Archive for the 'religion' Category

Center For Inquiry: Chris Mooney on The War

by
Clifford
on May 1, 2008
in Los Angeles, religion, science and science and society
. 2 Comments

Well, here’s a turn up for the books. I pass the buildings of the Center for Inquiry (West) in Hollywood quite regularly on my to-ings and fro-ings, and always wondered what it was. About what were they inquiring? My inquiring mind wanted to know, but by time I got back to a computer, I’d forgotten all about intending to Google it. I was sort of expecting that it might be some, er, fringe organization, given the neighbourhood (not 1/4 of a mile away is uncle charles - center for inquirythe mother ship (or one of them) for the Scientologists, and a similar distance in the other direction is the “Scientology Celebrity Centre” too, where John, Tom, Kirstie, and others from the remarkably large movie star Scientology set presumably go and hang out and feel… celebrated).

Well, it turns out that it’s not like that after all, but a place where, as far as I can tell, serious reason-based inquiry into issues surrounding the places where, e.g., science, religion, culture and superstition intersect (such as, you know, real life) is encouraged. I like that poster of theirs I found, for example (image to the right).

They have a number of speaker series, where all sorts of interesting people come to Continue reading ‘Center For Inquiry: Chris Mooney on The War’

Categorically Not! - Beginnings

by
Clifford
on December 14, 2007
in Los Angeles, art, astronomy, cosmology, music, religion and science
. 0 Comments

Bob Miller at Categorically Not!The next Categorically Not! is on Sunday December 16th (upcoming). The Categorically Not! series of events that are held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, (with occasional exceptions). It’s a series - started and run by science writer K. C. Cole - of fun and informative conversations deliberately ignoring the traditional boundaries between art, science, humanities, and other subjects. I strongly encourage you to come to them if you’re in the area.

Here is the website that describes past ones, and upcoming ones. See also the links at the end of the post for some announcements and descriptions (and even video) of previous events. (Above right: The artist Bob Miller speaking at the event entitled “Really?” on 23rd April, 2006. He died recently on Oct. 28th 2007, and this week’s event is dedicated to him.)

The theme this month is Beginnings. Here’s the description from K C Cole:

Every thing (and every body) began sometime. Even matter, space and time have a history. So do music, religion and galaxies (and along with them, musicians, religious scholars and astronomers.) Of course, how things begin determines to a large extent how they evolve and go on to influence both human culture and the universe at large. So for this month’s Categorically Not, we’ll look at beginnings from three widely (and somewhat wildly) diverse perspectives.

categorically not! Beginnings Speakers
Continue reading ‘Categorically Not! - Beginnings’

Odd One Out?

by
Clifford
on December 17, 2006
in religion, science, science and society and science education
. 28 Comments

When I first came to the USA, I recall being scared and shocked upon going to the hobbies section of a magazine shop and seeing all the different gun magazines. Come to think of it, it still scares me a bit, but I suppose I’m used to it - cultural differences and all that. Today I found something I’d not noticed before in the magazine section of Borders at Sunset and Vine that scares and shocks me a bit. I’m not sure I should just leave it at cultural differences. It seems more like a problem, to me. Let me see if it jumps out at you:

Is it just me, or is one of these magazines scarily out of place?* (Click for larger).

bible study and science

Continue reading ‘Odd One Out?’

Dawkins on Colbert Report

by
Clifford
on October 18, 2006
in evolution, religion and science
. 13 Comments

Just watch the YouTube video …. it is rather funny.

Dawkins on Colbert

Continue reading ‘Dawkins on Colbert Report’

Pope in Retreat on Evolution

by
Clifford
on September 4, 2006
in religion and science
. 3 Comments

Er… I had in mind the other sense of the word “retreat”. Although the Catholic Church does officially agree that:

[…] the earth is roughly four billion years old and that species changed through evolution.

But then it gets a little messy after that, as you know. Although not utterly and manifestly silly like the hardcore “intelligent design” proponents, who would deny all the evidence of evolution staring them in the face. It is indeed a relief to read:

[…] scientists and church experts say they cannot imagine the study session ending with any alignment of the pope or the church with intelligent design or American-style creationism, which often posits that Earth is only about 6,000 years old.

“I suspect they will try to avoid it,” said the Rev. Joseph Fessio, an American priest and former student of the pope’s, who is taking part in the meeting, “because intelligent design has been represented either as a religion, which it is not, or as a science, which I think is indefensible.”

Study session? Pope? I’m quoting (above) from a New York Times article on the (now underway) annual meeting that the current Pope has every year at Castel Gandolfo (excellent satellite photo below from Amara via Google Maps!), where he has scholarly debates with other members of the clergy on various matters.

Castel Gandolfo

This year’s topic is evolution. Sadly, unlike (for example) the field of theoretical physics, there won’t be any streaming or downloadable video of the seminars and discussion sessions. Pity, really.

Anyway, the article, by Ian Fisher, is very interesting, so have a read here.

-cvj