Science: A New Religion?
Data meets dogma...
Read time: Approx 5 min
*I'm a believer and practitioner in science, but I tend to see things from an aerial, systemic, interconnected view. Whenever a medication or scientific discovery hits the airwaves with viral-level “hype,” as with GLP-1 medications, it's essential to step back with humility and look at the big picture. The long-game.*
We’ve traded the pulpit for the podcast, the priest for the peer-reviewed study, and holy water for hand sanitizer. In this new gospel, science has become not just a method of understanding our world, but a messiah. And just like any good religion, it now comes with its own rituals, heresies, and televangelists in lab coats (*cough* Dr. Oz).
Yes, science has carved open the mysteries of the cosmos and spliced genes with Promethean precision. It has vaccinated us, launched us to the moon, and taught us the periodic table rap. But along the way, its empirical humility was replaced by an eerie kind of…certainty…It no longer inquires. It commands. Data is scripture. The algorithm knows best. And if your body disagrees with your Fitbit or MyFitnessPal calorie calculator, well…sorry, buddy, but your body’s clearly in denial. We seem to forget that, what we know as fact today will likely be shattered by new data and information in 10 years. History confirms this over and over and over again…examples:
-Smoking
-Routine tonsil removal
-Low fat = healthy
-Lobotomies
-Blood letting or “leeching”
-Thalidomide for morning sickness
-Oxycontin for “non-addictive” pain management
-Routine chest X-rays at health screenings
-”Only men have heart attacks”
-Institutionalizing those with mental illness
-”Gay conversion therapy”
-Casting of all ligament sprains
-No skin-to-skin after the birth of a newborn
-Antibiotics for viral infections
-No gloves during surgical procedures
I could go on forever…
What once helped us understand the world now increasingly tells us how to live in it. Eat this. Avoid that. Take this pill and suppress that symptom. Track your sleep until you’re too anxious to fall asleep. It’s the quiet tyranny of the quantified self, and we bought in because it promised control. Control over our bodies, our futures, even death. But death doesn’t negotiate, and deep down, we know it.
Meanwhile, the naturopathic world, which once whispered of ancient wisdom and earthy balance, now echoes with the same sanctimony…For every pharma-fueled miracle drug, there's an “all-natural” supplement promising the same salvation…just with prettier packaging and a font that looks like it was hand-lettered in a sunlit yurt. They say “listen to your body,” but only after selling you 30 days of detox teas, a $400 sound bath, or a “low payment of just $299/month” to access their God-granted wisdom. You think that price is steep? Ha! You just don't know how to prioritize yourself…
Both camps, ironically, accuse the other of mind control while selling different flavors of the same bulls**t. And in this holy war between synthetic and organic, we forget the real casualty: our ability to sit with not knowing. To surrender to the uncertainty of life. To live in the liminal spaces. To say, “I’m scared,” instead of “I’ve got a PubMed article for that.” We’ve assumed that control will offer us peace. But look around…do you see a world thriving in peace? Why is it that, with all of our data and medical expenditure, our chronic disease and mental health numbers continue to skyrocket?
Psychologist, Carl Jung spent a lifetime studying these things we cling to. He called them complexes: sticky, unconscious clusters of emotion and belief that drive us like backseat demons. A scientific complex. A spiritual one. A wellness one wrapped in coconut oil and red light masks. We don’t choose them—they choose us. And heaven help anyone who threatens them.
That’s why people lose their minds when you question their diet. Or their prescription. Or their yoga practice. Or their peptide injection. Or their multivitamin that “totally changed their aura.” You're not challenging a belief—you’re poking around into their subconscious. Into their ego. Into a wound that’s been sutured with ideology. And the deeper the wound, the louder the defense.
Religions, old ones, knew this too. Their righteous fire has fueled crusades, inquisitions, and centuries of bloodshed. When we think we’ve found the Truth (capital T), we forget how human it is to err. And when you pair that with power, things burn. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a timely, still relevant example of this playing out. Two communities, more alike than they care to admit, engaging in never-ending bloodshed over who has the bigger ego. Who’s more worthy of living on this man-made plot of land? Who’s God is holiest? Think the Neanderthals gave a sh*t about, what's now named, the Gaza strip? Was their existence less meaningful than ours? Why?
Today’s gods wear different robes—some white, some tie-dyed—but they often echo the same sermon: we know the way. Follow us. Be saved. But real wisdom? It’s quieter. It shrugs more. It listens. It says, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe not. Let’s keep talking.”
Because if we ever want to step out of the loop…this endless cycle of dogma, reaction, and denial…we’ll need to do what every mystic and true scientist once did: approach the unknown not with certainty, but with wonder.