...ESSAY; Science and Religion: Bridging the Great Divide EVER since science began drifting away from religion, centuries ago, each has dreamed of subsuming the other. Scientists, in their boldest moments, speak of explaining away all the mysteries by empirical inquiry, leaving no need for ancient wisdom. And the faithful, fervently believing in spiritual forces unmeasurable by any meter, find it absurd that God's children would aspire to heaven solely by building telescopes and computers -- scientific Towers of Babel. They have longed for a reality beyond the shadowplay of the material realm. Left between these extremes are many people who are both scientific and religious, and confused about whether a bridge can ever cross the divide. Every few decades, this hope for reconciliation, or ''dialogue,'' experiences a revival. The most recent may be the biggest, with books, conferences and television shows trying to find a common ground between two fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world. In the 1970's scholars tried to merge science with Eastern religion; the emphasis now is on rejoining science with monotheistic, usually Christian, faith. Not all the work is motivated by religious passion. In his new best-selling book, ''Consilience'' (Knopf), the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson tries to revive the Enlightenment dream of a unified system of knowledge that would embrace not only the sciences but also morality and ethics, removing them from the uncertainties...
Words: 2455 - Pages: 10
...suspicion over his orthodoxy that has lasted to this day. This research paper will focus on the intellectual and social history of Meister Eckhart. The development in thought of any theologian emerges from the life world of the theologian. [4] The life world is formed by the meeting of the cultural, social, and religious history of the day. Theologians are continually searching for new and meaningful ways to interpret religious experience. Meister Eckhart interpreted the religious experience of his day in a way that no others at the time did. I will explore in this paper some of the intellectual forces at work at the time and how he interpreted and connected with these. Secondly, it is important to understand the social history of the time. No theologians' thought is ever formed by simply offering commentary on previous thinkers. As a preacher Meister Eckhart would certainly have been aware of the needs and various expressions of the community. I will explore some of the religious social movements that emerged from the life world of the era, particularly the Beguine movement and Eckhart's affinity with it. There is little doubt that Meister Ekchart was aware of the Beguines...
Words: 8164 - Pages: 33
...over his orthodoxy that has lasted to this day. This research paper will focus on the intellectual and social history of Meister Eckhart. The development in thought of any theologian emerges from the life world of the theologian. [4] The life world is formed by the meeting of the cultural, social, and religious history of the day. Theologians are continually searching for new and meaningful ways to interpret religious experience. Meister Eckhart interpreted the religious experience of his day in a way that no others at the time did. I will explore in this paper some of the intellectual forces at work at the time and how he interpreted and connected with these. Secondly, it is important to understand the social history of the time. No theologians' thought is ever formed by simply offering commentary on previous thinkers. As a preacher Meister Eckhart would certainly have been aware of the needs and various expressions of the community. I will explore some of the religious social movements that emerged from the life world of the era, particularly the Beguine movement and Eckhart's affinity with it. There is little doubt that Meister Ekchart was aware of the...
Words: 8164 - Pages: 33
...NATURALISM INTRODUCTION Naturalism is considered as the oldest philosophy in the western world. Naturalism is a philosophical position adopted by the naturalists, whose approach to philosophy is purely from scientific point of view. Naturalists believe that nature alone represents the entire reality and is there beyond or behind other than nature. For naturalists, nature is everything and nothing exists superior than nature. So they separate nature from God and allot no space for supernaturalism and spiritualism. They also believe that all our activities are initiated by our instincts. Naturalism stresses the need to return to nature from artificiality. It is also concerned with natural self and believes that reality and nature are identical and beyond nature there is no reality .With the help of physical and chemical laws, naturalism explains the universe, the physical world, life and mind. This nature is governed by its own laws and man is regarded as the child of nature. It considers matter as superior to spirit and gives importance to scientific methods of observation and verification. MEANING OF NATURALISM The term naturalism, by its ordinary meaning, means ism laying emphasis nature in every field of education. Naturalism is a system which follows exclusion of whatever is spiritual, or indeed whatever is transcendental of experience from our philosophy of nature and man. Naturalism is a doctrine that separates nature from god, subordinates sprit to matter and setup...
