During the last fifty years, the dialogue between science and religion in Germany has gained momentum. This essay briefly describes the academic setting in Germany with denominational theology at state universities and explains the development of secularization in reunified Germany. Twenty-five years after reunification, East Germany is one of the most secular societies in the world, and religion is seen as a strange relic. This poses challenges to the interaction between science and religion in both parts of Germany. The essay (...) then presents important institutions and contributors to the interaction between science and religion in Germany over the past fifty years, emphasizing the importance of private institutes at the intersection of the academy with society, churches, and ethical challenges. (shrink)

From 1979 to 1999, a heated dispute over the science or pseudoscience of extraordinary power or extrasensory perception took place in China. During these two decades, many so-called “grandmasters” of ESP and Qigong emerged, and millions of people across the country studied with them; this was known as “Qigong Fever” or “ESP Fever.” The supporters of ESP argued that ESP existed, people could cultivate ESP through specific Qigong training, and ESP was a science; whereas the opponents of ESP denied all (...) of these. Both sides of the dispute had many supporters. With the onset of Qigong Fever in China, some Qigong and ESP masters developed their Qigong organizations into Chinese-style religions. Qigong Fever ended when the religions were banned by the Chinese government. The rise of Qigong Fever demonstrated that basic questions about the boundaries between science and pseudoscience were not easy to answer. Different theoretical and practical consequences resulted from different answers to these questions. (shrink)

The state of the debate surrounding issues on science and religion in Latin America is mostly unknown, both to regional and extra-regional scholars. This article presents and reviews in some detail the developments since 2000, when the first symposium on science and religion was held in Mexico, up to the present. I briefly introduce some features of Latin American academia and higher education institutions, as well as some trends in the public reception of these debates and atheist engagement with it (...) in Mexico and Argentina. The primary conclusion of this article is that, even though the discussion is new to Latin American academic circles, it is gaining traction and will certainly grow in the coming years. (shrink)

This essay explains the rationale behind a series of reviews on interactions between knowledge and values, science and religion, in different countries or regions around the world. The series will run in Zygon for the whole of 2015 and beyond. In the literature, it may seem that discussions in the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom are typical of the issues, but they need not be. David Livingstone showed that the reception of evolution differed, even among (...) Calvinists in different countries. Thus, rather than an export model, we should take time to learn from scholars rooted in different contexts how in their situation issues on knowledge and values arise and are dealt with. In this interplay of global processes and local contexts, indicated with the term glocalization, we should be alert to the migration of concepts and the transformations that ideas undergo. (shrink)

When we read books or essays about the dialogue between “religion and science,” or when we attend conferences on the theme of “religion and science,” we cannot avoid the impression that they actually are dealing, almost without exception, not with a dialogue between “religion and science,” but with a dialogue between “Christianity and science.” This could easily be affirmed by looking at the major publications in this field. But how can the science–religion dialogue take place in a world where conventional (...) Christian concepts of God, religion, and science are foreign and unfamiliar? Is the critique that the scientist plays God still valid when there is no “God” at all? This article tries to answer the questions mentioned above, and seeks to sketch out some aspects of the science–religion dialogue in Japan which I believe could contribute a new paradigm for understanding and describing ultimate reality. (shrink)

Along with Husserl's Ideas and Heidegger's Being and Time, Being Given is one of the classic works of phenomenology in the twentieth century. Through readings of Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, and twentieth-century French phenomenology (e.g., Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Henry), it ventures a bold and decisive reappraisal of phenomenology and its possibilities. Its author's most original work to date, the book pushes phenomenology to its limits in an attempt to redefine and recover the phenomenological ideal, which the author argues has never (...) been realized in any of the historical phenomenologies. Against Husserl's reduction to consciousness and Heidegger's reduction to Dasein, the author proposes a third reduction to givenness, wherein phenomena appear unconditionally and show themselves from themselves at their own initiative. Being Given is the clearest, most systematic response to questions that have occupied its author for the better part of two decades. The book articulates a powerful set of concepts that should provoke new research in philosophy, religion, and art, as well as at the intersection of these disciplines. Some of the significant issues it treats include the phenomenological definition of the phenomenon, the redefinition of the gift in terms not of economy but of givenness, the nature of saturated phenomena, and the question “Who comes after the subject?” Throughout his consideration of these issues, the author carefully notes their significance for the increasingly popular fields of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Being Given is therefore indispensable reading for anyone interested in the question of the relation between the phenomenological and the theological in Marion and emergent French phenomenology. (shrink)

