This summer, Jonathan Pararajasingham created 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God and then Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God. If you’re counting, that makes 100. Right alongside these twin videos came 20 Christian Academics Speaking About God, a montage featuring some respected figures (save Dinesh D’Souza) trying to square religious beliefs with their scientific work.
You could perhaps add Karl W. Giberson and Randall J. Stephens to this list, two professors who teach at a Christian liberal arts college in Boston. Earlier this week, Giberson and Stephens published The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age and an accompanying op-ed in The New York Times called The Evangelical Rejection of Reason. And it all points to a tension within America’s religious community — the one side that is “intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking” (like some of the folks shown above) and the other side that is “literalistic, overconfident and reactionary” and often hostile to basic science. Unfortunately, the authors argue, this backward-looking view has become the mainstream within evangelical circles, and it does a struggling nation no favors.
Yesterday, Giberson appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. You can listen to the interview here, or read the transcript here.
1. Professor George Coyne, Astronomer, Vatican Observatory
2. Robin Collins, Professor of Philosophy
3. Dr Benjamin Carson, Paediatric Neurosurgeon
4. John Lennox, Oxford Professor of Mathematics
5. Francis Collins, National Human Genome Research Institute Director
6. John Polkinghorne, Cambridge Professor of Mathematical Physics
7. JP Moreland, Professor of Philosophy, Biola University
8. William Dembski, Research Professor of Philosophy
9. Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
10. Dinesh D’Souza, Hoover Research Fellow, Stanford
11. Dr Ravi Zacharias, Renowned Christian Apologist
12. Brian Leftow, Oxford Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion
13. Dr William Lane Craig, Renowned Apologist and Philosopher
14. Nicholas Saunders, Science and Religion Scholar, Cambridge
15. NT Wright, Leading New Testament Scholar
16. Alvin Plantinga, Notre Dame Professor of Philosophy
17. Alistair McGrath, Oxford Professor of Historical Theology
18. Freeman Dyson, Physicist, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
19. RJ Berry, Professor of Genetics, UCL
20. Denys Turner, Yale Professor of Historical Theology
Well it appears you have rounded up every last one of them, but given the world population, and the academic population of the world, the turnout is pretty weak.
There is nothing duller in the world than listening to believers talk about god in relation to science. God bring absolutely nothing to the discussion. It is a debate anchored in the idea that believers must be placated and coddled in their silly notions and somehow made to feel that their ideas are worthy of the same respect as ideas based on a naturalistic view. The debate then turns into a death spiral about the nature of belief and how important it is to people…blah blah blah.
20 academics talking about god, 20 million academics talking about god, it all adds up to precisely NOTHING.
my only sadness is that I was not allowed to respond the original material
I am a Christian and believe that the creator of the universe took human form
I am also a scientist
I regret the lack of communication
This is a little unfair, but only a little. Most people, pushed, would spout contradictions and unanswerables. I find it interesting, though, how often these folks, all Christian, all bright, all pushing themselves intellectually, disagree with one another about the basics of God. Does He or doesn’t He intervene in human affairs? Why is there evil? Is He temporal or not? Clearly they believe in a variety of Gods, so how, really, are they all Christians? Big problem, isn’t it?
D’Souza, IMO, is the one sleaze in the group. His line is aimed only at believers. He shouldn’t have been included, or if included, been in a conversation rather than his carny routine.
What a weird video. Definitely not up to the standard of the previous one.
Apart from the obvious point that not everyone here is “respected” or “renowned” (William Dembski? are we serious), especially on a global scale (I’m not aware of any mainstream theologian outside the US taking William Lane Craig or Alvin Plantinga seriously), some of the people here are not even talking about their own beliefs, but are talking about the way that other people avoid hard questions. Rowan Williams and Nicholas Saunders are the most notable examples.
This is quote mining on a scale worthy of creationists.
@Dagwood Bumstead & others.
Your ?? can be answered by reading the Bible, but you won’t get the answer through the mainstream sects of Christendom. They all have an agenda of pushing beliefs, traditions and doctrines of whatever denomination they happen to belong to. The problem is: those beliefs, traditions & doctrines AREN’T what the Bible actually says. It is too involved to type it all in an answer here, but the fact is » to a person who isn’t attempting to ‘prove’ false doctrine, uphold pagan traditions & beliefs, the Bible is quite compatible with ‘almost’ all of the current scientific knowledge.
I always assumed creation was as scientific and elaborate as necessary to bring about this world in which we live. God knows everything from the beginning of the universe, and I don’t. And I’m okay with that.
would like to work with you