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Dear Friends,

I enjoyed and learned a lot at our last session of Conversations in Faith and Science. I believe our next meeting is scheduled for August 10 at 5:30 PM as we do have an Elders meeting that evening scheduled for 7:00 PM.

I expect we need to talk a little about where we go from here. One possibility has to do with a new subject that focuses on the question of what (if anything) recent progress in the study of human consciousness and neuroscience has to say about the nature of religious experiences.

Louise was good enough to share an article with me from David Brooks column in the NY Times that may be of interest to many of you as well. I believe she mentioned it at our last meeting. I have a copy of the article here at the Church and will make a copy for any who may be interested. It’s also available the last time I checked on the internet at the NYTimes website and is entitled the Neural Buddhists. To gain access to Brooks article you will have to instruct your browser to accept cookies from the NY Times website. Brooks suggests in his article that while the great debate of the past has been between the scientific hyper-materialists (Dawkins, Stenger, et al.) and the religious faithful in battlegrounds over evolution, etc., the next great debate will be with those scientists whom he describes as “Neural Buddhists”. These are scientists who are not strict materialists, and who take spiritual experience seriously, but who think, quoting Brooks, “. . . that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits.” He says this challenge will come from “. . . scientists  whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.” He mentions one author I’ve read (Andrew Newburg) who wrote with others, Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief.

Personally I see this work almost as an extension to C.S. Lewis’ classic explanation of how he came to reject the atheism of his youth and embrace Jesus Christ. Lewis explained that what he called the universal “moral law” compelled him to understand that there does exist  universal, objective right and wrong, i.e. that morality is not just a social or cultural norm. Collins discussed this a little in his book. It was this recognition that in turn compelled Lewis to conclude that any universal moral truth has to have a Source, i.e. that God has given each human some knowledge of Himself. Recent work in the neurosciences on the reality of religious experience and the sense of the transcendent also suggests, at least to me, that we can now go one step further in saying that our brains (at least for most of us) are indeed “hardwired” to consciously experience the reality of the Spirit.

Any thoughts?

God bless and take care.

Dear Friends,

Our next meeting of Conversations in Science and Faith will be this coming Sunday at 6:00 PM in the Fellowship Hall here at Friedland. Our topic is the debate over Intelligent Design (ID) and we’re planning to look at portions of a couple of videos that will help explain at least one of the issues in this debate.

Our brother Joe has also shared a couple of weblinks that have additional information.

The first is an exchange of essays between ID proponents and the responses of their critics which can be found at http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html. This was originally published in Natural History magazine. From the reading I’ve done so far I suspect many of the arguments made here have been responded to by those taking both pro and con positions in the debate over ID. I haven’t had the chance to read all these essays, but I have noted one error that I’ve seen repeated by those defending evolutionary theory against ID proponents elsewhere. In his response to Dembski, Pennock states that the second law of thermodynamics doesn’t pose a problem for evolution because the second law only applies to “closed” systems. This is a mistake I’ve seen repeated by others trying to defend evolution. As a physical chemist who did his graduate work in the thermodynamics of irreversible processes I can assure both Dr. Pennock, and all of you as well, that the 2nd Law is indeed a general law of nature and that it is in no way limited by the nature of the system; closed, open, isolated or otherwise. The second law may, or may not, be a problem for evolution; but it is most certainly a generally applicable law of nature. Life itself is a highly dissipative (entropy generating), non-equilibrium process. Whether this is alone sufficient to compensate for the local destruction of entropy in the development of a more highly organized structure should be the issue, not whether or not the second law applies.

Another link in this debate some of you may find useful is a response to a frequent argument of Kenneth Miller’s by Michael Behe at http://www.discovery.org/a/1831.

For those with some famliarity with the biosciences, who are interested in just how difficult it gets to find a defensible path for the creation of some “irreducibly complex” life systems by a purely Darwinian means, I suggest you take a look at the commentary at A Twisted Tale. Quoting from their commentary, “Recent commentaries (refs given) have pointed out the contradictory characteristics of the genome sequence data and the possible mosaicism of archaeal genomes. Analysis of bacterial and archaeal chemotaxis and flagellar systems provides another twist and makes any simple scheme for the evolution of the three domains even more difficult.” In brief, it appears that the more we learn, the more complicated life itself appears to be, and the less scientifically plausible becomes the emergence of living systems by any purely Darwinian process.

