THE THEORY CALLED THE CARTESIAN SPLIT has been foundational to the cultural walls that continue to separate science from religion. This theory is named after the 17th-century philosopher Descartes, who believed that the human mind is separate (or split) from the physical body and from the material universe. According to Descartes's theory, the world of thought is completely independent from the machinelike workings of the body and material universe. Because of this separation, he argued, the mind and soul should be a theological study, and the body and material universe should be confined to the realm of science. As a result of this theory, scientists are free to investigate the physical universe without having to make their findings conform to traditional religious beliefs.
It's not that Descartes was against religion. Actually, he believed that God created the universe like a big clock, set it in motion with material laws, but then He had nothing much to do with it further. It was the job of scientists to discover these laws and use them to better the human condition. For the few hundred years since Descartes, the separation of spirituality and thought from the physical body and the material universe has been fundamental to scientific inquiry and a vigorously maintained premise by most scientists and most theologians.
Yet, these points of view don't rest only with scientists and religious people. This way of looking at the universe has, to some extent, become culturally ingrained in all of us. We've all been taught to believe that our bodies, like the physical universe, are machines governed by material laws and that thoughts and feelings are largely inconsequential to the workings of both. Fear follows in the wake of this perception. Living in an unfeeling universe of material forces, which are pitiless and indifferent to the plight of humankind—a universe so unlike ourselves as conscious beings—produces anxiety. Because any one of us, as the belief goes, might become victimized at any time in some adverse circumstance. This contrast between humans, as conscious beings who feel and care, and the indifferent physical universe, has alienated us from our own bodies and from the universe we live in.
