Reviewing - TEXAS FAITH: Why should science talk to religion? - The Dallas Morning News
August 24, 2009
I spent two months this summer as a Templeton Foundation journalism fellow in science and religion, attending Cambridge University seminars on various aspects of the dialogue, historical and contemporary, between science and religion. It was surprising for me to discover that the perception that the two are oil and water is fairly recent. Indeed, I met this summer on the program robust atheist scientists and academics, but also believers from Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism.
All thinking religious believers of whatever tradition understand that religion has to engage science in a serious way. There's no serious debate over that. But there is a serious discussion among scientists as to what, if anything, science ought to be saying to religion. Some, like the famed biologist Richard Dawkins, argue more or less that the only meaningful thing science has to say to religion is, "Sit down and shut up." But there are many others who are more open, but wary.
So, here's this week's question of the week for our panelists:
How would you make a case for mutual engagement between science and religion?strong>
Once again "Texas Faith" asks a distinguished panel of scholars to tackle a difficult question and then, lets them talk.
Templeton Foundation has fostered the kind of dialogue being discussed for many years.
I am once again blogging this article to create a bookmark for my own continued study of this topic.
Complementing that would be the excerpted article below:
Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 August 2009 13.00 BSTScience and religion need a truceAtheists are attacking the idea that science and faith can be compatible, but confrontation won't spread the truth of evolution
This fall, evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins – most recently famous for his public exhortation to atheism, The God Delusion – returns to writing about science. Dawkins's new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, will inform and regale us with the stunning "evidence for evolution", as the subtitle says. It will surely be an impressive display, as Dawkins excels at making the case for evolution. But it's also fair to ask: Who in the United States will read Dawkins's new book (or ones like it) and have any sort of epiphany, or change his or her mind? READ MORE
More and more, skeptics are becoming "evangelists" of rationalism, no longer content to be tolerated and tolerate, but internally mandates to convince and convert. The more radical fringes seem endowed with a mission to eradicate what they see as a societal evil and the source of countless social ills including war, racism, and poverty.
One must raise one's hand as if the foul whistle has sounded to confess one's complicity with a past filled with confrontation and misunderstanding from our end of the pulpit.
To suggest dialogue, I am advocating nether for acquiescence nor dominance. As a believer, I am satisfied in the conviction that God can show Himself and do all the convincing of people's hearts that needs to be done.
The strategical approach of debate to score points are not what is called for here. The loud thumping pulsations of accusatory preaching are not the media of choice. It is about two parties who have something to discuss honestly and openly.
However, I am called to bear witness through word and action to what I believe is a life-fulfilling, hope-enhancing, eternally significant message. I trust I can do that without being obnoxious.