Charles Dickens Introduces Us to Rationality and Irrationality.

While I don’t buy into Charles Dickens too heavily, I have to say that “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness” describes the relationship between science and religion today. As someone from a Catholic family with many devout family members living in Croatia I am well aware of the Catholic faith. However in my daily activities I think and practice mainly as a scientist. I’ve objectively noticed as well as felt the strain between the two. Rationality is often discussed in regard to perception, as in whether or not someone’s perception or judgement of a situation is rational.

Where rationality comes into question is the area of rational emotions, due the highly subjective nature of emotions. Relative to religion and science I’ve wondered if my feelings are rational. When in Croatia my family took me to the church in Veprinac where generations of my family have been baptized, married, and buried. When standing in the empty church opened by the caretaker solely for my visit, I felt a palpable (or so my rational self thought) weight and solemnity. I looked at the hand painted frescos and the worn varnish of the pews and felt like I shouldn’t so much speak. Inside the church I felt goosebumps move down my arms and up my neck.

When I’ve been in Mayo Clinic, when I’ve been sat in Human Ethics Committee meetings at Fairview, I’ve felt stimulated and interested, however I’ve never felt the weight I did at the church and cemetery in this clinical settings. I don’t feel goosebumps in these places, I usually need coffee to keep me awake. You would think that someone like me who identifies as a scientist and defines myself in terms of my work in science and belief in science, would be almost flippant in a religious setting. Yet, in that church is where I felt the strongest sense of life and belief pressing into me. Is this difference irrational? What is rational regarding the emotions toward science and religion when a person is aware of the doctrines of both? What is irrational to feel or to believe when in a religious or clinical settings?

I don’t have answers to all of the questions that I’ve posed. In some way I can acknowledge that rationality and irrationality relate to what we can understand and comprehend, so perhaps dry facts provoke less than centuries old family churches where we are made to feel humbled. It’s exactly that element of something must escape my ability to label and classify and define that begins to test and poke at the boundaries of my rationality and irrationality.