A straight-forward, scientific approach to life rips the heart out of reality.

One man notes that his scientific-minded wife thinks that “love” is just a question of bodily hormones, etc. acting on the brain. Those who subscribe to this religion think everything can, or eventually will be, explained under microscopes, in test tubes and by mathematical formulas.

Is existence neatly described by what we perceive with the five senses? If you can’t see it, taste it, smell it, hear it, or feel it, does that mean it doesn’t exist?

Something deep within man knows that is wrong. We struggle to make sense out of what we can’t understand—and testtubes and scientific formulas only provide a partial answer.

For instance: war is a horrible thing. We recoil from death and maiming. But, some of our poets have reached beyond what we can see to seize some sense out of the senseless.

Listen to Alfred Lord Tennyson describe a moment in the 1854 Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. A brigade of English Calvary has received the order for a suicidal charge against the enemy.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!” Continue reading →