Despite profound disagreements about elevatorism and its fallout, I can’t ignore useful investigations of the Templeton Foundation and similar at Why Evolution is True, like today’s post on Templeton’s ridiculous stealth “Faraday Institute” and its hot new “Test of Faith” project.
The “Test of Faith” project has a Study Guide. The study guide has an introduction. The introduction explains things.
The challenge that has been put forward so many times recently is that God is a delusion and science has removed the need for faith in anything. But there are many practising scientists who have a sincere Christian faith, even at the highest levels of academia. They have all been trained to think and test ideas to the limit. If their faith and their science are both genuine searches for truth, we need to hear from them.
Yes if; but are they?
No, they’re not; not in the same sense. Claiming they are is equivocation; it depends on treating different meanings as if they were the same. Science’s search for truth is not the same kind of thing as “faith”‘s search for truth. The criteria are different. The willingness to admit failure and error is different. The expectation of evidence is different. The very definition of truth is different.
Why bother thinking about science and faith?Ask two or three friends, family members or colleagues if they can think of a situation where science and religion (or beliefs) affect each other. What issues or questions arise?For example, what about: In medicine? (Religious beliefs often affect ethical decisions.)
In education? (Children sometimes ask questions like ‘Who made human beings, God or evolution?
In politics? (E.g., the Archbishop of Canterbury is campaigning on climate change.)
Ah yes the archbish is campaigning on climate change…and the pope is campaigning on (i.e. against) condoms, secularism, reporting of priestly child rape to law enforcement, ordination of women, all abortions including pregnancies in which the fetus would die anyway and so would the mother. Funny that Templeton/Faraday/Test of Faith picks an example of right-on campaigning as opposed to the other kind.
Never trust a Templeton creation.
Huh. I did a post several days ago about the Faraday Institute’s “Uses and Abuses of Biology” grants program, which he talks about (with no links to my post).
How coincidental.
Oh, Salty, puh-leeze. I found it the announcement of that program the other day when I was perusing BioLogos, as I do every few days. Your implication that I stole the topic from you is simply incorrect. And since I almost never look at your website, and didn’t see that you posted about it until now, I didn’t give a link.
That makes “h/t: Matthew Cobb” a bit of a mystery.
I prefer “blog.”
After you linked to a post at ERV where she twice in the comments makes dangerously false claim about the HPV vaccines, that’s not company I want to be in, in any case.
That makes “h/t: Matthew Cobb” a bit of a mystery.
Hm. It appears this can also be used to recognize someone’s contribution, so maybe not so much of a mystery. Although then it’s something of a mystery why someone would require research assistance for a post…
Anyway, I’m sorry for making the insinuation in this thread – especially since this is a subject on which we all agree – and am happy to recognize it as a coincidence. The more people throwing light on Templeton, the better, and your post is good.
That’s a nifty little study guide.
Ummm. Coincidence + Natural Phenomenon(real or imagined event) + Wishful Thinking + Self Delusion?
And who the hell are the Haarsmas? No, don’t tell me. I don’t care.
And you don’t even have to leave the climate change arena. There’s a huge amount of anti-environmentalist campaigning from the Religious Right. I posted about the crazy religion panel at the “Big Footprint” conference this summer.
More honest would be …a situation where science affects religion (or beliefs), as in spending millions of dollars to fight against the realization that belief is scientifically unsupportable. And religion doesn’t affect science, though it may attempt to interfere with science. (Not universally a bad thing, by the way. Historically, we should all be grateful for religious opposition to eugenics.)
There’s a huge amount of anti-environmentalist campaigning from the Religious Right.
And of course I should have noted that much of it is funded by the Templeton Foundation. Whether they’re aware of that at the Faraday Institute, I have no idea.
***
And angry about religious support for eugenics.
Just to be precise here, since my actions have been impugned as uncharitable, Salty Current said:
That makes “h/t: Matthew Cobb” a bit of a mystery.
To clear up that mystery, what Matthew sent me were the two Templeton ads that I posted. As I said, I found the Templeton/Faraday site on my own.
[meta]
Jerry @10, I refer you to SC @5.
(Wherein the impugnation was recanted)
And revealing. Instead of trying to solve and address very real and very serious issues within the religious community, they pretend they aren’t there. Which is incredibly irresponsible when there’s very good reason to believe that by converting more people you are increasing the number of people who’ll be exposed to and have to deal with everything you’re trying to sweep away. Talk about your messed up values.
“If their faith and their science are both genuine searches for truth, we need to hear from them.”
But, but……Religion is not a search for truth. It is, in fact, the opposite. By claiming to already possess the ‘truth’, religion is in opposition to a search for truth (whichever meaning you assign to the word ‘truth’).
In any case religion is not merely revealed by science to be false, but by its own bogus scripture.
sailor – exactly. But of course they claim it is a search for truth. I’ve disputed that exact claim before, though I forget where it was made…BioLogos? Giberson maybe? Yes I think so…
No, I think what I was thinking of was this.
Something Tom Clark said, actually –
I’m not convinced that that’s true.
Um… wording could stand to be improved a bit there…
Oh er, so it could.