Words: 5413 - Pages: 22
...International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(15): 238-254 (2010) CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org Filipino Philosophy and Post-Modernity Raymundo R. Pavo, University of the Philippines Mindanao, Philippines Abstract: Post-Modernity, with its stress on freedom and creativity, is a vantage point that can dispose Filipino thinkers to philosophically formulate, construct and develop thought systems. This liberating milieu can be reckoned as a fertile occasion where Filipinos can explore the conditions of possibilities that grant a philosophical status to thoughts, statements or constructions that either come from or pertain to the Filipino mind. Such that when we use the concept Filipino Philosophy, we are well-conscious of these two interrelated points – The Identity and Referential Nature of the concept Filipino, and the connotation/intension of the term Philosophy. Is it Filipino? Is it philosophical? These are the questions that have guided the ruminations in this philosophical treatise. And as an initial insight to such questions, we propose a kind of vantage point that can address the identity and referential nature of the term Filipino in a Filipino Philosophy and the philosophical substance of its claim. This perspective, we shall argue, may be construed by a social-scientist-philosopher. As a social scientist, this thinker is mindful of the descriptions or characteristics that may be regarded as telling of the Filipino milieu. As a philosopher, this...
Words: 10004 - Pages: 41
...THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SPECIAL PROGRAM IN THE ARTS IN THE SELECTED HIGH SCHOOL: TOWARDS AN INTERVENTION PROGRAM BY: ELLEN S. TALACTAC MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION Chapter I THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SPECIAL PROGRAM IN THE ARTS IN THE SELECTED HIGH SCHOOL: TOWARDS AN INTERVENTION PROGRAM The Special Program in the Arts (SPA) is a nationwide program of the Department of Education for the students with potential or talent in the arts namely: music, visual arts, theater arts, media arts, creative writing and dance. The school shall offer a comprehensive secondary educational program centered on the arts, covering a range of art forms and disciplines. Arts education is an integral component of a balanced educational program in all year 2 levels, which provides the background for post - secondary level work. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY San Francisco High School was chosen as one of the schools to implement the Special Program in the Arts because it satisfies the criteria set in the guidelines. (DECS Memorandum # 135 s. 2001) The SPA school is / has: * A financially autonomous regular high school * Is strategically located in the region and surrounded by resources such as libraries, museums, instructional...
Words: 3627 - Pages: 15
...toward new pradigim Towards A New Paradigm for Economics Asad Zaman Director General International Institute of Islamic Economics International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan Abstract. Current economic theory is mainly concerned with the factors which affect the wealth of nations. Issues of income distribution and elimination of poverty and deprivation is secondary. The present paper invites discussion on a new paradigm: hunger and homelessness to make the subject of economics really serve the humankind. 1. Focus of Conventional Economics is Wealth and not Poverty Current Economic theory is firmly set in the mold structured by Adam Smith 1904). His concern was to look into factors which affect the wealth (and hence power, prosperity) of nations considered as a whole. Issues of income distribution are secondary, since wealth belongs to the nation regardless of how it is distributed among individuals. Since then, economists have been primarily interested in wealth and power, and not so much in removing poverty, hunger and economic misery. Malthus (1798) provided a convenient sop for consciences, showing that poverty arose as a consequence of natural laws (all proven wrong empirically later) and the only cure was to reduce the birth rate of the poor. Tawney (1926) has looked at the process by which morality got divorced from economics in much greater detail; because of this, questions of fairness, equity, justice no longer form part of current economic discourse...
Words: 5072 - Pages: 21
...-“Strauss versus Brains and Genes or the postmodern vengeful return of positivism.” This essay first started as an answer to what I deemed very problematic, i.e. the disputation which I found in bad faith (un-authentic to use a philosophical term or an existentialist term), of the mediatic, dashing Harvard cognitivist/linguist, Steven Pinker, in his article “Neglected novelists, embattled English professors, tenure-less historians, and other struggling denizens of the Humanities, Science is not your Enemy—a plea for an intellectual truce,” (The New Republic--August 19). Then the counter-arguments against Steven Pinker’s conception of the “human animal” developed into an essay arguing that the New Positivism, not science, or technology per say, was the enemy of humanism and its avatars as such. The point is not to become a postmodern anti-scientific Luddite. Genomics are changing the world in ways we barely imagine yet and will re-define what it means to be human (a becoming already imagined by science fiction writers, social critics and critical thinkers such as the feminist Donna Haraway with her “Cyborg”). The point is also not to turn “anti-brainiac.” Without a brain we would become vegetative, a vegetal…, i.e. a purely “natural body,” a “zombie.” If we make use of this “computer” allegory which is an analog but not a homologue, and which is used ad nauseam used by psycho-biologists, without a hard-drive there is no software. But is this a reason to say that the software...
