Science and Religion: Potential for a Grand Dialogue
Meeting Minutes for January 11, 2006; #199
Announcements
Check our website: www.freethoughtassociation.org for the most up to date information about upcoming events and opportunities. And for questions regarding specific items of interest, send e-mails to: info@freethoughtassociation.org.
LOOK BOTH WAYS: Looking back on the year just finished, 2005 CE, we see that it was another full year for the Freethought Association, with many cherished activities continuing and new ones beginning. We started the year with our meetings located at the Yankee Clipper Library, and ended up near the close of the year (in October) at the Women’s City Club near downtown Grand Rapids, at 254 E. Fulton.
We continued our tradition of having thought-provoking, fascinating guest and member speakers for our meetings. Among our special guest speakers, we were treated to an amazing portrayal of famed defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow by UU minister, Roger Brewin; MSU Professor and author of books critical of creationism in all its guises, Robert Pennock; lawyer, author and environmental activist, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and other stimulating thinkers on such topics as critical thinking, naturalism, religion, and the environment, among other topics.
Our own membership is comprised of many who have stepped up to the lecture podium on more than one occasion, and in this past year these members came through again, with presentations that ran the gamut from astronomy to the interactions between civilizations; cognitive behavioral therapy to stem cell research; the work and secular mission of the Hard Times Cafe´ to an exploration of many regional churches, and the issue of funding Michigan public schools, among other interesting presentations.
We maintained the annual or seasonal events such as the Freethought & the Arts presentation, the Spring Fling, the summer Picnic, the Halloween Party (complete with bonfire, hayride, costumes, etc.), our participation in the Thanksgiving Interfaith gathering where the freethought perspective is presented by different members each year, and the Winter Solstice Dinner Party; this just past year’s Solstice Party including a Freethinker of the Year award presentation. We continued with the Kayaking/Canoe trip, the Pando Snow Tubing activities and our gatherings at the Van Oosterhout’s Lake Michigan cottage.
There was also a continuation of regularly occurring (one, two, or three times per month) get-togethers, including the much-enjoyed Freethought Movie Nights (occurring on the first and third Wednesdays; alternating with FA meeting Wednesdays), our after-meeting social gathering at Vitales Restaurant (where a sizable number of attendees make their way for good talk, food and drinks), and the Freethought Women’s Group, held on the third Saturday of each month.
We also had our first Garage Sale fundraiser, in addition to continuing our Book Sale and other annual or semi-annual revenue enhancement activities. The Garage Sale was a time of great fun, food and fellowship as well as a money maker. And we started two new activities; our Freethought Meditation Group, with meetings held on the first, second and third Sundays of the month (currently at FA member, Dr. Luke Galen’s home), and Dinners for 8, where adult couples or singles (totaling 8 individuals) gather for potluck food, drinks and good talk.
Most members (who have signed up to be on our mailing list) received the quarterly newsletter from our organization, The Freethinker, in today’s mail. In it was news on upcoming events and meetings; the 2005 Freethinker of the Year award winner, Jason Pittman; a call for financial support that is needed for continued organizational growth and development; and a summary of the Winter Solstice Party. Thanks to FA Vice-Chair, Dr. Robert Collins for pinch-hitting for us in doing the news/summary portion of the write up for the newsletter.
Those in attendance for this meeting were reminded that we offer a service, e-News, where members may sign up to get news of interest to the freethought community, from local happenings, to national and international events, court cases, and other news items. Those who elect to partake of this free service may customize the content of what they receive. One may also sign up to be included in our Membership Directory, which is frequently updated.
We were also reminded that our meetings are taped by member Gordon Matousek, and these are later broadcast on GRTV (Channel 25), on Wednesdays at 10:30PM. At this particular meeting Gordon had set up two portable DVD players, showing presentations from past meetings. One was from a talk Dr. Gregory Forbes gave, and the other was the Question and Answer portions drawn from a variety of meetings. These were for sale for $10 each.
