Religion News Blog Science and Religion News

1. ‘Believers’ gene’ will spread religion , says academic

   

   Robert Rowthorn, an economics professor at Cambridge University, said studies showed that more religious people tended to have more children.

   This, coupled with the existence of a genetic predisposition in some towards belief, led him to speculate that religion could spread.

   Writing in the journal Proceedings of the The Royal Society B, he cited a worldwide study showing that the more religious had more children.

   If people in these groups only married within them, he said "ultra-high fertility groups would rapidly outgrow the rest of the population and soon become a majority".

   In practice, however, many tended to leave these sects or marry outside them and consequently have less children than they might have done.
   Such "defections" would "slow down the spread of the religiousity gene" but not stop it, he reasoned.

   "There will be an increasing number of people with a genetic predisposition towards religion but who lead secular lives."

   Full story: ‘Believers’ gene’ will spread religion , says academic

2. Balance spiritual and secular, Dalai Lama urges

   

   Scientists and religious practitioners can learn a lot from each other and should work together to find a productive balance between spirituality and secular research, the Dalai Lama said Sunday.

   The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's comments came at a news conference kicking off his three-day visit to Emory University in Atlanta. During his visit, he plans to teach, lecture and receive an update on the development of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative.

   The Dalai Lama is a presidential distinguished professor at Emory — the only university appointment he has accepted.

   The Dalai Lama said he has long been interested in scientific knowledge — particularly in the areas of cosmology, neurobiology, physics and psychology, which he says are mentioned in Buddhist texts.

   Full story: Balance spiritual and secular, Dalai Lama urges

3. Stephen Hawking: religious leaders dismiss ‘God not needed’ comments

   

   The Archbishop of Canterbury has dismissed the conclusion by Stephen Hawking, the retired Cambridge scientist, that the Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to create the Universe.

   In his latest book, The Grand Design, Prof Hawking claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

   "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing," he wrote.

   "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

   But in an extract of an article in Eureka magazine, which is published in The Times, a series of a religious leaders fight back against the claims.

   By the way, while his leap of faith may sell some books, Mr. Hawking fails to answer an important question: "Who created the law of gravity?"

   ---

   Full story: Stephen Hawking: religious leaders dismiss ‘God not needed’ comments

4. Monkey Trial

   

   In 1925, the so-called "Monkey Trial" ended in Dayton, Tenn., with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution, says the Associated Press in its Today in History report. The conviction was later overturned on a technicality.

   Full story: Monkey Trial

5. ‘Muslim science’ fiction: NASA’s mad new mission

   

   NASA Administrator Charles Bolden caused a furor when he revealed that President Obama had directed him "to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science . . . and math and engineering," Rich Lowry writes in today's New York Post.

   This shouldn't be hard to do, he says, so long as Bolden is well-versed in accomplishments rising out of the Middle East many centuries ago. It gave us what we know as Arabic numerals, although they originated in India. It gave us algebra and the rudiments of trigonometry. It gave us medical pioneers in the 10th and 11th centuries. (A significant proportion of these scientists and physicians were Christians and Jews, Lewis notes -- a fact Bolden had best keep to himself.)

   The Muslim world would be better served by a frank discussion of how so much of it came to be sunk in backwardness and ignorance, although NASA's administrator is not the natural person to lead it...

   Full story: ‘Muslim science’ fiction: NASA’s mad new mission

6. Court rules against creationism degree

   

   A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by a creationism think tank and school that attempted to force the state of Texas to allow it to offer master's degrees in science education.

   In 2008, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board rejected the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research's application to offer master's degrees, which taught science from a biblical perspective.

   The institute's graduate school sued in 2009, claiming the board violated its constitutional right to free speech and religion.

   U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks found no merit in the ICR's claims and criticized its legal documents as "overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering and full of irrelevant information."

   Full story: Court rules against creationism degree

7. And God Said, ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’

   

   For believers, religion acts as an emotional buffer, making it less likely one will feel anxious after making a mistake.

   Full story: And God Said, ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’

8. Maybe religion is the answer claims atheist scientist

   

   Lord May, the president of the British Science Association, said religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again.

   Speaking on the eve of the association's annual conference, the committed atheist said he was worried the world was on a "calamitous trajectory" brought on by its failure to co-ordinate measures against global warming.

   He said that no country was prepared to take the lead and a "punisher" was needed to make sure the rules of co-operation were not broken.

   The former Government chief scientific advisor said in the past that was God and it might be time again for religion to fill the gap.

   Full story: Maybe religion is the answer claims atheist scientist

9. Mom asks immunization exemption for daughter for religious reasons

   

   Woman describes her faith as Bapticostal: a blend of Baptist and Pentecostal doctrine

   CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A West Virginia mother says it would be sacrilege and a health risk to immunize her daughter against childhood diseases, and she wants a federal judge to order public school officials to admit her without the required shots.