Words: 20403 - Pages: 82
...Does science make belief in God obsolete? Yes, if by… No, and yes. Absolutely not! Not necessarily. Of course not. No. No, but it should. No. Yes. No, not at all. It depends. Of course not. No, but only if… Steven Pinker Christoph Cardinal Schönborn William D. Phillips Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy Mary Midgley Robert Sapolsky Christopher Hitchens Keith Ward Victor J. Stenger Jerome Groopman Michael Shermer Kenneth Miller Stuart Kauffman 2 4 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 Does science make belief in God obsolete? irteen views on the question Online at www.templeton.org/belief INTRODUCTION T he John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for research on what scientists and philosophers call the Big Questions. We support work at the world’s top universities in such fields as theoretical physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and social science relating to love, forgiveness, creativity, purpose, and the nature and origin of religious belief. We encourage informed, open-minded dialogue between scientists and theologians as they apply themselves to the most profound issues in their particular disciplines. And, in a more practical vein, we seek to stimulate new thinking about wealth creation in the developing world, character is booklet neatly embodies our approach to the Big Questions: the contributors are education in schools and universities, and programs for cultivating the talents of the gifted. scholars and thinkers of the...
Words: 13856 - Pages: 56
...Ch.7 Incredible results; parents now wanted kids of age 5 to be introduced to writing and reading. *Believes it is best to write 1st then learn to read. Ch.8 Schools started to spread and Montessori materials were widespread -held training classes for teachers -Wrote 1st book: The Montessori Method Ch.9 -new school opened at a convert for orphaned children -1st introduced to America in literature in 1909 -1913 Maria came to US; 1st Montessori school in US was in Tarrytown, NY -Montessori society formed. Ch.10 Magazine, newspaper, and general media were popular -Alexander Graham Bell’s wife became a big follower -Her book was 2nd place in 1912 and was on the best seller’s list -International Montessori Training in Rome -Problems of others misinterpreting her ideas; many took the method light heartedly Ch.11 -Mother died in 1912, wore black for almost the rest of her life. -Maria got very upset if anyone but her attempted to give a Montessori course -after her mother died, Maria brought Mario to live with her Ch.12 * When arrived in NY, she was swarmed by reporters * Travelled the US and was always polite * Returned home January 5th * Her materials have stood the test of time Ch.13 * 1915 visited California; meeting of National Education Association and 15,000 teachers. * Lived in LA for 2 months * Maria introduced as nephew then adopted son (17 years old) * Parkurst would be like a daughter to Maria * Her biggest flaw...
Words: 4915 - Pages: 20
...of the most revered Jagat Guru Sri Sankara Bhagavatpada would be prompted to do so and study it with the help of an authoritative commentary. Prayer: “Om Sthaapakaaya cha dharmasya sarva dharma swaroopine Avataara varishthaya Ramakrishnaayate namah” ("I bow to Sri Ramakrishna, the most Supreme among all Incarnations of God, who established Dharma (religion) and who is the embodiment of all dharmas") ******************************************************************************************* Let us start with what the great Rajaji (C.Rajagopalachari) said about Bhajagovindam: RAJAJI’S INTRODUCTION “Adi Sankaracharya wrote a number of Vedantic works for imparting knowledge of the Self and the Universal Spirit. He also composed a number of hymns to foster Bhakti in the hearts of men. One of these hymns is the famous Bhajagovindam. The way of devotion is not different from the way of knowledge or Jnana. When intelligence matures and lodges securely in the mind, it becomes wisdom. When wisdom is integrated with life, and issues out in action, it becomes Bhakti. Knowledge, when it becomes fully mature, is Bhakti. If it does not get transformed into Bhakti, such knowledge is useless tinsel. To believe that Jnana and Bhakti, knowledge and devotion, are different from each other, is ignorance. If Shri Adi Sankara himself who drank the ocean of Jnana as easily as one picks water from the palm of one’s hand, sang in his later years hymns to develop devotion, it...