The following is a brief run-down of our upcoming meetings and calendar events for January:
January 15, at 6PM is the next Freethought Meditation Group, held at 1416 Wilcox Park Dr., SE, GRMI. For more information, contact coordinator, Jeremy Beahan at modern.dharma@gmail.com or visit the website: www.freethoughtassociation.org/meditation.
January 18, at 7PM, is the next Freethought Movie Night at 740 Lockwood, NE, featuring the film, Baraka. BYOB and a snack to pass and kindly RSVP (or for more info) at (616) 634-2471 or email: jpittman@backpacker.com.
January 21, at 10AM, is the date for the Freethought Women’s Group at 736 Lockwood, NE. For details contact coordinator, Jennifer Beahan at:
musiqueforlife@gmail.com or (616) 706-2029.
January 21 is also the date for the next Dinner for 8. There will be three more to follow this year. To learn more, contact coordinator, Jan Van Oosterhout, at
jabivo@aol.com.
January 22: Freethought Meditation Group meeting. See above information.
January 25, at 7PM is our next regular FA meeting (at the Women’s City Club). The topic for that meeting will be: Industrial Ecology: A Darwinian Business Model, presented by Geoffrey Saint, FA member.
Presentation
The topic for this meeting was Science and Religion: Potential for a Grand Dialogue, presented by Douglas Kindschi, Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy, Grand Valley State College, where he previously served for over 20 years as the Dean of Science and Mathematics. P. Douglas Kindschi’s interest in the discussion of the sciences and religion goes back to his graduate studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School and his leading a campus ministry science-religion program while completing his PhD in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin.
At GVSU he developed the course: Science, Mathematics, and Religion: Ways of Knowing, which received a Templeton Course Award. He founded and has led for the past seven years, a faculty discussion reading group in science and religion. He currently directs a new Local Societies Initiative program which is bringing together an interdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and interfaith dialogue for the greater Grand Rapids area; The Grand Dialogue. For more information, check the website: www.GrandDialogue.org .
The Grand Dialogue in Science and Religion is supported by a grant to GVSU from the Metanexus Institute with funds from the Templeton Foundation and is an association of colleges, universities and religious organizations coming together to explore the relationship between science and religion. It seeks to find positive ways of relating these two great ideas in a constructive dialogue. Participating organizations include Calvin College, Calvin Theological Seminary, Cornerstone University, GVSU, Hope College, and Western Theological Seminary. Each of these supporting organizations have their own unique perspective, foci, message, and intended audience. Through cooperation, they affirm the willingness to be open to various issues and perspectives in a spirit of mutual respect.
On October 20 of last year, the Grand Dialogue featured the Lucyle T. Wermeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University, Dr. Michael Ruse. His inaugural address was called: All in the Family? The Struggle in America between Evolution and Creation.
Dr. Kindschi’s personal odyssey started with him being raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. The Bible was to be taken literally. All was neat, tidy and monistic. Monism is the doctrine that reality consists of a single basic substance or element. Everything fit in this construct he was brought up to believe. If things were good it was considered God’s blessing; conversely, if things were bad, then it meant that God was testing you. He discovered science in college. The scientific approach is one that accommodates growth and change as new knowledge is gained. It is potentially falsifiable. This was different from the religious notions that he was brought up with.
When he embarked on delving into higher mathematics at the graduate level it appeared that if one went far enough, one could find descriptions of reality that could take in every aspect. This seemed to restore the neatness and exactitude of final truths that he now knew religion did not possess. He talked about how science offers pluralistic explanations that are derived from the perspectives of the models each specializes in. Therefore, there are models for physics, biology, geology, chemistry, etc. He found, as he went deeper into more and more advanced studies that mathematics has its own axioms and systems and eventually one reaches the limits of what can be comprehended or explained by it as well.