This article considers the current state of the science–religion debate in the United Kingdom. It discusses the societies, groups, and individual scholars that shape that debate, including the dialogue between theology and physics, biology, and psychology. Attention is also given to theology's engagement with ecological issues. The article also reflects on the loss of influence of denominational Christianity within British society, and the impact both on the character of the debate and the role of the churches. Finally, some promising trajectories (...) of development for the future are outlined. (shrink)

This article reviews the new developments that have occurred in the past ten to fifteen years in the field of Islam and science: the emergence of a “new generation” of thinkers, Muslim scientists who accept modern science's fundamental methodology, theories, and results, and try to find ways to “harmonize” it with Islam; and the exponential increase in the popularity of the I‘jaz ‘Ilmiy “theory,” the “miraculous scientific content of the Qur'an” as well as the continuation of the traditionalist school among (...) a section of the Muslim intelligentsia. The author then focuses on the next phase of issues, that is the “challenges” that this “new generation” must address, including the integration of methodological naturalism and evolution in the Islamic worldview, and positions to adopt regarding divine action and miracles. The author also mentions “educational and social issues” where Islam and science interface, and concludes with “the way forward.”. (shrink)

In this contribution, an overview of the distinct ways in which the interplay between knowledge, values, and beliefs took shape in the South African context since 1948 is offered. This is framed against the background of the paleontological significance of South Africa and an appreciation of indigenous knowledge systems, but also of the ideological distortion of knowledge and education during the apartheid era through the legacy of neo-Calvinism. The overview includes references to discourse on human rationality, on the use of (...) social sciences in theological reflection, on the teaching of evolution in public schools, on science and religion, and on religion and ecology. The essay concludes with a survey of some of the major voices regarding the interface between religion and science in South Africa. (shrink)

Aristotle's metaphysics has stimulated intense renewed debate in the past twenty years. Much of the discussion has focused on Metaphysics Z, Aristotle's fascinating and difficult investigation of substance , and to a lesser extent on H and Θ. The place of the central books within the larger project of First Philosophy in the Metaphysics has engaged scholars since antiquity, and that relationship has also been reexamined. In addition, scholars have been exploring the Metaphysics from various broader perspectives—first, in relation to (...) Aristotle's natural philosophy, his physics, biology, and psychology, and to the Organon, his so-called "logical" works, which include the Categories, Topics, and Posterior Analytics; and second, in relation to the broader philosophical tradition, both Plato before him and the ancient commentary tradition in late antiquity. (shrink)

: Aristotle's metaphysics has stimulated intense renewed debate in the past twenty years. Much of the discussion has focused on Metaphysics Z, Aristotle's fascinating and difficult investigation of substance (ousia), and to a lesser extent on H and Θ. The place of the central books within the larger project of First Philosophy in the Metaphysics has engaged scholars since antiquity, and that relationship has also been reexamined. In addition, scholars have been exploring the Metaphysics from various broader perspectives—first, in relation (...) to Aristotle's natural philosophy, his physics, biology, and psychology, and to the Organon, his so-called "logical" works, which include the Categories, Topics, and Posterior Analytics; and second, in relation to the broader philosophical tradition, both Plato before him and the ancient commentary tradition in late antiquity. (shrink)

Reviewing the last fifty years of interaction between religion and science in Catholicism in Southern Europe, common traits are clearly evident: a late awareness of the importance of this interaction and a theological reluctance to address science or to account for its progress. Early signs of the engagement between religion and science appear as a consequence of the work of the French anthropologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin. In Italy and Spain in the last fifteen years, we see a substantive (...) growth in the rise of research centers and academic activities devoted to exploring the common ground between science, philosophy, and theology. However, despite all these efforts and the many positive signs, there remains a long way to go for theology to consider science as a true challenge and an inspiration and to integrate it into the theological curriculum. (shrink)