I have to say (not being a microbiologist or biochemist) that the more I read about the bacterial flagellum and the highly coordinated molecular machinery at the very foundations of life, the more I also hear people appealing to wholesale “horizontal transfers” of gene complexes or some other form of symbiosis as a way of trying to “fix the problem” posed by irreducible complexity to simple Darwinian theory.

The second of Joe’s links is also very interesting. This is a series of articles written by different individuals in response to the provocative question, “Does Science make belief in God obsolete?” It can be found at http://www.templeton.org/belief/. Personally, I found the responses of Keith Ward and Cardinal Schonborn closest to my own.

Take care, God bless, and I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.

Pastor Wally

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am new to this blogging business, as I am sure all of you can tell from my first post!

In any event, when I was looking at my post, I realized that somehow I managed to post only part of what I thought I was posting. So I apologize for the abrupt termination of my earlier post and my failure to include everything I had promised!

With this the following is what I thought I had in my earlier post:

I hasten to add that Dr. Kenneth Miller, http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/, who argues against intelligent design and supports Darwinian evolution, is also, like Dr. Collins, a Christian. Personally I don’t think Drs. Dembski, Miller, Collins or any other Christian, necessarily questions God’s sovereignty over His creation, regardless of what they say about evolution. There are a large number of very competent and accomplished research scientists who are Christians, and who also have very different and conflicting positions on the subject of evolution and intelligent design.

Having said that, my personal “favorites” for scientists who are also Christians, and who have places you may wish to look at for discussions of this and other topics are:

Dr. Henry “Fritz” Schaefer. Dr. Schaefer has a website at Leadership University (associated with Campus Crusade for Christ) at http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/. The leadershipU (http://www.leaderu.com/) website is gernerally a good place for lots of interesting and thought provoking material in Christian apologetics. Fritz Schaefer has a couple of very interesting articles, including one I recommend on the Big Bang that includes some personal remarks on his friendship with Stephen Hawking.

Another scientist worth reading is Walter Bradley who also has a site at LeaderU, http://www.leaderu.com/offices/bradley/. Among his articles is a very good article entitled The Trustworthiness of Scripture in Areas Relating to Natural Science.

And finally, James Tour, the reigning “expert” in nanocomposites at Rice University, an area I worked in at Penn State’s MRL. His website is www.jmtour.com. If you go to his webpage under the links entitled “personal topics” you will find a drop down menu that includes an article on the evolution/creation (intelligent design) debate. I think his position pretty much mirrors mine at the present time. James Tour was one of the 700 scientists who signed a statement expressing doubt in the ability of Darwinian theory to explain the development of life.

One of my favorite quotes comes from James Tour in which he said: “Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”

There is I think a very good reason why scientists, especially physicists and cosmologists including skeptics and agnostics like Robert Jastrow and Stephen Hawking, all sooner or later find themselves talking about God.

May God bless. And take care of each other.

Pastor Wally

First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion the other night. Sorry I had to duck out early, but I had to go be a daddy. I look forward to further discussions both here and in our get togethers.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. The relationship between science and religion is a source of constant fascination for me. We have long tended to separate science and religion into disparate camps. We often perceive the two to be contradictory and in conflict with one another. Throughout history this relationship has often been quite hostile and contentious. Personally, I try to not hold to this stance or perception. Anecdotally I note that just within our small group we have a handful of scientists who happen to also be Christians, or perhaps they are Christians who also happen to be scientists. The stance and perception is persistent though. I remember when Wally came to us as our new pastor, I mentioned him to a friend of mine. My friend is a Ph. D. candidate in cosmology and not a Christian. He was dumbfounded that a solid state physicist could be an evangelical Christian. That just didn’t jive in his head at all. I recall Wally himself speaking of similar reactions amongst his peers.

But are science and religion so different that never the twain shall meet?

I offer for your consideration the work of one fascinating man, Dr. Charles Townes. Dr. Townes won the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics for his work that led to the development of the maser and laser. Much of his work is foundational to that microwave probably sitting in your kitchen. Oddly, I think, his work is still highly influential in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He has held a series of prestigious posts in higher education and public and private science organizations. Quite simply, he is a powerhouse in the world of science.