It was while he was involved in advanced work at the Argonne National Laboratory, that he heard lectures by Karl Barth, Paul Tillich and others, who were influential to his thinking about theology. Barth, an influential Christian theologian, was regarded as a leading thinker in the neo-orthodox movement and Tillich was a professor of theology who had a highly systematic approach to his work and sought to correlate culture and faith as well as revelation and reason. Dr. Kindschi became so intrigued with this new-for-him approach to religious thinking that he even switched over for a time to divinity school courses.
He also learned of the work of Alfred North Whitehead (who said: Knowledge does not keep any better than fish), mathematician and philosopher, who co-authored with Bertrand Russell, the epochal work: Principia Mathematica. Whitehead’s book Process and Reality, ushered in the concept of process philosophy and added to ideas on metaphysics. His ideas were adapted by others into what came to be called process theology. Process theology acknowledges that contemporary understanding of God and God’s expression through creation is always in process and never complete, unlike traditional theologies that are static. Ideas of truth are in need of progressive growth. This way of thinking held great appeal for Kindschi.
At this time, too, he came across Zygon. This term is from the Greek for anything that joins together two bodies to harness their tandem strengths for mutual benefit. It focuses on the question of meaning and values that challenge individual and social existence today; bringing together the best thinking of the day from the physical, biological and social sciences, along with ideas from philosophy, theology and religious studies.
Professor Kindschi therefore came to see that the conflict between science and religion was unnecessary. Neither arrives at a point where humans can come to absolute truths, and while both are seeking a deeper understanding, they are ultimately, simply, different ways of knowing. He cited prominent scientific thinkers who believed either that the end of knowledge in a given field was imminent or that science essentially had attained that point, with only details of measurement and precision (another decimal point) left to make. Some consider, or considered, physics to be the highest level of science, which introduced the phrase: physics envy into the lexicon. Lord Kelvin famously declared that all outside of physics was merely stamp collecting. Others have regarded physics as essentially involving clever decisions on what to leave out.
Our presenter also talked about how a near-sighted view of one’s own field left one with an errant understanding in other ones and how even mathematical models that have stood the test of time — such as the proofs of Euclid and Plato from hundreds of years BCE — were falsely attached to other notions that have fallen by the wayside. As to mathematics, one can find meaningful statements that cannot be proven true or false and statements in the system that cannot be proven yet are true within the system, as is expressed in Godel’s Incompleteness Model. His theorum, appearing in his 1931 paper: On Formally Undecided Propositions in Principia Mathematica and Related Systems, says that for any consistent formal theory including basic arithmatical truths, it is possible to construct an arithmatical statement that is true, but not included in the theory. That is, any consistent theory of a certain expressive strength is incomplete.
In light of these thoughts, Dr. Kindschi believes that both science/mathematics and theological constructs issue faith statements and makes his plea for pluralism — that is, that there is more than one way to look at an issue. He said that if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Both science and religion have made major impacts on society. He gave an example of a typical day in the life that we could all relate to, from first rising in the morning to going to bed at night, where the fruits of science affects our lives, enriching them. He talked about how it has changed our ways of communication, travel, how we are entertained, our longevity and other health issues, etc. But he noted that not all of science’s impact has been positive, such as pollution, global warming, the farther reach and greater scope of warfare, and even auto fatalities.
Religion too, he asserted has two sides. It fills in the areas that science does not address, such as how best to treat each other, governing beliefs, ideas of compassion, the Golden Rule, loving one’s enemies, etc. The dark side takes in such things as suicide bombers, religious wars, and the Inquisition, as examples he gave of the negative impact of religion. Professor Kindschi spoke of Ian Barbour’s work in promoting the relationship between science and religion, for which this physicist and theologian received a 1999 Templeton award for Progress in Religion. Barbour has authored many books regarding a dialogue between these two powerful ways of knowing, including Issues In Science And Religion, and Religion In An Age of Science.