Words: 20925 - Pages: 84
...The Gospel ACCORDING TO FEMIGOD He who has ears, let him hear The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO FEMIGOD Copyright © 2013 by Femigod Ltd. Published by Femigod Ltd. www.femigod.com Femigod® is a registered trademark of Femigod Ltd. ISBN: 9780992642600 For my darling sister, Pero. I love you dearly. No matter what you want, it’s yours. Beyond money and weapons. Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Book One: Understanding Mainstream and Organised Religion.............................................................. 5 Christianity ............................................................................................................................................ 6 Islam ...................................................................................................................................................... 9 Hinduism.............................................................................................................................................. 12 Buddhism ........................................................................................................................................... 155 Chinese traditional religions ...........
Words: 76280 - Pages: 306
...Institute of Philosophy and Religious studies. Affiliated to The Catholic University of Malawi PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE (Epistemology) Student: OTIENO STEPHEN MBAKA Class Notes INTRODUCTION Fundamental Notions THE "PHILOSOPHY OF KNOWLEDGE" is that branch of philosophy which tries to determine in a general way what the nature and scope of man's capacity to know are. Precisely what this determi-nation will turn out to be cannot be foreseen at the beginning of our investigation since the very reason for undertaking such a project is to find that out in a methodical and systematic way. Nonetheless, even at this point, we do have a vague sense of what we are after, and, presumably, we have had enough experi-ence of our ignorance and capacity for error to motivate us to take up this arduous task. Our common-sense notion of nature tells us that an investigation into the "nature" of anything means at least that we are ask-ing "what sort of thing is it?" To be sure, this question is none too precise, but it will do for a beginning. Again, our common-sense notion of "scope" tells us that an inquiry into the "scope" of any-thing means at least that we are asking "how far does it extend?" Again, this imprecise query will do for the moment. Notice that we are not asking whether we know anything at all. The reason is, as we shall see in detail later that this question cannot be asked at all, because to have asked it is to have answered...
Words: 49506 - Pages: 199
...Chapter 1 Introduction to Educational Research LEARNING OBJECTIVES To be able to Explain the importance of educational research. List at least five areas of educational research. Explain the difference between basic and applied research. Describe evaluation research, action research, and critical theory research. Discuss the different sources of knowledge. Visit the study site for an interactive concept map. Explain the scientific approach to knowledge generation. Explain how to determine the quality of a theory or explanation. List the five objectives of educational research and provide an example of each. 2 RESEARCH IN REAL LIFE Research Aids Decision Making In June 2002, New York Governor George Pataki signed a state law giving Mayor Michael Bloomberg control of New York City’s public school system. Most observers agree that this is a school system desperately in need of reform. The 1,100 schools within this system educate 1.1 million kids. However, using the word educate would seem to be somewhat of a misnomer because only about half of the city’s public school students finish high school in 4 years. Only 40 percent of third- through eighth-grade students score at an acceptable level in reading, and only 34 percent do so in math. About 100 of the 1,100 schools are classified by the state as failing, and another 300 are almost as bad. Clearly, something needs to be done. While campaigning for mayor, Michael Bloomberg had many ideas, one...
Words: 14959 - Pages: 60
...the issue of music's moral and ethical power, and how that power affects individuals and societies, is one that receives too little attention in our post-modern world. Ancient cultures held strong beliefs in the moral and ethical power of music and as such it was imperative for artists within those cultures to exercise a certain moral and ethical responsibility in their creative endeavors. As a professional musician for over thirty years I concur with that premise and it is primarily from the axiological, rather than a theoretical or aesthetic viewpoint that I approach this discourse. The responsibility of artists to the social environment in which they live and work is something that I have always had strong sentiments. As we now find ourselves beginning a new millennium, questions with regards to music's origins, its spiritual, religious and mystical properties, its moral and ethical power, its transcendent qualities, the role of the arts and artists and the importance of art in general, and music in particular, are questions that I believe any thinking, caring, probing musician should seriously contemplate. At the outset of the twenty-first century it is undeniable that the pervasiveness of popular culture and the values it engenders has had an adverse effect on our societies. In light of the current climate of Western popular culture, "art music" has become...
Words: 8756 - Pages: 36