   Jennifer Workman said vaccinating her 6-year-old daughter Madison goes against her religious beliefs.

   "I sincerely believe that (it) is wrong to immunize and that it is a sacrilege,'' Workman said in her lawsuit filed April 1 in the Southern District of U.S. District Court. She describes her faith as Bapticostal: a blend of Baptist and Pentecostal doctrine.

   Workman also said she's concerned that Madison could develop autism because Madison's 13-year-old sister Susanna was diagnosed with atypical autism and other health issues soon after she was immunized.

   Until a ruling is issued, Workman is home-schooling her daughters.

   West Virginia's Department of Health and Human Resources says the Mingo County mother's lawsuit is asking the court to order it to break the law.

   The state law requiring all school children to be immunized against diphtheria, polio, measles, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough does not allow a religious exemption, the department's attorney, Charlene A. Vaughan argues. West Virginia is one of only two states that do not allow religious or philosophical exemptions. The other is Mississippi.
   [...]

   West Virginia allows parents to seek medical exemptions to vaccines when a doctor verifies that a specific medical condition makes it unwise to receive inoculations.
   [...]

   Chief Judge Joseph R. Goodwin set the case for trial on July 6.

   - Source / Full Story: W.Va. mom asks immunization exemption for daughter, AP via the Charleston Daily Mail, May 13, 2009 -- Summarized by Religion News Blog

   Full story: Mom asks immunization exemption for daughter for religious reasons

10. Helping Christians Reconcile God With Science

    

    Helping Christians Reconcile God With Science

    For many young Christians, the moment they first notice discrepancies in the Biblical tales they've faithfully studied is a rite of passage: e.g., if Adam and Eve were the first humans, and they had two sons — where did Cain's wife come from? The revelation that everything in the Bible may not have happened exactly as written can be startling. And when the discovery comes along with scientific evidence of evolution and the actual age of planet Earth, it can prompt a full-blown spiritual crisis.

    That's where Francis Collins would like to step in. A renowned geneticist and former director of the Human Genome Project, Collins is also an evangelical Christian who was the keynote speaker at the 2007 National Prayer Breakfast, and he has spent years establishing the compatibility between science and religious belief. And this week he unveiled a new initiative to guide Christians through scientific questions while holding firm to their faith. (Finding God on YouTube)

    After his best-selling The Language of God came out three years ago, Collins began receiving thousands of e-mails — primarily from other Evangelicals — asking questions about how to reconcile scriptural teachings with scientific evidence. "Many of these Christians have been taught that evolution is wrong," Collins explains. "They go to college and get exposed to data, and then they're thrust into personal crises of great intensity. If the church was wrong about the origins of life, was it wrong about everything? Some of them walk away from science or faith — or both."
    [...]

    Collins, 59, who with his mustache and shock of gray hair looks like former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton's cheerful twin, seems genuinely pained by the idea that science could be viewed as a threat to religion, or religion to science. And so he decided to gather a group of theologians and scientists to create the BioLogos Foundation in order to foster dialogue between the two sides. The name — combining bios (Greek for "life") and logos ("the word") — is also what Collins calls his blended theory of evolution and creation, an approach he hopes can replace intelligent design, which he derides as "not a scientific proposal" and "not good theology either."

    Through the Washington-based foundation, Collins says he and his colleagues hope to support scholarship that "takes seriously the claims of both faith and science." Its online component, biologos.org, is designed to be a resource for skeptics and nonbelievers who are interested in religious arguments for God's existence. But the primary audience for BioLogos is Collins' own Evangelical community.
    [...more...]

    - Source / Full Story: Helping Christians Reconcile God With Science, Amy Sullivan, TIME, May 2, 2009 -- Summarized by Religion News Blog

    See Also:

    In his recent book, The Language of God, U.S. geneticist Francis Collins cites surveys showing that 40 percent of American scientists believe in God. Collins forcefully dismisses the pseudoscientific teachings of Christian zealots such as "intelligent design" or "creationism." Like Pope Benedict XVI, he insists that Darwin's theory of evolution is not at odds with the Christian faith.

    - Source / Full Story: Der Spiegel, Rainer Traub, Jan. 15, 2007 -- Summarized by Religion News Blog

    • Why do so many scientists believe in God?
    • I've found God, says man who cracked the genome
    • Scientist sees room for belief

    Video: The Language of God: Intellectual Reflections of a Christian Geneticist

    The Language of God: Intellectual Reflections of a Christian Geneticist, February 4, 2008, at The University of California, Berkeley

    Presentation by Dr. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Dr. Collins presents a case for harmony between faith in science and faith in God. He also shares about his personal intellectual and spiritual journey from agnosticism, to atheism, and to Christianity.

    Followed by an interview conducted by Jasper Rine, Howard Hughes Professor and Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development at UC Berkeley.

    Followed by audience Q&A.

    Full story: Helping Christians Reconcile God With Science