Professor Kindschi sees the issues pertaining to how science and religion relate to each other as falling into four categories: Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration. For conflict, he cited the examples of Richard Dawkins and Phillip Johnson, who are at odds primarily on the Creation/ Evolution debate; one that Kindschi sees as unproductive. Such individuals are at the extremes, Dr. Kindschi feels, and espouse either/or systems, where people have to come down on one side or another, with no common ground between the two sides, there is no dialogue and both are antagonistic
— and deemed antithetical — to each other.
For independence, he spoke of Stephen Jay Gould’s construct of NOMA, or non-overlapping magesteria. This view gives props to both science and religion, seeing both as powerful and important to humankind, but does not see any area of overlap between them. It has been stated memorably as: Religion tells us how to go to Heaven; science tells us how the heavens go. In this view, while both are significant in the lives of people, neither informs nor contributes to the other in their disparate ways of knowing.
Dialogue, as Barbour - for example - has it, sees value and great potential in interaction between these two approaches; and integration takes this a step further, as Aquinas, Whitehead and Teilhard de Chardin have done. This last stage leads to a more holistic approach to seeing the world, informed by science and inspired by religion. While Kindschi allows that one can lead a full life without both components in it, he takes the Einsteinian quote to heart: Science without religion is blind; religion without science is lame. For him, as for others who have taken his tack, there is too much order and complexity in the universe to not have some underlying governing force and spiritual essence.
While he disavows religious fundamentalism, he notes that science also can have its own fundamentalism, as seen in the scientistic approach. It can be as monistic as any religious faith, he believes. Pluralism and open minded dialogue are the most promising ways to bridge the gap for the mutual growth of both approaches. The extreme view, that of teaching that they are incompatible, he said, drives away potential talent — especially in this country — and forces them into an unnecessary and counterproductive dichotomy. He sees this as a problem not only for science but also for religious studies, since progress and growth in theological undertakings can be impeded as well.
Professor Kindschi spoke of how the best Christian thinkers, Augustine as an example, divorced themselves of absolute certitude and read biblical tales as allegorical accounts. One can end up throwing out the deeper meaning and timeless ideas of religious texts, if one denounces it all as a collection of silly myths. On the other hand, one misses the poetry and flexibility of the application of thoughts to different times and cultures, if one holds too closely to extreme literalism and dogmatism. There are too many casualties in the Culture Wars, he said.
People are hungry for learning about the natural world and latest scientific discoveries, especially living as we do now in a time when there are more scientists alive than there have lived, cumulatively, in all the time before the present, and the reach of science grows ever longer and more encompassing. But most people seem to also have an innate need for religious learning and spiritual growth. When they come together in respectful dialogue, we see the results: an explosion in articles, journals, books, conferences, local, national and international gatherings and a coalescing of leading thinkers for the edification of all who participate.
Another example our presenter gave of a person who has successfully blended a fervent religious belief system with a deep understanding of science, is the ’04 Templeton Prize winner, George Ellis. Ellis is the Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems at the U. of Cape Town (South Africa) in the Department of Applied Mathematics. He has co-authored the book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with Stephen Hawking, and is an internationally renowned leading theorist in cosmology. He is also a committed Quaker. Freeman Dyson, Paul Davies and others were mentioned for their significant tandem contributions to theological and scientific knowledge. And he spoke again of Michael Ruse who gave the inaugural address at the local Grand Dialogue on Oct. 20 of ’05. Ruse spoke on the creationism/ evolution controversy in America and raised issues of purpose and design from his scientific perspective.
There are many topics now in the forefront of public consciousness that are the outcome of the state of the art of science, that also bump up against religious thinking on the questions and issues they raise. Stem cell research, cloning, the latest findings in evolutionary biology, among them. At the GVSU Science & Religion Discussion Group, people gather from various backgrounds and areas of expertise, to provide their perspectives and input, including those from law, psychology, computer science, biology, physics, history, and health science, etc.
