Quote:
Originally Posted by Megan  I
I believe spirituality expresses through biology. Here is Antonio Damasio, head of the department of neurology at the University of Iowa Medical Center, and adjunct professor at the Salk Institute:
That certainly echoes Dawkins and many others.
That said, I don't disagree with dor about the, ahem, perspicacity* of Edmund Burke in supporting the American Revolution and warning against the French Revolution. These are subtle issues, and do not yield themselves to blunt instruments, I think.
*I hope you liked dor's new vocab word: scurrility.  |
thank you I will awkwardly work it into my next post to show off my new found knowledge.
One of the few useful things the Anglican Church as done in recent years, is produce a crop of minister-scientists-Barbour, Peacock, Polkinghorne - interesting reading they seek harmony between the two, where Dawkins has overtly stated he wants religion to 'vanish' --and his supporters take delight in their hatred of religion..that is what i find disturbing, and i think they are deceiving themselves that they are embracing 'reason'.
Quote:
John Polkinghorne didn't think he had time to cram one more thing into his busy schedule. But his wife persuaded him to attend a Bible class near their home in Cambridge, England.
It was a decision that changed his life. He ended up resigning his post teaching mathematical physics at Cambridge University in 1979 and becoming an Anglican priest.
His treatment of theology as a natural science and his role as a leading figure in bringing together science and religion has earned Polkinghorne the 2002 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. The prize, announced last week, has honored individuals, especially in the sciences, who advance spiritual learning. Polkinghorne has written more than 20 books, helping other scientists to grasp the spiritual element in science.
"I think that the sense of wonder in doing science is a religious experience, though not everyone who has it would certainly call it that," he says. "There certainly is a sense of awe, even of worship, at the beauty of creation."
Polkinghorne, who was knighted in 1997, is the fourth consecutive scientist to win the Templeton. But other winners say his search for truth in the universe has gone well beyond theirs. "Polkinghorne has really carried his science further than Peacock [last year's winner] and myself," says Ian Barbour, professor emeritus at Carleton College and the 1999 winner. |
Scientist-turned-cleric wins Templeton Prize in religion | csmonitor.com
i'll just let dawkins speak for himself...
Biologist Richard Dawkins said that physicists would give religion another problem: a theory of everything that would complete Albert Einstein's dream of unifying the fundamental laws of physics. "
This final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue death blow to religion and other juvenile superstitions." No religion and an end to war: how thinkers see the future | Science | Guardian Unlimited Some will accuse Dawkins of being not just impolite but also intolerant. He is indeed a kind of crusading atheist, and makes no bones about his opposition not just to religious extremism but also to all species of religious faith -- a phenomenon he regards as fundamentally irrational and deeply dangerous. Religious moderates, he points out, have an unfortunate tendency to lend their perceived legitimacy to more extreme faith-based positions. They do this in large part by encouraging the common belief that accepting religious claims in the utter absence of evidence, and treating them as immune to rational criticism, is perfectly reasonable behavior. Better living without God? / Religion is a dangerously irrational mirage, says Dawkins Sounds more like 1789 than 1776.
which reminds me, is rational, enlightened Voltaire's 'man will be free when the last bishop is strangled with entrails of the last king" (or the other way around?) - or the thought behind it - the reason the French Revolution turned out the way it did? In any event, Dawkins echos that spirit and that's what i find worrisome.