Religion

Laszlo Bencze writes to note this letter he wrote to American Scholar in 2004 in response to an article therein, one that does not seem to be online: Evolution, that good mother, has seen fit to guide us to the apple instead of the poison berry by our attraction to the happy sweetness of the apple, its fresh crispness, and, in just the right balance, enough tartness to make it complicated in the mouth. There are good and rational reasons why natural selection has made us into creatures with fine taste discernment—we can learn what’s good for us and what’s not. But this very sensible survival imperative, like the need to have sex to reproduce, works itself out through the Read More ›

From SCIO: Scholarship and Christianity at Oxford, Application Deadline: 15 September 2017 Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II, 2017–19, is a significant opportunity for up to 25 early- to mid-level career faculty members from the CCCU and across the globe to experience an enhanced summer programme aimed at developing interdisciplinary skills in Science and Religion. … The Oxford-based seminars, which will take place from 1 to 29 July 2018 and from 30 June to 28 July 2019, will focus on the development of interdisciplinary skills and understanding central to the field of Science and Religion, within the unique setting of Oxford. Social and natural scientists will join those in the humanities to explore established and emerging Read More ›

From The Little Book of God, Mind, Cosmos and Truth: In an interview in the Irish Times newspaper, Dr Kevin Mitchell from Trinity College Dublin, spoke about this some years ago. He pointed out the idea “that we are effectively androids, though made out of carbon”. He says that the “mind emerges from the workings of my brain and nothing else”. If God does not exist and Naturalism is all there is, then Dr Mitchell’s views would be correct. But on theism, how can the reliability of his statement be true if it’s coming from an android made out of carbon? Surely carbon androids are primarily evolved for survival-of-the-fittest values, with truthful statements being less significant? Furthermore, an android does Read More ›

From Mary-Jane Rubenstein at Nautilus: What if God is the creatively emergent order of nature itself? In this case, the difference between pantheism and atheism might be emotional. Einstein, a professed pantheist, wrote that he experienced a “cosmic religious feeling,” a persistent awe at the “sublimity and marvelous order” of the universe. He was not alone. For the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, religion was a feeling of the whole universe at work in each part of it. Or perhaps the difference between pantheism and atheism is ethical. As neo-pagans, ecofeminists, radical environmentalists, new animists, and even some biologists have suggested, the Western opposition between God and world seems to have endorsed our exploitation of nature. So if God is the Read More ›

Here: In this wide-ranging conversation, they discuss how the doctrine of creation makes sense of human dignity, racial equality, true peace and justice, purpose and meaning in life, and more. They also consider recent debates over the historicity of Adam and Eve. See also: Michael Chaberek: Darwinian theory is past its best-before date

From Meera Nanda, author of Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in India, at Butterflies and Wheels: Science studies, as I said, is not an ordinary academic discipline. It constitutes the beating heart of postmodernism, for it aims to “deconstruct” natural science, the very core of a secular and modern worldview. Since its inception in the 1970s, the discipline has produced a sizeable body of work that purports to show that not just the agenda, but even the content of theories of natural sciences is “socially constructed.” All knowledge, in different cultures, or different historical times – regardless of whether it is true or false, rational or irrational, successful or not in producing reliable knowledge – Read More ›

Suzan Mazur asks neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, who offers some thoughts at HuffPost: Suzan Mazur: What is your understanding of when, historically, humans thought up religion? British anthropologist Maurice Bloch has said humans largely live in their reflective imagination, something that first arose 40,000 to 50,000 years ago and that “[t]he kind of phenomena that the English word “religion,” and the associated word “belief,” can be made to evoke have, at most a history of five thousand years.” You’ve said religious and spiritual ideas have been around “since the dawn of civilization.” When would that be—-“the dawn of civilization”? And what is the evidence? Andrew Newberg: Certainly, a more formalized aspect of religion has been around for about 5,000 years going Read More ›

From Burak Bekdil at Gatestone Institute: More recently, in July, Turkish Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz revealed that the final version of Turkey’s national school curriculum left out evolution and added the concept of “jihad,” as part of Islamic law, in the books. The new curriculum will be put into execution for first, fifth, and ninth graders beginning this year, and will extend to other classes in the 2018-2019 academic year. According to Yilmaz: “Jihad is an element in our religion; it is in our religion… The duty of the Education Ministry is to teach every concept deservedly, in a correct way. It is also our job to correct things that are wrongly perceived, seen or taught”. Although the Turkish government Read More ›

