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The article examines the concoction of religion and “science” contained in the revelation that substantiates a new religion: Raelianism, founded and led by the prophet Claude Vorilhon/Rael after having received a revelation in 1974. After a detailed examination both of Rael's prophetic message and his/the Raelians’ interpretative practices, an ad hoc model is presented to describe such concoction...
Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate's 2010 work on “entering a semiotic matrix,” we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature,...
This article develops a new perspective on theism that (1) makes the simple juxtaposition of theism and atheism problematic, (2) and helps bridge philosophy of religion and the empirical study of religious phenomena. The basic idea is developed inspired by Terrence Deacon's book Incomplete Nature and its description of “ententional” phenomena, together with some ideas from the cognitive science of...
This article outlines the contributions of the Kraków School to the field of science and religion. The Kraków School is a group of philosophers, scientists, and theologians who belong to the milieu of the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. The members of the group are engaged in inquiries pertaining to the relationship between theology and various sciences, in particular cosmology, evolutionary...
Reviewing the last fifty years of interaction between religion and science in Catholicism in Southern Europe, common traits are clearly evident: a late awareness of the importance of this interaction and a theological reluctance to address science or to account for its progress. Early signs of the engagement between religion and science appear as a consequence of the work of the French anthropologist...
When we read books or essays about the dialogue between “religion and science,” or when we attend conferences on the theme of “religion and science,” we cannot avoid the impression that they actually are dealing, almost without exception, not with a dialogue between “religion and science,” but with a dialogue between “Christianity and science.” This could easily be affirmed by looking at the major...
The burgeoning literature on the ethical issues raised by climate engineering has explored various normative questions associated with the research and deployment of climate engineering, and has examined a number of responses to them. While researchers have noted the ethical issues from climate engineering are global in nature, much of the discussion proceeds predominately with ethical framework in...
While the social and ecological landscape of the twenty‐first century is worlds away from the historical‐cultural context in which the biblical myth‐symbols of the image of God and the knowledge of good and evil first emerged, Philip Hefner's understanding that Homo sapiens image God as created co‐creators presents a plausible starting point for constructing a second naïveté interpretation of biblical...
This article examines Huston Smith's critique of and remedy for modernity from the perspective of a college professor who adopted “Why Religion Matters” (2001) as required reading for undergraduates. Smith's heartfelt plea to consider, if not embrace, the common wisdom of traditional religious worldviews deserves a hearing. But Smith's approach is also in need of qualification, supplementation, and...
This essay explains the rationale behind a series of reviews on interactions between knowledge and values, science and religion, in different countries or regions around the world. The series will run in Zygon for the whole of 2015 and beyond. In the literature, it may seem that discussions in the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom are typical of the issues, but they need not...
Andrew Dickson White played a pivotal role in constructing the image of a necessary, and even violent, confrontation between religion and science that persists to this day. Though scholars have long acknowledged that his position is more complex, given that White claimed to be saving religion from theology, there has been no attempt to explore what this means in light of his overwhelming attack on...
Historians have long since rejected the dubious assertions of the conflict model, with its narratives of perennial religion versus science combat. Nonetheless, this theory persists in various academic disciplines, and it is still presented to university students as the authoritative historical account of religion–science interactions. Cases of this can be identified within modern anthropology textbooks...
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