Dr. Kindschi reminded us of the Spring Conferences coming up, including the one on April 1st at the De Vos Center, with the speaker for it being John Haught . Haught is the the Distinguished Professor of Theology at Georgetown University, whose area of specialization is systematic theology with particular interest in issues pertaining to science, cosmology, ecology and religion. He has authored numerous books, including God After Darwin; A Theology of Evolution, and Science and Religion; From Conflict to Conversation. He urged us to check the website (listed earlier in this summary) for more information. There is no charge for these conferences.
He asked that we be open to considering pluralism and multiple levels of explanation from different perspectives. He broke down simple examples into three component explanatory parts: the physical explanation; the practical explanation; and the purposeful explanation. Even humble items such as a candle can be used to commemorate a global event or powerful religious ceremony, be used for a child’s birthday party, or be used as the fuse for a bomb that will leave numerous people killed and maimed. Usually, he noted, we ask the practical explanation, while the purposeful one is often the more important one, since it deals with what something can lead to.
Professor Kindschi offered us a Humility Plea, with the idea that our knowledge can and will change and to remember that no less towering figures in science than Isaac Newton and J.B.S. Haldane were informed by religion. He also encouraged us to look at the deep values that unite science and religion, rather than focusing on differences or criticism. Curiosity is one of the shared values that drives both, he offered, as well as honesty. Data can be and has been falsified and science is not value or bias free, done as it is by humans, and both science and religion have a deep commitment to humility. As to this last item, Dr. Kindschi said that both ways of knowing must realize that they are not providing the final answers to any given question. Humility is a courageous act, but too much courage may lead to dogmatism, while too much humility may lead to relativism.
Dr. Kindschi ended his presentation with what he titled The Flower, which showed the many ways of thinking about this botanical entity. He told a story of how Richard Dawkins was asked by his, then, six- year old daughter why there are flowers. Her suggestion was that they make the world a prettier place. He told her that they exist to perpetuate their DNA. He then asks who best sees the flower? The blind individual may have a different appreciation for them, derived from feel and smell; the musician may be stirred by their movement in the wind; the biochemist by its biochemical composition; the botanist from her field of knowledge; the biologist may see it from the gene’s eye view as Dawkins does; a mathematician and an artist from other perspectives. None are incorrect and all offer something of value. Is one more correct than another? Do the different ways of understanding the flower lead to nullification of the others, or do they all contribute to the overall holistic gestalt that is the flower? Kindschi suggested that the more ways of seeing the same thing creates greater understanding. He doesn’t believe we yet have the ability to put all the perspectives into one monistic one.
Dr. Kindschi’s presentation engendered a lively discussion during the Question and Answer period. One question, regarding his personal beliefs, caused him to remark that he does not try to argue religion from science. He declared that he is a theist; he believes in God and sees design, but does not see design in the world and conclude from that itself that there is a God. It is incomprehensible to him that everything happened by chance. For him to argue for all the necessary components to fall together, just so, to end up with the creation of the universe and us, would require taking into account multiverse concepts and other esoteric concepts; whereas, for him, his faith offers one comprehensive way of understanding what is incomprehensible without its inclusion. Religion offers meaning and purpose in life for him.
Science and religion deal with different kinds of questions. One problem he noted from the history of religion is that religion is much less definable; whereas science deals with experimentation and measurement. Religion examines relationships, emotions and other parts of life that do not lend themselves well to codification and measurement, yet are important to existence. Religion takes on the hue of the time and the state of science at a given time as well. Both shape each other. One can peer into the workings of the natural world down into a reductionism of molecules, etc., but this will not address purpose; and purpose questions are not irrelevant, he asserted.
A member in the audience shared a personal experience of how his homosexual son cannot live in full freedom because religious bigots using their Holy doctrines as a fuel, think it’s OK not just to threaten, but to kill gays. For him questions of religious belief are not academic. Is it possible to bridge gaps this wide, when scientific examination of homosexuality gives little credence to the lifestyle choice language used by the family values fundamentalists? He acknowledged the limitations in reaching the most narrow-minded of people from any worldview, but also would have us take notice of the local churches who are highly tolerant and respectful of the gay/lesbian community. In any such circumstance there is opportunity for a grand dialogue to blossom.
