Excerpt from "Toward a Positive Psychology of Religion: Belief Science in the Postmodern Era" (in press), by Robert Rocco Cottone. Scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2010, by John Hunt Publishing, Ltd., of Hampshire, UK, under the imprint of O-Books. 

Science is not about "absolute" truth. In science, truth is always from a particular perspective, and there are competing truths. The validity of a scientific truth is established by its enduring and useful application across observable phenomena. A scientific truth's veracity comes from people in relationships who apply the ideas or come together to challenge the ideas with new and revolutionary possibilities. Science, like all understanding, comes from people making distinctions and then acting around those distinctions. 

The postmodern revolution provides a means for understanding that all truths are in relationships, not outside. It is irrelevant whether we make a distinction that a truth is scientific or religious. All truth involves agreement among people who subscribe to the principles of the truth and follow the principles with action. Postmodernism proposes that the distinction between science and religion is just that--a distinction. But postmodernism also holds that the interpersonal processes--the actual social activities that occur in religion and in science--are the same. 

I no longer view science and religion in opposition. I think science and religion address different domains of human interaction distinguished historically by the terms "physical" and "spiritual," but they are both still within the realm of human relations. Where others distinguish religious versus scientific truth, I see only people in relationships.

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