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TANSA Talk in Christchurch September 20th

stepheng — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:37:44 +0000

Off to Christchurch to speak at the Theology and the Natural Sciences in Aotearoa (TANSA) Talk this weekend which should be good. Graham and I will talk for a bit and stimulate some discussion, and hopefully we’ll have some sort of panel discussion at the end.

Official details can be found here but here’s the blurb anyway. Feel free to come along if you’re in Christchurch.

We’re going to lunch afterwards at a restaurant or café which people are welcome to tag along to too.

TANSA Talk

9.30-12 noon Saturday September 20th
Laidlaw College (previously BCNZ) Christchurch
70 Condell Avenue, Papanui,
Christchurch
(03) 354 4270

1. Science, Theology, and Ethics: An Emerging Alliance. (Graham O’Brien)

Graham O’Brien has a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology (Canterbury University), 3 years post-doctoral experience in molecular virology (Auckland University), and a Masters degree in Theology (Bible College of New Zealand). Currently Graham is the Vicar of the Picton Anglican Parish, in the Diocese of Nelson. He is also member of the InterChurch Bioethics Council, representing the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Aotearoa, New Zealand on issue relating to bioethics.

2. Thinking theologically about new technologies. (Stephen Garner)

Technology might be considered the environment in which we live, and breathe, and have our being. As such, where does one start to think theologically about the technological environment we find ourselves in? This presentation picks up themes common in bioethics, such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice, as helpful conversation starters for thinking theologically about technology.

Stephen Garner lectures in Theology at the University of Auckland. His PhD in Theology looked at the imago Dei in the context of transhumanism, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. His also holds an MSc in Computer Science and is a member of the InterChurch Bioethics Council.

It’s (religious) life, Jim, but not as we know it…

stepheng — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:39:15 +0000

The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley has just released a report based on a survey of different religious (& non-religious) groups responding to whether extra-terrestrial intelligence would precipitate a crisis in their respective traditions. The general consensus from religious groups tended to assert there wouldn’t be, while non-religious groups thought there would be.

The press release is here - CTNS Announces Religious Believers Welcome Potential Interaction with Extraterrestrials.

You can find the main survey page over at Counterbalance Foundation - The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey including the Full Report Documents and Appendices.

John Templeton (1912-2008)

stepheng — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:19:53 +0000

Microclesia alerted me to the death this week of John Templeton, who has been hugely influential in the funding and support of science and religion discussion and dialogue.

Scientific American carries an article on him over at John Templeton, Philanthropist of Science and Religion, Dead at 95: Scientific American.

What Does It Mean to Be Human?

stepheng — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:06:10 +0000

Interesting series of quotes about what it means to be human from various scientists over at What Does It Mean to Be Human? | Wired Science from Wired.com.

Often our attempts to define this tend to be linked to particular understandings of the essential core that defines human beings, sometimes called the locus humanus. Typically, this is denoted by a set of attributes that human beings alone possess, such as the religious concept of an immortal soul, but is often a collection of psychological attributes such as reason, language, consciousness and self consciousness. And indeed, in the quotes in the link above some of these crop up.

Hat tip to Nouslife: What Does It Mean to Be Human?

How Our Brains are Wired for Belief

stepheng — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:41:36 +0000

Hat tip to James at Exploring Our Matrix for a link through to an extensive interview How Our Brains are Wired for Belief with Andrew Newberg (hosted by the Pew Forum) on religion and neuroscience (neurotheology). He also notes this link to various related articles by Newberg and others.

See also Greenflame Â· Search results - Newberg which has some more links in it.

Online Darwin resources

stepheng — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:16:21 +0000

If you have an interest in science and religion or history you will probably be interested to know that Cambridge University has digitized and published on the internet its collection Darwin material (30,000 odd items and 90,000 images, as well as audio material). From the web site:

This site contains Darwin’s complete publications, thousands of handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published; also hundreds of supplementary works: biographies, obituaries, reviews, reference works and more.

Almost all is online only here: such as 1st editions of Voyage of the Beagle, Zoology, Descent of Man, all editions of Origin of Species (1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th & 6th); important manuscripts: Beagle Diary & field notebooks, Journal, transmutation notebooks and Autobiography.

You can access the site at: The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (darwin-online.org.uk).

More too, over at Complete Darwin Papers Debut on Internet | Wired Science from Wired.com

WCC on Intellectual Property Rights, Copyright, and Christian Churches

stepheng — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:08:25 +0000

Love to share is a downloadable resource from the World Council of Churches that aims to give some direction and guidelines for churches when considering intellectual property rights and copyright and looking at alternatives to the current situation. At some point I’d like to have some students theologically investigate these ideas so I’ll be downloading it to see what it says. [Hat tip to Tensegrities]

On a related note I’ve also been reading the WCC booklet - Globalization of Communications - by Chris Arthur. It’s about 10 years old now, but there’s some interesting starting points for further discussion in it.

But wait, there’s more…

WCC and new and emerging technologies: Able-ism: A prerequisite for transhumanism is a discussion paper on new technologies by Gregor Wolbring, who blogs over at Nano, Bio, Info, Cogno, Synthetic bio, NBICS.

And there’s also the WCC report Science, Faith & New Technologies: Transforming Life, Volume 1 : Convergent Technologies, which has some stuff in it relating to transhumanism.

Scientists, Spirituality and Faith

stepheng — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:29:55 +0000

An interesting post about a set of interviews with US scientists about religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Part of a follow-up to a larger survey and indicate that religious/spiritual inclination might be much higher than is commonly portrayed in a science vs. religion conflict model.

See The Immanent Frame » Blog Archive » Beyond The God Delusion

Martin Rees on the ‘posthuman’ future

stepheng — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:13:01 +0000

The website Edge: The Third Culture recently asked the question “WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?” to a range of commentators. Martin Rees (President, The Royal Society; Professor of Cosmology & Astrophysics; Master, Trinity College, University of Cambridge) responded with interesting short piece - We Should Take the ‘Posthuman’ Era Seriously.

You can also listen to him as part of the panel on the most recent episode of BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time on the concept of the Multiverse.

Ethics links

stepheng — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:22:25 +0000

Firstly, a short summary piece from PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on recent developments in biotechnology and whether they change the ethical landscape. See Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . PERSPECTIVES . Bioethics Update . January 25, 2008 | PBS

And secondly, Rod Benson (who produces the weekly summary RELIGION & ETHICS AUSTRALIA) also has a daily blog going over at Ethics Update: News, opinion and rumour on all manner of ethical, political and religious issues.