Imagining, not Speculating? The Religious Imaginary and Sensibility of Natural Scientists and the Secularisation Debate
Imagining, not Speculating? The Religious Imaginary and Sensibility of Natural Scientists and the Secularisation Debate

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the religious imagination of scientists from Ukraine and Lithuania, and is intended to be a contribution to the science and secularisation debate. While the bulk of research into science and religion tends to focus on meso and macro-levels, I concentrate on the micro area by applying the concepts of the imaginary and sensibility. The research is based on 66 in-depth interviews with Lithuanian and Ukrainian academics, in which they self-reflect on the ways in which they operate images of the Divine. Most of them have lost their Christian faith. Instead, they have built a privatised religious imaginary and thus provide rich material that illustrate complex social influences shaping it, including scientific development, social tensions and the Soviet legacy of the two countries. I further explore the opportunities that the concepts of imaginary and sensibility provide for the study of science and secularisation.

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