Another questioned him on details — does this exchange between science and religion deal with doctrine and specific beliefs, such as the Trinity, or is it more general, such as basic spirituality? He equated religious concepts with any other formation of models, which he said any method of explanation generates. Examples he gave included billiard balls being used to give the idea of molecules; Dawkins’ writings about selfish genes, and others he did not address, such as the famous one of the inflating balloon with dots on it that all simultaneously separate from each other, as a model for the expanding universe; and the equally well-worn one of the sheet with a stone thrown onto it. A marble is rolled across the sheet and as it nears the stone, the warping of the sheet causes the marble’s course to change and, if close enough, spiral into the stone itself. This is a model for the gravity well created by large bodies in space, that warp spacetime, creating gravitational phenomena.
It is understood that none of these models are the thing, precisely, that they represent, but are ways to help us perceive truths while not being ultimate truths themselves. This is the case, he offered, with both religious and scientific models. The dogmatic/fundamentalist approach, he went on to say, tries to derive ultimate truths from the model itself. We can, however, examine the errant notions of what people formulated from flawed understandings, to see how people tried to make sense of existence, and this itself may be illuminating.
The Dialogue, Professor Kindschi told us in response to another question, does not seek to water down the issues or strive for homogeneity. Different ideas bump up against one another for the mutual benefit of both religion and science, as deeper understandings arise. In offering another model, he said that it is not so much a melting pot as it is a salad bowl. Distinct flavors remain and lose no autonomy but, brought together, they become a sum greater than their individual parts. Differences are not hidden but are honored so that defenses are lowered and a genuine fluid flow of ideas and views can be shared more readily.
Another attendee challenged this evening’s speaker on the how honesty relates to religion, since there is no peer review process with religion, and the masses are led blindly to accept other people’s interpretations, fantasies and unfounded beliefs. At the deep value level, Professor Kindshi replied, religion affirms honesty and shows up hypocritical agendas, denouncing these. Kindschi spoke of the recent Dover, PA Intelligent Design case where the judge showed that the board members had an agenda to promote their own religious views rather than for the purpose of better science instruction, or even regarding a deeper, personal faith. Religious groups should not use stealth and deceit, but should play it straight; otherwise they run the risk of not being taken seriously and discrediting themselves and their views. The Grand Dialogue provides neutral ground in which to find shared values.
Another individual said that the list of negative influences from religion was artificially abbreviated in Dr. Kindschi’s example earlier in his presentation. The crimes against humanity perpetrated by religion, particularly Christianity, this member claimed, goes on and on. Another, in refuting the positive influences on societies from religious ideas, noted that societies, like living beings, adapt and evolve. Those that have a behavioral basis with a low survival value do not tend to be successful. The successful ones create laws against killing each other off, stealing from one another, etc. Later these are put into the mouths of the gods and emissaries of the gods as their commandments. The Golden Rule was formulated by the secular Confucius some five centuries before it was considered originating as a religious idea. It is as erroneous, in this formation, to see religion as the source for successful behavior as it would be in any other behavioral adaptation in the rest of the animal kingdom.
Still, Dr. Kindschi asserted that the religious motivation was to carry values forward and that negativity sells, so we are often bombarded with stories of religious motivation gone awry while ones of benefit to humanity are not addressed. And while the social sciences do indeed address human interactions, there are no shoulds or oughts that science offers in application of the data generated by scientific study, whereas religion gives its imprimatur to promote or decry social activity.
As to the question of dogma and religion, Dr. Kindschi asserted that religion must remain dynamic. When it gets stuck in dogma it also retains the science of the time it got stuck in; this stasis creates unnecessary conflict while offering little to current scientific understanding. This does nothing positive for either way of knowing.
