Climate change debate spurs warm feelings in London
It is rare that religion and science find agreement, but that is what happened when Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke at a meeting on saving the earth from climate change.
“The great Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson published a book in 2007 called “Creation”, subtitled An Appeal to Save Life on Earth,” Sacks told leaders of all the major faiths meeting at Lambeth Palace in London on Thursday.
“I thought that was a very good book. E.O. Wilson is known not to be religious, but what this book was was a call to religious people and scientists to call off the war between religion and science and work together for the sake of the future of life on earth.
“And I felt that was a very generous and appropriate call by a non-religious scientist.”
He said “that science and religion despite their apparent friction actually converge on a profoundly scientific and at the same time religious idea that there is a kinship of life and hence a covenant of life”.
Not only did such a high-profile religious figure agree with the scientific world, but faith leaders found harmony among themselves at the same meeting.
Sitting next to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, was the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who only days earlier had delivered the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans the chance to convert to Rome.
The scientist who leaves room for spirituality
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant once wrote that he “had to deny knowledge to make room for faith.” The French physicist Bernard d’Espagnat hasn’t denied knowledge in his long career developing the philosophy that won him this year’s $1.42 million Templeton Prize. He was pursuing knowledge to better understand what we can know about the ultimate reality of the world. But just like his philosophy echoes that of Kant’s with its conviction that there are limits on knowing reality, his work leaves some room — he would say for spirituality — by saying that human intuitions like art, music and spirituality can help us go further when science searching to understand the world reaches the end of its tether.
D’Espagnat’s prize was announced at UNESCO in Paris on Monday. The quantum physics at the core of his work presents baffling insights about reality, but his philosophical conclusions from them sound like common sense. Science is an amazing discipline that opens vast areas of knowledge but cannot go all the way to explaining ultimate reality. There’s a mystery at the core of our existence that we can get a little closer to through the untestable but undeniable intuitions we have. That “little closer” still leaves a large black hole in our knowledge, but it is more than we have if we only rely on empirical science.
As often happens in cases like this, d’Espagnat was available for embargoed interviews several days before the prize was announced. I had the pleasure of meeting him on Friday at the Lutetia, a five-star hotel only a short bike ride from my more modest digs in Paris. Now 87 years old, d’Espagnat can look back on a long and illustrious career as a senior physicist at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, professor at the University of Paris (at its science hub in the suburb of Orsay) and guest lecturer at universities and conferences abroad. His latest book in English, On Physics and Philosophy, came out in the United States in 2006.
At the end, I asked what he would do with his prize money. After paying the taxes on it, he stressed as he started his answer, he would divide it into three equal parts. One would go to promote the study of “negative theology,” a theology that he says fits his spiritualist outlook and conviction that we can only describe God by concepts that say what God is not. The second part would go to associations helping the homeless. And the last third he and his wife would use to make their home more senior-friendly. “My wife is handicapped and she would very much like to remain at home as long as possible,” he said.
You can read our story here or consult the prize website for more information and an extensive collection of links about his work. Some excerpts from my interview with d’Espagnat are on the next page. Taking a page from Paul Krugman’s economics blog, let me put a health warning on it right away — (wonkish).
At points in the history of the western world, science has been viewed as an opposition to the religious establishment, and people with new ideas censored. An example being Galileo, who was put under house arrest for reasserting previous claims that the earth went around the sun.
Another German scientist, Nietzsche also commented upon similar affects upon thought and the scientific community in “Beyond good and Evil”.
Science is observation, and being able to make accurate predictions based upon what is learned. A healthy curiosity and desire to learn exists no matter what a person believes, but in that frame of reference beliefs would evolve and change with time as more is learned.
