ABSTRACT
The search for ultimate reality and meaning has always been an indelible part of our nature as rational, reflective beings. Our cognitive capacities may have originally arisen due to their practical, adaptive value in the struggle for survival as evolutionary theorists tell us. However, the theoretical quest to move beyond purely practical considerations to discover the stable underpinnings of the fleeting phenomenal world of our experience has also been a hallmark of our species at every known stage of our history. This quest is animated by a primal and ineradicable sense of wonder or pure desire to know. Both our religious and scientific attempts to fathom the nature of things are rooted in this foundational source. But, for some time now, the scientific and religious routes to ultimate reality have been seen by many as quite antithetical.
