The New Atheism: A Conversation with John Haught
REGISTER HERE In this luncheon conversation with students, Prof. John Haught will discuss the New Atheist critiques of religion. Do such arguments live up to a strict adherence to reason? Do they do justice to the religions they rebuke or, for that matter, the atheism they champion? This event is open to all University of Chicago students. Lunch will be served. Others interested in attending, please contact info@lumenchrisit.org.
Science, Faith, and the New Atheism
John Haught (Georgetown University The bestselling books by the “New Atheists” Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens provide colorful portraits of the evils of religions, especially those that profess belief in a personal God. In their passionate denunciation of faith in God, the New Atheists appeal not only to morality but also to reason to convince readers of the absolute wrongness of belief in God. This lecture will summarize the main claims of the New Atheists and examine whether these claims are themselves reasonable.
Science and Religion: The Myth of Conflict
In many ways, the supposed conflict between science and religion is really a conflict between “scientific materialism” and religion. The lecture will review the story of the relation between Christianity and science, discuss several discoveries of the twentieth century (primarily in physics), and argue that these are more consonant with the traditional Judeo-Christian view of the cosmos and of human beings than with scientific materialism.
Is the Human Mind Reducible to Physics?
a luncheon discussion with Stephen M. Barr (University of Delaware) REGISTER HERE This event is open to University of Chicago students. Lunch will be served. Others interested in attending, please contactinfo@lumenchrisit.org. Materialism or “physicalism” holds that all things, including human beings, are completely explicable in physical terms. While ancient and medieval thinkers expressed this view, it gained a new power with the success of Newtonian physics, whose laws were universal and deterministic, giving rise to the belief that the entire physical universe is a closed system of cause and effect. Does this reduction of human beings to purely physical factors…
Toward a Theology of Science
Tom McLeish (Durham University) REGISTER HERE This event is open to students, faculty, and scientists at the University of Chicago. Lunch will be served. Others interested in attending, please contactinfo@lumenchrisit.org. At this luncheon events, student will discuss a chapter from Faith & Wisdom in Science (Oxford University Press, 2014) on “A Theology of Science?” with author Tom McLeish. A PDF of the chapter will be made available to read beforehand and attendees will be given complimentary copies of the book. In the book, McLeish’s narrative approach develops a natural critique of the cultural separation of sciences and humanities, suggesting an approach to…
Evolution and the Catholic Faith
REGISTER HERE Many people imagine that the Catholic Church was historically opposed to the theory of evolution or that there is something dangerous or dubious about Darwinian evolution from the viewpoint of Catholic theology. These ideas are based on a variety of confusions and misconceptions. This talk will show how Catholic thinkers and Catholic Church authorities looked at evolution. It will also respond to the arguments some Christians make against it, and examine some of the more subtle issues, such as the relation of chance to divine providence, and the questions surrounding human origins and human distinctiveness.
Reductionism in Science: Order from Chaos or Order from Ideas?
REGISTER HERE Open to current university students and faculty. Lunch will be served. Join us for a discussion with physicist Stephen Barr on his article from First Things on the philosophical assumptions behind a tendency toward reductionism in the natural sciences. “This tendency to downgrade and diminish reflects a metaphysical prejudice that equates explanatory reduction with a grim slide down the ladder of being. Powerful explanatory schemes reveal things to be simpler than they appear. What simpler means in science is much discussed among philosophers—it is not at all a simple question. But to many materialists it seems to mean…
Tracing our Shared Deep History: Evolutionary Anthropology and Theo-Drama
Cosponsored by the Theology and Religious Ethics Workshop While theology and biological science often seem to be at odds, there are productive ways of telling the Christian story of who we are as human beings which resonate with newer evolutionary theories. This lecture will argue that the most convincing theological approach is theo-drama, where insights from the dramatic stage inform our theological reflections in relation to the drama of evolution. Such exchanges can be highly creative for theology and anthropology; neither party in the dialogue is reduced to the other, and both are enriched in new and interesting ways.
Religious Origins of Modern Science?
REGISTER HERE Cosponsored by the Department of History and the Committee for the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science It is often thought that modern science developed largely independently of, or even in opposition to, religion. Some historians, however, have suggested that religious factors played a key role in the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century, and were important in establishing a permanent and prominent place for scientific activity at the heart of modern Western culture. This lecture explores a number of ways in which religion may have had a positive impact on the emergence and consolidation of…
Lunch Discussion on “The Cosmos and the Religious Quest”
Students will read and discuss Chapter 2 from Professor Peter Harrison’s book The Territories of Science and Religion (University of Chicago, 2015) entitled “The Cosmos and the Religious Quest.” Prof. Harrison will also give a public lecture on “Religious Origins of Modern Science?” on Thursday, April 6. ABOUT THE BOOK The conflict between science and religion seems indelible, even eternal. Surely two such divergent views of the universe have always been in fierce opposition? Actually, that’s not the case, says Peter Harrison: our very concepts of science and religion are relatively recent, emerging only in the past three hundred years,…