The Third Way of Evolution is a group of non-Darwinian or minimally Darwinian evolutionary biologists. From Tom Heneghan at Religion News: Since scientists succeeded in sequencing the genome in the late 1990s, they have found that epigenetic markers that regulate patterns of gene expression can reflect outside influences on a body. Even simpler living objects such as plants contain a complex internal genetic system that governs their growth according to information they receive from outside. To theologians who see a “new biology” emerging, this knowledge points to a more holistic system than scientists have traditionally seen, one more open to some divine inspiration for life. In this view, the fact that epigenetic markers can bring outside pressures to bear on Read More ›

Or don’t they? From Phys.org: A unusual social study has revealed that atheists are more easily suspected of vile deeds than Christians, Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists—strikingly, even by fellow atheists, researchers said Monday. This suggests that in an increasingly secular world, many—including some atheists—still hold the view that people will do bad things unless they fear punishment from all-seeing gods. The results of the study “show that across the world, religious belief is intuitively viewed as a necessary safeguard against the temptations of grossly immoral conduct,” an international team wrote in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. And it revealed that “atheists are broadly perceived as potentially morally depraved and dangerous.” The study measured the attitudes of more than 3,000 people Read More ›

Why? Could that be because the teachers are really teaching a religion rather than a discipline and many people are not convinced by that religion? From Amanda Glaze at Evolution Institute: There has long been a discussion in the scientific and science education communities about the dismal state of evolution acceptance in the United States2. For those not aware, the United States presently ranks second to last in terms of acceptance of evolution among all other first tier nations worldwide3. In fact, the only nation that has lower acceptance rates is Turkey, a country where the national education governing body has, just this year, presented new national standards for education that are noticeably missing their previous coverage of evolution4. In Read More ›

At Sapientia: Breaking News: Science Disproves the Bible Briefly, traditional media worldwide swallowed the claim that the Bible said the Canaanites were wiped out. No one apparently knew that the opposite is the case, or cared, in any event. A study in genomic sciences that was on most counts not newsworthy has made big headlines in recent days, both in the media’s initial declarations and in the ensuing reaction. The cynic in me suspects that the whole thing was predictable from the very get-go. No one need be a cynic today to predict that. Woodward and Bernstein are retired, okay? Today’s soon-to-be-let-go hack often has a huge load of angst and grievances against the nature of things, without the talent Read More ›

From David Warmflash at Genetic Literacy Project: There’s a problem facing college biology educators on how to teach evolution in a setting where many students hold creationist views. These evolution deniers are not a fringe element on college campuses, even among students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. There are substantial numbers of college STEM students who begin college biology already with minds set against evolution. Instead of writing those students off as lost causes, educators are trying different approaches to reach them. … A few years ago, evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins spoke one-on-one with students at London’s Park High School, where students were known to have an anti-evolution mindset connected with religious upbringings. Dawkins was Read More ›

From David Klinghoffer at Evolution News & Views: The science story itself is fascinating and to all appearances solid. Human remains dating to some 3,700 year ago from ancient Canaanites yielded DNA revealing a startling overlap with modern-day Lebanese. The latter thus appear to harbor descendants of the long-ago population (“Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences,” American Journal of Human Genetics). He quotes a dozen instances of deadweights claiming that the find “disproves the Bible’s suggestion” that the Canaanites were wiped out. Only one problem: The Bible is detailed and unambiguous in relating that the Canaanites survived Joshua’s invasion. So it’s no wonder they have living descendants. Read More ›

The kalaam argument: The Cosmological Argument or First Cause Argument is a philosophical argument for the existence of God which explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused. The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the variants of the argument which has been especially useful in defending the philosophical position of theistic worldviews. The word “kalam” is Arabic for “speaking” but more generally the word can be interpreted as “theological philosophy.” (All About Philosophy) David Snoke, president of Christian Scientific Society, co-authored a paper with Michael Behe (2004). From his article, “Why Christians should not use the Kalaam argument,” The Kalaam argument is essentially as follows, although Read More ›