Anti-Darwin speaker gagged at Vatican evolution conference
The start of a high-powered Vatican-sponsored acadmeic conference on evolution was anything but fossilized.The third STOQ International Conference, called Biological Evolution, Facts and Theories, began on Tuesday at the Pontifical Gregorian University (picture right) under the patronage of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture.The conference, which has been organised together with the University of Notre Dame to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, had barely gotten underway when charges of censorship and undemocratic and unacademic behaviour began flying.At the end of the first session Oktar Babuna, a Turkish doctor and collaborator of prominent Turkish anti-Darwin campaigner Harun Yahya,asked for the floor to put forward a question. Babuna, a proponent of the Islamic creationist campaign against evolution, spoke about his view that there were insufficient transitional forms from species to species to support the theory of evolution.After he began speaking two professors on the dias, Francisco J. Ayala of the University of California at Irvine and Douglas Futuyma of the State University of New York were visibly irritated. Someone in the hall can be heard saying “turn the microphone off” and seconds later two organisers approached Babuna. One of them abruptly took the microphone away from Babuna and another ordered him to go back to his seat. Watch it all here“After I walked back to my seat someone said “only evolutionists can ask questions,” Babuna told Reuters afterwards. “This is very anti-democratic and very unacademic. If this is a scientific meeting … if you have scientific questions to ask, they should be responded to scientifically, everybody accepts that … if you force people to shut up and don’t let them ask any question … then it is not a scientific theory but an ideology.” The spat was filmed by Babuna’s associate Dr Cihat Gundogdu, who put an edited version on the Harun Yahya website.Both men attended the conference with English and Italian versions of Harun Yahya’s super-slick mega-book Atlas of Creation (picture left) in hand. We have done numerous blogs on Islamic creationism, its proponents and its opponents. Some of the links are listed below. But what do you think about the debate and, more importantly, do you think officials at the Gregorian University were right or wrong to yank the microphone from Babuna at a scientific conference?http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/02/05/just-before-darwin-day-pew-reviews-faith-and-evolution-in-us/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/12/24/a-one-stop-shop-for-the-latest-on-islamic-creationism/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/11/25/harun-yahya-dangles-big-prizes-for-creationism-essays/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/10/27/richard-dawkins-rips-into-harun-yahya-and-muslim-creationism/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/06/19/harun-yahya-preaches-islam-slams-darwin-and-awaits-jesus/http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/04/07/harun-yahyas-islamic-creationist-book-pops-up-in-scotland/
I feel that few of your contributors can have attended a genuine scientific conference.
The delegates here were serious scientists, who came to hear presentations given by advertised speakers. They gave up considerable time and money to be there.
There was time for discussion at the end of the presentations, where delegates could pose questions to the speakers. This is usual at such conferences and Babuna tried to hijack this process, which was rude and unprofessional of him.
After a short time, Babuna was clearly and politely asked to pose his question and he simply continued with his ridiculous rant. The organizers were completely correct to remove him and I’m sure that the serious delegates were relieved when he went.
Richard Dawkins rips into Harun Yahya and Muslim creationism
This blog has given Harun Yahya a platform to defend his Islamic version of creationism, so it’s time to show Richard Dawkins tearing him apart. I noticed this video because it’s about the Atlas of Creation, a book that has fascinated me ever since I first saw it in Turkey two years ago. My blog posts on this have sparked amazed reactions from Westerners hearing about it for the first time, and indignant expressions of support from Muslims who agree with Harun Yahya (aka Adnan Oktar).
FaithWorld is interested in following issues of science and atheism, although I have to say I think Dawkins makes a sloppy case for the latter. His book The God Delusion uses parody views of faith like strawmen to knock down. For someone with his intelligence and eloquence, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. His approach to Islamic creationism also shows a few holes. Two Pakistanis in the audience mentioned Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Pakistani physicist who is a leading critic of Muslim anti-Darwinism, and he didn’t have the slightest idea who they were talking about.
Hat tip to Salman Hameed and his blog Science and Religion News for this.
The claims made by Dawkins in the piece are not a scientific response, but merely childish and ludicrous claims that merely discredit himself. In particular, it is evident that he expressed his claims regarding the caddisfly in a spirit of terrible panic, out of the pitiful situation resulting from the collapse of Darwinism. Dawkins highlighted the photograph of caddisfly in Mr. Adnan Oktar’s opus, Atlas of Creation as a great discovery. However this is the photograph of a model particularly put in the book. Whether the photograph is of a model or not does not change the fact that this living being is still alive in our day. Desperate, speechless and bored in the face of the extraordinary evidences of Creation in the Atlas of Creation that invalidate evolution, Dawkins takes every opportunity to express this photograph of a model particularly put in the book as a great discovery. By this attitude Dawkins, in fact, reveals the pathetic situation in which Darwinism finds itself. Caddisfly lives in our time with the same appearance its millions of years old fossil has. That is, it has not undergone any change. That is why Dawkins feels offended. You can read detailed information:
http://tr1.harunyahya.com/Detail/T/EDCRF V/productId/17945/DAWKINS_HAS_TAKEN_THE_ BAIT
from Ask...:
Will the collider prove that God does not exist?
The Large Hadron Collider aims to reproduce conditions just after the "Big Bang" 14 billion years ago in an attempt to gain new insights into how the universe was formed.
It may prove the existence of the so-called "God particle," the mysterious theoretical atomic fragment that lies at the heart of matter.
It may even point to the possible reality of a number of new dimensions.