One member could see how religion benefits from the Grand Dialogue approach but not what it had to offer science. Again Professor Kindschi expressed the idea that science benefits when talented and bright minds are not driven away from the pursuit of science by being alienated from it, when they feel forced to abandon their cherished beliefs to join the scientific community. To further answer, he said that the Dialogue helps religious people focus their beliefs, while it helps wean scientists away from a scientistic or scientifically fundamentalist way of viewing the world.
Dr. Kindschi quoted the Nobel Prize winning physicist, Steven Weinberg, for his view that runs contrary to his own: The more we understand about the world, the more we see lack of meaning and purpose. End quote. Professor Kindschi’s rejoinder to this is that Weinberg is making a conclusion based on what he previously assumed to find. If one starts out wanting to find no meaning, one is more likely to have that outcome. Of course one could turn that on its head by saying that when one strives to find purpose and deeper meaning in something, they are also more likely to discover this.
Weinberg, called the Einstein of our day, and who won the Nobel Prize for his work in joining the electromagnetic and the weak nuclear forces into a single force, provides a wealth of material for the non-believer. Some other quotes from Weinberg: Religion is an insult to human dignity. Science should be taught ignoring religion. One of the social functions of science is to free humans from superstition. The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions, wars and crusades. Religion is complete nonsense and terribly damaging to human civilization. End quotes.
Societies that function well without religion playing any significant role were mentioned by another member. Professor Kindschi said that while he acknowledges and does not question this, he believes one must take the long view — the one Darwinists and geologists take. Human societal arrangements change swiftly and the effects of those changes are not easily seen in the longer context of humankind’s existence. It is too difficult to tell what the outcomes will eventually be from a perspective of changes occurring over decades instead of many centuries.
While one attendee declared that she was a born again Christian, the overwhelming majority of those who opined during the Q&A period held a non-religious perspective. One person talked about science tackling How questions while religion countenances Why ones. However, when examining the way religion answers those questions we find (the attendee noted) that they do it by positing an imaginary Being. What does this bring to a sensible examination of questions?
In the end, for our presenter, it is lack of dialogue that is the problem. The fundamentalists from the science camp, or the religion one, make statements that get jumped on by the opposing side, defining all within each domain as being of the same mind. Growth is not stimulated by this tactic. Dawkins was again mentioned in this context for his no-holds barred criticism of religion.
One of our staunch members is a Professor of Evolutionary Biology and, if Huxley was Darwin’s bulldog, then it might be that this member is Dawkin’s bulldog ~ at least locally. He took issue with Kindschi’s conclusions and his minimalizing of Professor Dawkin’s messages. Flowers really do exist to pass on their genes. He noted that the presenter did not use items from biology in his examples of purposeful, practical and physical explanations. He also said that Why questions come in big time when it comes to living organisms and he was critical of the message presented in Dr. Ruse’s Grand Dialogue inaugural address (which Professor Kindschi had touted.) Dawkins considers religion a meme that won’t die, and one that is lethally dangerous nonsense. Contrary to the goals of the Grand Dialogue, Dawkins exhorts us to stop being so damned respectful to religion. Religion, for him is Bronze Age mythology, ancient scribblings or just plain barking mad. His detractors call him an enemy of God, but he prefers another appellation given to him: ambassador of rationality.
Lately he has turned his attention ever more to religious criticism, including work on a polemical film series called the Root of All Evil, regarding what he calls The God Delusion.
Things were heating up by the time we had to conclude our meeting. It can be reasonably assumed (although I was not able to be there to testify to, or witness, it) that the after-meeting gathering at Vitales Restaurant saw a continuation of spirited verbal sparring, provoked by Dr. Kindschi’s thought-engaging presentation.
Secretary: Charles LaRue
The Freethought Association of West Michigan provides a community
for freethinkers to explore ideas from a rational, critical and
non-theistic perspective.
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