Vera was originally created opposition mortal body immortal spirit. In various religions they relate differently, but the leitmotif of all the world's religions is the same. Physical life is viewed as flawed in some sense compared to the spiritual life (after death / ideal / thin / divine), and of little significance as a preparatory stage of life as a whole. Therefore, for the physical existence of human religion was rather legislative, ethical, and in many respects the nature of anesthetic (remember the "opium of the people") than was intended to explain the principles of the universe.
Answering the question "why? "Simple formula" so pleasing to God, "religion completely remove from the agenda the question" how? "Making the world unknowable. Moreover, the desire to know "unfathomable Divine Providence" becomes a form of sin in some religions. No wonder eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge leads to such drastic consequences for humanity. Fall meaning is clear: the first people disobeyed God's prohibition, and paid for that, day by day getting to know first hand all aspects of good and evil. But why the ban was imposed it on the Tree of Knowledge? Yahweh did not bother to explain anything. "This is the will of God." Point. We can not say that the Jews have completely given up knowledge, defining its existence principles of the Torah. This is evidenced by at least kabbalah, but it made for a wide use. Uninitiated is assigned the role of silent executors of God's law.
Same ancient thinkers were dearer or principles of Buddhism (Geraklitovo "know thyself" as analogous to jnana-yoga), or from the mystical teachings, they chose to adopt a more "accurate" them (Pythagorean numerology) or polytheistic culture of ancient Greece did not have to simply following commandments. Whatever it was, while not denying the divine origin as the root causes of the things they have to attempt to explain the laws of life, guided by not only the spiritual aspect, but also quite material. We can say that they were trying to determine not only divine motives, methods of construction as divine creation, reducing them to the status of laws. Thus they made knowable nemisticheskimi means not only the external world, but tried to define the objective laws and mental processes.
With the adoption of Christianity in Europe, the Catholic Church has introduced a taboo on any objective knowledge of not only the soul but also of all things for many centuries. Science was equated with witchcraft, and those who did not want to go into hiding, and wanted to share their discoveries with humanity, often end their lives at the stake. Since the beginning of the Renaissance study and explanation of human behavior in the physical world has gained new strength. The accumulation of knowledge in the natural sciences has led to the fact that their methods have become Absolutized leading science of the soul to the extreme form of materialism, namely, to mechanism, when all human existence was explained by reflexes. Scientific (objective) in psychology admitted only those data that yielded accurate measurement.
Such a notion prevailed in psychology almost to the middle of the last century. Scientific paradigm change in this area, oddly enough, it contributed to the sciences. The development of quantum mechanics has led to the fact that the opposition physicists lyricists completely lost relevance. Newly discovered regularities in the behavior of subatomic particles, sensational studies in the field of neurophysiology, the development of cybernetics and systems theory to discredit the chauvinistic ideas in ethnography and anthropology, objective study of altered states of consciousness not as a pathological study of religious and mystical texts as an objective description of reality in metaphorical form laid the groundwork for a new understanding of the world. Henceforth, religious, mystical, transpersonal experiences no longer opposed to science, but became one of its objective methods. Matter and spirit have ceased to be antagonists. Stronger the tendency to regard them as part of a single, continuous, holistic continuum, whose name - an objective reality, in which the material without spirituality so as unthinkable as the reverse.