But by going so close to the origin of the universe it is, some believe, "staring in the face of God." If it manages to explain the mysteries of creation, does that then mean there is no God?
Do you believe in the Big Bang theory -- and is it compatible with the existence of God?
Is “God Particle” the right term for massive mystery in physics?
One of the most brilliant simplifications I’ve ever come across is the term “the God Particle.” Physicists think this subatomic speck of matter, if it is ever found, could explain the mysterious code at the origin of the physical world. To know this would be to “know the mind of God,” as Einstein wanted to do. The Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman wrote a book with that name 15 years ago that was so interesting that even a physics klutz like myself (I almost failed it in high school…) read and enjoyed it.
It turns out, though, that the physicist who launched the hunt for this elusive particle doesn’t like its nickname. “It embarrasses me,” Peter Higgs said in Geneva this week at a news conference our correspondent Robert Evans attended. “Although I am not a believer myself, it’s a misuse of terminology that might offend some people.”
Higgs, now 78, first proposed a theory of the particle officially knows as the Higgs boson 40 years ago. CERN, the giant nuclear research centre at the French-Swiss border near Geneva, is building a vast underground particle collider to try to find it. “The likelihood is that the particle will show up pretty quickly … I’m more than 90 percent certain that it will,” Higgs said after visiting the collider due to start working early next year.
So the term “the God particle” may be coming to the religion blogosphere pretty soon. Instead of doing the homework and writing the essay, I’ll let others explain what it is — here are some good examples at National Geographic and Wired and a cartoon here.
Lederman, by the way, also seemed of two minds about calling the Higgs boson the “God particle.”
As he put it in his book:
“This boson is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: the God Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddam Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing. And two, there is a connection, of sorts, to another book, a much older one…
Physical world is not merely a lump, it is everything of the earth that represents “five elements” which are foundation for the entire physical world and from which life also evolves. The “five elements” are Earth (prithvi), Water (jal), Air (vayu), Fire (agni), Space (akash).”Jainism” also describes about independence and interdependence of the elements and in other religions also similar researches were done in past. Unfortunately the relevant literature is either not available or distorted to a great extent and twisted as well to suit personal bias. comment of khalidcustoms is great. Keep your research going and enjoy a life better than a king.
The papal speech not heard around the world
For the first time since Pope Benedict’s election in 2005, the Vatican has issued a speech he did not read. The Pope was to have visited Rome’s La Sapienza University on January 17 but student demonstrations (the kind that would have made anyone who was alive in the 1960s nostalgic) forced him to change his plans.
A small number of students and professors accused the Pope of being against science, citing a speech he made in 1990 when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The students and professors argued that that speech showed he would have supported the church’s heresy trial against the astronomer Galileo in the 17th century. The speech did not, in fact, state that and the Vatican promptly said the protesters had misunderstood it.
As pictures from the university showed, the protest appeared to be more against a man accused by some Italians of interfering in politics with his positions against gay marriage and abortion, and his opposition to proposed legislation that would give unmarried couples more rights. While many Italian students do not like Benedict, Italian media reports said most believed he had a right to speak, even if he would be booed. A large group of students turned up at the Pope’s weekly audience on Wednesday with banners saying “If Benedict doesn’t come to La Sapienza, La Sapienza will come to Benedict” and “Students with the Pope.” One held up an Italian flag with the slogan “Viva il Papa.”
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone wrote a letter to the rector of the university explaining that the the pope would not show up because he could not be assured “a dignified and tranquil welcome“.
On the eve of the event that was not to be, the Vatican decided to release the text — which in itself hardly deserved such controversy. The speech is a long philosophical discourse on faith, reason, the search for truth and the reasons why a pope should speak at a university. Benedict said he was speaking as Bishop of Rome rather than as a professor (which he said he was doing at Regensburg in 2006, where he made the famous speech that upset many Muslims).
He cited philosophers down the ages, from Socrates in ancient Greece, St Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages and contemporary thinkers John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas (as well as Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate). Many professors might have had difficulty following such an erudite speech, let alone the students who were ready to throw eggs if he had come to deliver it.
One phrase they might perhaps have appreciated was his admission that his own intellectual family had not always got things right: “Various things said by theologians in the course of history or put into practice by Church authorities have been shown by history to be wrong.” If he had gone to the university despite the protests, he might have added an impromptu comment that students sometimes err too.
Greetings class,
Please be seated and listen up! The lectures will now commence…
What if you’re dead wrong and 2 Thessalonians 2:11 is in the so-called “New Testament” as a direct and purposeful warning to Christians about the dangers of money, religion, and politics (a.k.a. three strong delusions (unclean/foul spirits…))? How will you make amends to ME for worshipping lies and helping the great deceiver(s) to oppress the poor and innocent?
