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Check information from the 2009 Conference: Listen to Brian Malley interview from the WGVU radio program, "Common Threads". Click below: 2009 Breakout Sessions:
Mark Moes, Philosophy, Grand Valley State University
Title: Birth of Modern Atheism: Hume and His Critics
Description: A brief outline the overall strategy of, and specific arguments in, David Hume's Critique of Natural Religion in THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION and DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION. The session will also survey some critical responses to Hume's Critique from a recent volume of responses.
Deana Weibel, Anthropology, Grand Valley State University
Title: Moving Closer to God(s): Why Pilgrims Make Pilgrimages
Description: Pilgrimage, the travel to sacred places, often involves the belief that it is easier to communicate with God, the Goddess or gods at a sacred space. This breakout session takes an anthropological approach to exploring notions of the relationship between divine beings and holy places across cultures.
Sheldon Kopperl, Biomedical Sciences, Grand Valley State University
Title: Believe in Gods, or God? The Origin of Monotheism in Judaism
Description: Religious scholars have speculated that much of the earliest writings sacred to Judaism imply that a belief in a single universal God was a product of a relatively late development in Jewish thought. We shall examine some of the evidence and discuss how it might be explained from a number of perspectives.
John Cooper, Philosophical Theology, Calvin Theological Sem.
Title: All Humans Are Religious: With or Without God
Description: Whether theists or atheists, whether or not we engage in spiritual practices, whether or not we believe in an afterlife--all humans are religious in an existential-functional sense. We live by faith-based worldviews. This session outlines a philosophical anthropology of religion as a human universal.
Christopher B. Kaiser, Historical and Systematic Theology, Western Theological Seminary
Title: Why do People Believe in Science?
Description: It is now generally recognized that early modern scientists were motivated by various religious beliefs. What seems to have escaped the notice of historians and philosophers alike is the fact that some of the beliefs of early modern scientists have persisted. These beliefs are basic to scientific endeavor, which could not be sustained without them. Modern science turns out to be a faith-or belief-based enterprise.
Kelly James Clark, Philosophy, Calvin College
Title: Explaining God Away? The Challenge of Evolutionary Psychology
Description: Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon claim that God exists in the mind alone. Some argue that cognitive psychology, provides an evolutionary explanation of religious belief and thus explains God away. We will critically examine this claim that evolutionary explanations of religion undermine the rationality of belief in God.
Loren Haarsma, Physics and Astronomy, Calvin College
Title: Creation, Design, Evolution, and Human Origins
Description: “Design" and "evolution" are often presented as contradictory concepts; we'll discuss how they can go together. Then we'll assess some of the scientific and theological issues around several proposed scenarios for human origins.
Timothy Pennings, Mathematics, Hope College (2008 Repeat)
Title: Resisting the Poles: The Kink in Lewis's Argument for the Existence of God.
Description: There seems to be a strong human desire to secure answers to ultimate questions. A famous theorem of mathematical limits suggests that we might do well to resist such urges. In particular, in "Mere Christianity" C.S. Lewis gives an argument for the existence of God based on the universal human sense of moral absolutes. We will discuss an apparent flaw in his reasoning and consider where that leaves us.
Nancy Janisch, Veterinary Medicine, GVSU Book Group
Title: God and Dog: Meaning in Human and Pet Relationships (2008 Repeat)
Description: Traditionally, Christians have relegated the relationship between God, animals and humans to the margins of theology but with today’s environmental concerns, this is no longer wise. This presentation intends to Biblically rethink and reclaim the relationship between God, humankind and animals in a biologically and theologically responsible manor.
Dennis Marshall, Theology, Aquinas College
and Kay Carlson, Veterinary Medicine
Title: The Science and Theology of Intelligent Design Theory
Description: After a dozen years of whole-genome sequencing of organisms, the National Center for Biotechnology Information has named at least six points of biological emergence of new forms with intermediates so difficult to reconstruct by neo-Darwinian methods as to elicit the term "Biological Big Bang." This illustrated introduction to Intelligent Design Theory describes its science and discusses theological implications.
Karel Rogers, Biology Emeritus, Grand Valley State University
Title: A New Perspective on Morality
Description: The “humans first” morality of Americans is an artifact from bygone days before the earth became Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Truly moral behavior today must include considerations responsive to this ancient place that functions as a series of evolving nested levels of organization.
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| Last Modified Date: August 6, 2009 | |
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