Rationality and the Crisis of Meaning: Confrontation between Science and Religion in the Sphere of Consciousness

The crisis of meaning, as a characteristic of modern world, was investigated mainly from a philosophical perspective, considering necessary and sufficient conditions of the meaning of life, without regard to crucial social transformations of modern era, which led to this crisis. Focusing on the process of changes in knowledge and consciousness, here I show that in the modern world, as a result of developments in science, for the first time the natural or scientific consciousness seriously confronts the supernatural or religious consciousness. The argument is that because of this plurality of consciousness, the basic characteristics of man, i.e., identity, self, and rationality, have changed. The main idea of this article is that, based on such an explanation of the crisis of meaning in which consciousness and knowledge are pivotal, the solution resides in reconsidering modern rationality in order for these two sorts of consciousness to be united and for the crisis to be cured.