Time is indeed short!
Religion is Philosophy and Spirituality by FlimFlam !!!
It is beyond amazing that these “snakes in fancy clothing” still have the gall to continue to defend the abomination that was/is the Inquisition. Now we have a Grand Inquisitor Pope (a.k.a., Glory of the Olives…) who personally defends much of the Vatican-Papacy’s most heinous and despicable activities.
Why does anyone need anymore proof that religious leaders are lying through their teeth to save their own skins? Christianity has been decisively proven to be a Roman deception, and they know the end is nigh!!
Speaking of more proof…
Here is comprehensive proof that the symbolism of many ancient texts, canons, and concepts is an advanced and extremely ancient spiritual & philosophical technology that predates all extant religions and mystery schools. Consequently, here is proof, beyond disproof, that all three so-called “Faiths of Abraham” are purposeful deceptions.
Here is Wisdom…
Peace…
Pope Benedict stumbles again over someone else’s quote
Pope Benedict’s decision to scrap his planned speech to Rome’s La Sapienza University after protests by professors and students there is the second time he has stumbled publicly because of his old professor’s habit of enlivening lectures with quotes from other sources that function as rhetorical straw men to be knocked down.
In this case, the protesters branded Benedict as anti-science because of comments he made in 1990 about Galileo. Discussing the famous case, he quoted a passage in which the unconventional philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend defended the Church for forcing the legendary Italian scientist to recant his view that Earth circled the sun. Benedict described Feyerabend as “agnostic-sceptic” (certainly not a compliment from the Vatican’s former doctrinal watchdog!). He characterised Feyerabend’s stand as “much more drastic” than another defence of the Church’s view offered by the “Romantic Marxist” Ernst Bloch. In fact, Benedict said he cited these two views to illustrate “the extent to which modernity’s doubts about itself have grown today in science and technology”.
In his ill-fated speech in September 2006 at the University of Regensburg in Germany, Benedict quoted Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus (1350-1425) as saying that Islam was a violent and irrational religion that had been spread by the sword. In this case, he did not make clear right away whether he agreed with these words or not. Many Muslims assumed he did and rioting — sometimes bloody — broke out in the Islamic world. The Pope later distanced himself from the quote, without apologising for using it.
The Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano has run a long front-page story explaining that the 1990 quote on Galileo was actually “a defence of Galilean rationality against the scepticism and relativism of post-modern culture”. John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter has provided an English translation of Benedict’s original text here.
The veteran theology professor Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict’s real name) often argues on a philosophical level where non-specialists can easily get lost. Given his liking for this style of academic argument and the long paper trail he built up before being elected Pope in 2005, one wonders how many other texts are out there that Benedict’s critics could use or misuse against him.
Jim Stevenson, I have read the Pope’s Regensburg speech at least half a dozen times, including three times before it was even delivered just to make sure I saw it in its entirety. We journalists covering that trip had it under embargo at least 6 hours before he delivered it, so the reports that came out were not just instant analysis. What you describe is the body of the speech and I agree that he said that there, and said that well. But he started out that speech with a quote from a Byzantine emperor who said Islam was violent and irrational. This came as a surprise to anyone who heard the speech that day and, since Islam was not central to the main argument you cite, it was an element that he clearly wanted to bring into this speech. The fact that this was a mistake can be seen in the way he responded to the protests that followed by saying he was sorry for any misunderstanding, by making a point of praying alongside a Turkish imam in Istanbul’s Blue Mosque and by restoring the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue as an independent Vatican dicastery after subordinating it to the Pontifical Council for Culture. Popes don’t admit making mistakes, but a clean-up job like that certainly showed Benedict recognised that his speech had not had the desired effect.
You say this is a “grim hatchet job” with a “virulent gloss.” I do not agree with such glib criticism. In fact, I must say that I am surprised to see how many Catholics defend Benedict unquestioningly on this when he himself clearly acted in the following months in a way that showed he had to make up for a misunderstanding that arose from that speech. The faith and reason part of this speech was very well argued and presented. But if the purpose of the speech was to present the argument for the compatibility of faith and reason alone, why did he add the Islam aspect that caught everyone’s attention? Any why, at the end of his argument about faith and reason, did he invite Muslims to a dialogue with Christians?
There was more to this speech that just the faith and reason part. Those who insist the speech was only about that either fail to understand his remarks about Islam or are defending him against the evidence.
