Pluralism and Authority in Religion and Science

When the “Authority”of God or of great sages is seen in religion as the main foundation of faith, then religion tends to conflict with science. I would rather look at religious versions of ontology and epistemology as another kind of hypothesis or theory which will one day more or less be affirmed by science, and likewise think of science as one day gaining new knowledge from religion. I don't see a real conflict here.

As to the problems of pluralism in religion---with one religion claiming to be the only truth over all the others---this too can be resolved in the Twofold Path. The Father Within of the Inward Path, in all the great religions, is a symbolic experience of the Godhood reached in material-supermaterial evolution in the Outward Path. The Outward Path allows for the differences and variety that are actually good for evolution, while the Inward Path is the basis for ecumenism.

Acknowledging ethnopluralism in political philosophy, protected by some kind of light federalism, can also help harmonize these many differences in pluralism and authority. This means too that the struggle against Nature and human nature, as often seen in both religion and political philosophy, needs to change toward harmonizing with human nature, which has been generally or basically affirmed throughout human history as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.