Lawrence Krauss, A Universe From Nothing, October 11-15 on Religion For Life!

Physicist Lawrence Krauss talks about his new book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing on Religion For Life.  The book arose from the response to this Youtube lecture that has received over a million and one half views. He describes the universe without any recourse to "supernatural shenanigans." Join us for a fascinating and lively conversation about the universe as science reveals it!





Listen via livestream…

Thursday, October 11th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, October 14th at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, October 14th at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Monday, October 15th at 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Via podcast beginning October 16th.

Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack on a New Cosmology, Encore Presentation, October 4-8 on Religion For Life

My guests on Religion For Life are Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack, authors of a new book, The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World. Dr. Primack is professor of physics at the University of California at Santa Cruz and Nancy Ellen Abrams is a cultural philosopher. Together they find a way of integrating our cosmology with meaning and offer a hopeful vision for our human future on Earth.





Listen via livestream…

Thursday, October 4th at 8 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Sunday, October 7th, at noon on WEHC, 90.7.
Sunday, October 7th, at 2 pm on WETS, 89.5.
Monday, October 8that 1 pm on WEHC, 90.7.
Via podcast.

A Universe From Nothing

I just interviewed Lawrence Krauss, physicist and author of A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing.    I enjoyed both the book and the conversation and you can hear the interview in a few weeks on Religion For Life.  

This is a book about cosmology and the universe and how wild it is.  He takes a few well-deserved and necessary pokes at theologians who want to fit "God" in there somewhere.   He shows convincingly to me at least that there is not much place for "supernatural shenanigans" as he puts it.   He writes:

A universe without purpose or guidance may seem, for some, to make life itself meaningless.  For others, including me, such a universe is invigorating.  It makes the fact of our existence even more amazing, and it motivates us to draw meaning from our own actions and to make the most of our brief existence in the sun, simply because we are here, blessed with consciousness and with the opportunity to do so.   p. 181

I have been blathering for six years on this blog.  I have expressed my doubts about God, life after death, and what have you from the vantage point of a minister.   I like religion.  I embrace its social aspect.  I regard its mythologies as poetry.   When religion is honest it is good.  But it is hardly ever literal for me.   

In doing this, I have felt a little guilty.  Perhaps I was writing from the perspective of a person born sucking a silver spoon.  Perhaps if I suffered more I would more readily accept the teachings of the orthodox faith and bow to the wisdom of Mother Church and her guardians.  If I was more acquainted with pain I would embrace the truth of the bodily resurrection and the reality of a personal God.

Now with the death of my son, I think I am a legitimate member of the "sufferer's club."   If that isn't a pitiful club to join I don't know what might be.

Yet even after this experience, I cannot say I am more willing to embrace orthodoxy.   I am pretty much the same as far as all of that goes.  I recognize the impermanence of life more.   Some of the theologians got that right.  I do love church.  I love the hymns and the scriptures, but more importantly I love the people.    I am fiercely proud and in awe of anyone who does and believes in whatever they need to do or believe in in order to cope with the excruciating fragility of life.

But after all of this, I am, at the end of the day, no more and no less than I was before, still in the camp of Krauss, who writes about the universe's future thusly:

Our universe will then recollapse inward to a point, returning to the quantum haze from which our own existence may have begun.  If these arguments are correct, our universe will then disappear as abruptly as it probably began.

In this case, the answer to the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" will then simply be:  "There won't be for long."  p. 180

Oddly enough, I am OK with that.


    

Evolution Sunday and the Clergy Letter Project

Here is some fun. My church board has submitted two overtures to the presbytery to send on to the General Assembly regarding Evolution Sunday and the Clergy Letter Project.  I honestly have no idea whether or not these will pass in our presbytery.  But the debate will be fun!

Here is the first one:

Overture to the Holston Presbytery from the Session of First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, TN.

The Presbytery of Holston overtures the 220th General Assembly (2012) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to designate the 2nd Sunday in February as Evolution Sunday to recognize the influence that the Theory of Evolution has had in changing the world view of our natural environment.

Rationale:

Evolution has been wrongly viewed in some Christian communities as contrary to Christian beliefs. As a scientific theory based solidly on extensive scientific evidence, it has shaped our thinking in the natural sciences and has become the underlying theory for numerous medical advances. As a scientific theory it does not contradict the existence of God, but can be seen as a natural, creative process in God's creation.

In a recent study of why young people are leaving the church, 29% of the youth reported being discouraged by the church's antagonistic view of science, and that many young people are “turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” The research also “shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.”

(Ref. You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church...and Rethinking Faith. David Kinnaman, 2011, The Barna Group.)

The 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has stated that it:

1. Reaffirms that God is Creator, in accordance with the witness of Scripture and the Reformed Confessions.
2. Reaffirms that there is no contradiction between an evolutionary theory of human origins and the doctrine of God as Creator.
3. Encourages State Boards of Education across the nation to establish standards for science education in public schools based on the most reliable content of scientific knowledge as determined by the scientific community.
4. Calls upon Presbyterian scientists and scientific educators to assist congregations, presbyteries, and the public to understand what constitutes reliable knowledge.

Other denominations have also recognized the compatibility of modern science and theology. For example, The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2008 states, in part, "We recognize science as a legitimate interpretation of God’s natural world. We affirm the validity of the claims of science in describing the natural world and in determining what is scientific. We preclude science from making authoritative claims about theological issues and theology from making authoritative claims about scientific issues. We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology."

Thus it is fitting to set aside the 2nd Sunday in February as Evolution Sunday to celebrate the importance of evolution by designating the birthday (12 February 1809) of the founder of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, as Evolution Sunday.

And the second:

Overture to the Holston Presbytery from the Session of First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, TN.

We bring this overture in the spirit of faith that joyfully acknowledges
that God brings all things into being by the Word. (W-1.2001),
that God transcends creation and cannot be reduced to anything within it (W-1.2002),
that God created the material universe and pronounced it good, and
that the material world reflects the glory of God. (W-1.3031), and,
with the understanding that in prayer we earnestly thank God for creation and providence. (W-3.3613)

The Presbytery of Holston overtures the 220th General Assembly (2012) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to join with the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Southeast Florida Diocese of the Episcopal Church, the Southwestern Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and with 12,794 members of Christian Clergy, 482 Rabbis of Judaism and 251 Clergy of Unitarian Universalists in endorsing the Clergy Letter Project and the Christian Clergy Letter printed below:

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.


We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

(see: http://www.theclergyletterproject.org/Christian_Clergy/ChrClergyLtr.htm)