In 2005 Dr. Townes won another award, the Templeton Prize for Work Contributing to the Understanding of Religion. (Also called the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities) This prize is awarded for work that contributes to the understanding of any and all religious systems. Dr. Townes is a Christian. His contribution is his long crusade to tear down the barriers between science and religion based on a belief that science and religion are not very dissimilar.

In his seminal article on the subject, he makes the bold proposal that in fact science and religion are so very similar that ultimately the two must converge. Born out of a talk he gave at his church, the article is title The Convergence of Science and Religion. First published in 1966 in the IBM Journal Think. It was later reprinted in The Technology Review published by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This republication ran squarely into that stance I mentioned at the opening. One prominent MIT alumnus was prompted to write an open letter to the editors threatening that he would have nothing more to do with MIT if they ever published anything like that again. I venture to guess that his opinion was shared by many. Dr. Townes responded eloquently sticking to his guns. (I’m looking for links to the original letter and Dr. Townes’ response, I used to have them, but alas. . .)

So questions that come to mind for me more closely related to our discussion. Are science and religion really that different? How does this fit with or influence more contemporary issues of intelligent design or Darwin’s work? Is evolutionary theory really in conflict with a belief in creation? There are more, but these come to me more immediately.

I welcome your thoughts.

Links (open in new window)
The Convergence of Science and Religion (original article in Think) .pdf format

Templeton Prize announcement

Nobel Laureate bio of Dr. Townes

A recent conversation with Dr. Townes at UC Berkley (includes commentary on more recent issues)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The URLs we looked at last night were first:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html

This website generally supports what is sometimes called “theistic evolution”. This is generally the position that evolution is correct, but that there is no conflict between Christianity and evolutionary theory. The homepage for this site is www.talkorgins.org. They also have an extensive archive of articles and postings supporting classical evolutionary theory.

The next was:

http://www.arn.org/id_faq.htm.

This website advocates the intelligent design hypothesis, argues in support of the “irreducible complexity” thesis of Behe et al. In general they support the efforts of some to introduce intelligent design into the science curricula in public education. Their homepage is http://www.arn.org/index.html. They are, if you will permit me, the folks sitting on the opposite side of the table from the talkorigins folks.

I also shared websites for two of the leading spokesmen for opposing positions. The first is a mathematician, William Dembski whose website is http://www.designinference.com/ that we briefly looked at. The other person I mentioned is Kenneth Miller, an evolutionary biologist whose webpage can be found at http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/index.html. He also has a special webpage on evolution. He and Dr. Dembski have made a “cottage industry” out of debating one another, and serving as expert witnesses for the litigants in the different legal tests of intelligent design theory.

There are numerous other websites and organizations dedicated to the evolution/intelligent design/creationism debate. My suspicion is that over the next 10 years or so the debate will intensify, and unfortunately in my humble opinion, become increasingly politicized as well. The rancor and “name calling” has in recent months I’m afraid gotten worse, especially now with the release of a new documentary entitled “Expelled” which claims there is an effort to silence academics who question evolution, or who advocate intelligent design.

Websites that you might find interesting in the general subject area of Faith and Science would include the websites of Christians who are also research scientists. These would include:

Welcome to the blog page for Friedland Moravian Church. Our Board of Elders has approved this effort to help us to stay in touch with one another better. It is sincerely hoped this will allow us to share questions, ideas and thoughts on our ministry together as we seek to move forward in service to our Lord, and to one another, in His Name. Sometimes the anonymity of electronic communications can lead to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or other problems. It is our sincere prayer that while we are sinners and may on occasion make mistakes, that this blog will help us draw closer together as we seek to draw ever closer to our Lord. The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living is our guideline for this, as well as all for other communications with one another. It is the understanding of our Board of Elders that all who register to view and/or post comments or questions to this blog will seek to keep our Covenant with one another, and as it says (from para. 29):

“We will not hate, despise, slander, or otherwise injure anyone. We will ever strive to manifest love towards all people, to treat them in a kind and friendly manner, and in our dealings with them to approve ourselves upright, honest and conscientious, as become children of God.”

Pastor Wally