Associating With Authority

by Matt Sitman

Responding to the popularity of the bestselling book, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife, Amit Majmudar grapples the question, “Why do ‘spiritual’ people like it so much when the man of science testifies?”:

[T]he natural conclusion we might draw from this—and I myself jumped to it—is that the sciences, enjoying the highest prestige in their long history, have become the true authority. Religions are desperate to corroborate their findings with the true Authority. The man in the saffron shawl, the man in the black cassock all look to the man in the white coat. This is why they appropriate the jargon and discoveries of science, drawing analogies whenever they can: As they once cited scripture, now they cite scientific studies.

He goes on to note the seemingly endless capacity of religions to repurpose powerful symbols and disciplines:

[R]eligions have always been syncretic, incorporating whatever they find authoritative and attractive; this is why Krishna dies of an arrow to the heel, like Achilles, and slays snakes in his cradle, like Hercules; why the story of Christ mirrored that of several killed-and-resurrected fertility gods both in the Near East and Europe, and why “Christmas” falls on the birthday of Mithras; why Mohammed, the Arab, inserted himself into a line of Jewish prophets as (note this well) the last and most authoritative one.