consciousness and information and perhaps some sort of space and time.

Before going further it is necessary to reflect a little on these notions. If we imagine a genuine state and compare it with the state of to-day, we will understand that someting has evolved the lastmentioned state out of the other. It is unthinkable that change can occur without energy. Consequently some sort of energy was genuine. Whether this energy exists to-day is another question, although it is difficult to see that origine energy should be able to disappear. The idea to-day is that no energy can disappear, it can only change its form. Likewise we can conclude that a change, a movement has taken place. And movement is nature's expression of time, that in this form may be considered as a product of energy. All this must have taken place in some sort of space - a genuine space.

Movement of what? - of something in something, eventually in a direction? The first "something" seems to have two aspects, namely form and content. We have a notion embracing the two aspects of form and content - namely information. Information depends upon consciousness as a precondition.

The reasoning in the book "Along the Border of Insight" led us to the conclusion that the genuine existens consisted of energy and a potential consciousness (and eventually time and space). The origine energy and the potential consciousness seem to have been two aspects of the same "thing". Through an awakening process, where rudimenary - and gradually more advanced - information has played a central role, became the potential consciousness conscious. Here is the (most?) central connection between the physical, nemly the energy - and the psychological - nemely consciousness - that has to be found in a comprehensive model (and in reality).

From page 192 - What comprises salvation?
This question has been discussed a lot. It seems that most communities within Christianity have come to the conclusion that salvation is an expiation for all our sins, those from the past and those we will do in future. Is this in accordance with the NT? First of all, the NT separates between to types of sins. One of them is called the sin to death. The other type seems not to have a special name, eventually because this question is about the false steps we all do as weak human beeings, even if we try to live in accordance with the will of God. (1.John.5.(16)-17): "All injustice is sin; but all sin does not lead to death."

This is difficult to understand as long as one believes that human beings borne on Earth are made anew, without having a past. This view creates more problems to which we will come back. But we humans have a past, a huge past, as we can see in the scripture. NT considers the Earth as the principality of the prince of death. And the reason why we live on Earth is that we are fallen engels. At that distant past we committed the sin to death because we - as associates (medløpere) - opposed God and Christ. Through the fullfillment of the salvation by Jesus Christ the path back to the kingdom of God was opened to those who wished to go back. That sin - which was a sin to death - was through that forgiven.

We have seen that the deed of Christ consisted of two steps. To keep faithful to God to the bitter end on the cross. And to open the way from the kingdom of death for those who wanted to return to God. (1.Pet.3.18): "For Christ suffered death for the sake of sin, one time for all. The just one suffered for unjust ones to lead you to God. He died by his body, but was made alive by the spirit. Thus he went away to preach to the spirits in prison."

This quotation tells quite a lot. Christ suffered the human death because of the one sin - the fall of man. That happened once. The intention was to lead "you" - those who received Peters first letter (and all other humans) - to God. This seems to mean that Christ was also dead in the meaning that he stayed in the kingdom of death for a short time. And the purpose had two aspects: As we have seen, he preached the joyous message to the spirits in prison. And in addition: (2.Tim.1.10): "...He has destroyed death and led life and immortality to the light through the gospel;" However, Christ was made alive again through the spirit. That means that He on Easter Sunnday left the kingdom of death - the kingdom of Lucifer - out of his own strength which nobody had done before. Or as it is expressed in (Efes.4.8): "He went up in the high and led prisoners away, and the humans gave he gifts. The fact that he went up, implies that he first had went down in the deep spheres of the Earth." He went up as conqueror: ...

From page 202 - Epilogue
Through this investigation I hoped to get some answers to my many questions. And this book is launched with the hope that some more pieses may find their place in the puzzle that you - like most honest thinking and searching people - will have for yourself. How "true" a model like this is, may be indicated by how the pieces find their place in the puzzle. We are quite sure that we have found the right solution of a normal puzzle when all pieces have found a place. We exclude that they can find their places in quite a different way. We will not do so here. But persons who will study the scriptures with this model in the "back of their heads" will - like the author - probably discover that this information will support and eventually supplement the views given in this book. However, shall we get further, we must be openminded, ready to receive new thoughts even if they at first might be strange or frightening.

And then we have the children. It is still so, that we learn them one thing in the religious instruction and quite the opposite in the nature study. Then we let them alone with this contradiction and all the unsettled questions in the official religions. For how long shall we keep this going? How long shall we maintain our confusion and pass it along to our children? Isn't it time for science to open its research for paranormal phenomena without being prejudiced? And isn't it time to do the same for the leaders of the churches and to be open for divergent views? One ought to realize that something is wrong. Neighter socalled prestige nor critisism from the environment nor fear for punishment from God should keep one away from searching clarity and truth.

It is obvious that our culture supersede and neglect central aspects of ourselves. At present we are in a socalled shift of paradigm, where old goals, images and values step aside for new ones. That means that they can be more easily influenced. And it means that it is important that the outcome of this shift of paradigm brings us further towards truth, responsibility and harmony. Realizing meaning is important; it influeces our attitudes and behaviour to a large degree. We are here to learn responsibility. Only then we will do what is right to do.

We have in this book - on the intellctual, verbal level - developed and presented a comprehensive model based on scientific and religious insight and experience. It feels liberating to searching people when pieces find their place in their conception, when contradictions and absurdities disappear, and we get the feeling that yes - so it must be. Such a liberating feeling one may get if our private model is simpel or comprehensive. In spite of this I am tempted to say: Forget it, even if I don't mean it that strongly. But what is really important is something else than intellectual models; .....

From page 248 - Johannes Greber (1874-1944)
Johannes Greber was another type of mystics. He was a very honest and sober catholic priest (and member of parliment) who did a lot for poor and sick people in his parish, and little by little in German as a whole during the first world war. His great social work comprised private funded nursing and home help and voluntary stand-in service for sick farmers. In addition he procured 20 000 places in the country for poor and weak children from the towns. All this was made by Greber without public funds and out of ideas received in visions. These visions came suddenly when he - as a priest - saw urgent social challanges without knowing how to deal with them.

Without knowing anything about channelling Greber was drawn into a series of such advents as some people from his community wanted his judgement to some events going on during their private divine services and discussions. Little by little he had to give up his scepticism. The proofs became too clear. He faced revelations equal to those of the apostles. In the book (34) he tells about his experiences and quotes stenographically the teachings given through a young man in trance. The headlines of some chapters may give an idea of what information was given through this boy. (By one occation he plaid the organ in trance without being able to play it in the normal state.): The laws of nature regulating the communication between the spirits and the material world. The communication with the spiritual world after the apostolic time and in our time. Information from the good spiritual world about religious questions. We give some quotations from this information.

"It stands written that Josua, the servant of Moses, should not leave the tent of revelation. There was a reason, and the reason was connected with the asking of God. Josua served as a medium for the persons who wanted to ask God in private matters. It stands clearly that any person who wanted to ask God, went to the tent of revelation. ... The spirits of God used him - Josua - as a means of communication in the same way one uses mediums today."

"But I can not explain the nature of God to you, nor the reason for the divine existence. If I would try, it would be as if you would explain the calculation of a star orbit to a four year old boy. And you will have to say: 'Too wonderful is such knowledge to me, too high for me to comprehend.'" "It is a big mistake when they [your religious learned] say that for God is all present, and that the future - including what the creatures make out of their free will - is already present to him as realities."