Science helps religion in stem cell debates
Science and religion are sometimes portrayed as adversaries, especially by the “new atheists“, but the real picture has always been more complex. The latest breakthrough in stem cell research shows how quickly opposing sides can become allies. On Nov. 20, two research teams announced they had transformed ordinary skin cells into stem cells without destroying human embryos in the process. That meant that scientists could solve an ethical dilemma they had effectively created when they began using human embryos to produce stem cells.
Religious groups critical of embryonic stem cell research immediately hailed the breakthrough as an advance that opened the door to ethnical use of these potential wonder cells. They have now begun to use it as a welcome argument to bolster their positions in disputes on the issue. This must be happening in quite a few places, but here are two examples that show how science is helping religion in this case.
In Germany, the Roman Catholic Church has severely criticised the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party for agreeing to loosen tight restrictions on embryonic stem cell research there. The law bars German scientists from working on stem cell lines developed after January 1, 2002. Researchers say this is hampering their work and want the cut-off date to be moved up to 2007.
When the CDU agreed to this last week, two outspoken Catholic cardinals, Joachim Meisner of Cologne and Karl Lehmann of Mainz, condemned this as a betrayal of the Christian principles the party’s name claimed to represent. Meisner was especially critical of Research Minister Annette Schavan, a Catholic. He said the CDU decision was baffling, coming as it did “when science is opening up perspectives that present no ethical problems.”
Lehmann issued a statement as head of the German Bishops’ Conference: “The notable new successes in adult stem cell research and the reprogramming of cells are an additional argument against expanding embryonic stem cell research … so we call for a significant restructuring of European and German research funding from embryonic to adult stem cell research.”
In Belgium, the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) thinks the breakthrough will help it keep its official Catholic status endangered by its stem cell research. The Vatican has been quietly investigating the university’s fertility centre, which does embryonic stem cell research that is firmly opposed by Catholic teaching. The university, with the support of Brussels Cardinal Godfried Danneels, has been arguing it needed to continue that work until research into adult stem cells — which it also does — finds an ethical way to produce them. No steps have been taken, but no compromise seemed possible. If the Vatican stripped KUL of its Catholic status, it could lose many Catholic students who study theology there.
“This reduces the bones of contention with Rome,” said KUL Vice-rector Mark Waer. “If these insights are confirmed, at some point it shouldn’t be necessary anymore to experiment with embryos.”
Creationists claim the Giant’s Causeway
Until now, there have been two explanations for the origin of the Giant’s Causeway, that magnificent collection of interlocking rock formations on the County Antrim coast in Northern Ireland. Geology tells us it is made of columns of basalt that formed after intense volcanic activity millions of years ago. Irish folklore tells us that it was a bridge that the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built to cross over to Scotland to fight another giant. The geologists are right, of course, but the old Irish tale is harmless fun.
Now Biblical creationists are trying to add a third interpretation. The Belfast Telegraph reports that a new group called the Causeway Creation Committee wants to add a creationist explanation to a tourist centre project being discussed.
The newspaper writes:
Their belief is that the causeway was created by a huge watery catastrophe – Noah’s flood… The committee has been set up to lobby for information on their theories to be included in any future visitors’ centre at the causeway. They say more than 1,000 people have so far signed the petition.
Founding member Stephen Moore (30) is a Christian evangelist who runs outreach programmes for young people in Portrush.
He explained: “We don’t believe God created it the way it is, it was definitely a result of volcanic activity. Where we differ from the official theory is that we believe the cause of that activity was the flood we read about in The Bible. It says the fountains of the great deep opened up and because of that there was volcanic activity.
“The other main difference in our view is the date. They say the causeway was created 60 million years ago but we believe that’s a fairy tale. When you follow The Bible timetable it is about 4,500 years ago and due to volcanic activity that surrounds the events of a global flood.
“I take issue when people talk about the scientific view because our view is scientific as well. We use the same evidence and observations, we just interpret it differently.
“It just comes down to what glasses you are wearing.”
Further down, the report says:
But a longer term goal for the committee is to have intelligent design theories taught as science as part of the curriculum in our schools. Intelligent design is the assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Its website states: “We also desire to see the fact of Intelligent Design being taught alongside the Theory of Evolution in our local schools.”
The issue has been discussed on several blogs in the area — see here and here.
Is this just a case of “what glasses you are wearing?” Is one explanation just as good as another?
I would say there’s as much evidence and reason to believe the Flood event, if not more. The theory of evolution cannot be true because it seems to me as though it is forced into a time-table rather than establishing a time-table. I know very little about evolution, but doesn’t it better fit the subject of Theoretical History rather than Science?
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