by Gary Gagne

Created on: October 12, 2008   Last Updated: November 08, 2008

Throughout most of mankind's history most things that people did were somehow related to magical or spiritual causes and/or events. To these people, ideas of magic was integrated into religion and thus religion manifested many magical properties. With the arrival of the Renaissance science began to take hold. And as science grew in strength and numbers, despite religious opposition, the common people began more and more to look at life through bifocals, one part religion one part science. If one view did not work the other might. Some people felt more comfortable with the science focus and some with a religious focus and there are still more who use one lens as a complement to the other, to understand reality better.

By the turn of the 20th century Einstein had written his "Theory of Relativity" (i.e. the passage of time [reality] changes depending on where you stand and how fast you're going). That powerful idea changed reality, or at least the perception of reality, not only in physics but in nearly every science, including the social sciences. Psychologists began to notice that an objective observer of any event or experiment could change the reality of that event or experiment (or the perception of the reality of that experiment or event ) simply by his being there. Social sciences then began to understand that a person's perception of reality is based upon his genetic makeup, brain functioning, his cultural and life experiences and in his strategies for dealing with this perceived reality. In this view there are no social absolute truths beyond what is specified culturally and as codified in religious, legal and scientific laws. Social sciences then are involved in discovering cultural and personal perspectives, how those perspectives effect our lives, what are healthier perspectives and how to establish and maintain those healthier perspectives.

Those who disagree with this perspective see religion as the bedrock of absolute truth. Such a belief system excludes, to one degree or another, science as a definer of truth and recognizes man's law as springing forth from the laws of God. This is an older perspective, one which brings with it prejudicial baggage encouraging judgments of sinfulness and as sinfulness has been interpreted, throughout history, as any number of human behaviors and activities, it is easy to see that the idea of religious law is hardly a bedrock element. When we see the variety of religions and how belief varies between each the best

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