EVOLVING CONTINENTS Session Six SU SPRING 2008 182022

EVOLVING CONTINENTS Session Six SU SPRING 2008 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

YIPEE! 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

My biases and course goals Biases: I have not hesitated to expose religious and scientific parochiality, or say how I was making up my own mind. Goals: to re-frame the questions and review a variety of Mindscapes. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Five Mindscapes of STORY l l l Sub-sets of Meta-narrative Conflict—Record—Hand signals Contrast—Chronicle—Telegraph Consolidation—Account/Telephone Conversation—Sketch—Cell Phone Confirmation—Epic—I-Phone Adapted from John F. Haught and Ian Barbour 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Creation as COSMIC EPIC: the emergent Divine Matrix of interdisciplinary, multi-level assertions EPIC addresses all four issues between Science and Religion—beginnings, chance and determinism, evolution, and human nature 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Epic Model and God-talk? The EPIC model addresses all four necessary model-aspects: current data, coherence, scope and fertility. Homo Sapiens are viewed as God the “Creator’s Co-creators. ” God and humans are becoming or “emergent. ” Lutheran Theologian Phil Hefner 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Emergent God-talk “Who are you? ” Moses asks in Exodus 3: 14. “I will be what I will be…” God answers him. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Divine Matrix (aka Cosmic EPIC) Definition of matrix: noun: an enclosure within which something originates or develops (from the Latin for womb) One Look Dictionary (online) 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Darrel, Don and Harry at the Oscars 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

“Close but no cigar!” W. C. Fields 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Cumulo-nimbus Super cell 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Supernova Cosmic Fireball Cloud 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Hawking’s “Fire…” Issue "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the question of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. " Stephen Hawking 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Hawking’s “fire in the equation” Where’s the “bling? ” Rapper B. G. Or “Bada Bling Bada Boom? ” The Sopranos 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Prometheus Bringer of Fire 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

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Oppenheimer "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. “ July 1945 words at “The Bomb” site 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

The Many and the One Voice 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

The Chickadee 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

John Hick argues a credible religious hypothesis must account for the fact, of which "we have become irreversibly aware in the present century, as the result of anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies and the work of philosophy of language, ” that there is no one universal and invariable pattern for the interpretation of human experience, but rather a range of significantly different patterns or conceptual schemes "which have developed within the major cultural streams. " And when considered in this light, a "pluralistic theory becomes inevitable" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Online) 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Greatest Threat to Religion The single greatest threat to religion is the issue of “other religions, ” not scientific discoveries (Freud, Marx and Darwin). The flashpoint between religions (dogmatic traditional-oriented) has ignited religious and socio-cultural wars worldwide. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Darrel’s Daffy-nitions Pluralistic—property of many yet different Inclusivity—embracing all disparate units Diversity—owning variety or variant forms Multi-cultural—mixing of varied cultures Bio-diversity—having many life forms Matrix—all-purpose encompassing pattern 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

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Get “Plumped” Denial and religious imperialism have deepened the gap between religions. An Emergent Pluralism (plumped to use Isaiah Berlin’s word) offers an opportunity for a “re-frame. ” 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Pluralistic and not relativistic Isaiah Berlin (died 1997) argued for Objective Pluralism—a case for “universal values” 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Medieval View of Nature/God 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Fixed or Immutable Teleological or Purpose-driven Substance/Reality (what you see) Anthropic/Hierarchical/”Planet-istic” Dual (Spirit and Matter) Kingdom Metaphor (Kingdom of God) Ian Barbour Religion and Science 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Newtonian View of Nature/God 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Controlled/Natural Law Determined (Limited re-arrangements) Atomistic/Comprehended in particulars Reductive/Bound to and by laws Dualistic (Descartes—mind and body) Machine Metaphor (Natura et Deus ex machina) Ian Barbour Religion and Science 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

21 st Century View of Nature/God 1. Emergent (evolving) giga-metaphor 2. Interplay of law and chance/Dynamic confluence 3. Interdependent/Intercultural domains 4. Organic/Holistic/Living Earth concept 5. Multi-level connectivities 6. Trans-communal (historico-conditioned deep conversations) 1/8/2022 Ian Barbour Religion and Science Creation and Cosmos

Ian Barbour, Encylcopedist 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

A. N. Whitehead, Philosopher His process philosophy opposes any static view of the universe and our history. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Alfred North Whitehead sees God in cosmological terms as an "actual occasion" functioning within nature, reflective of "the eternal urge of desire" that works "strongly and quietly by love, " to guide the course of things within the world into "the creative advance into novelty. ” Stanford University Online Philosophy website 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Charles Hartshorne, Theologian He did his best work late in life! “When I passed my 80 th birthday, I began saying longevity is my secret weapon. ” 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Does EPIC meet MODEL criteria? 1. 2. 3. 4. Data dependent—basis of all discovery Coherence—consistent with other accepted theories Capacity—comprehensive enough to meet current need Fertile—sparks imagination and leads to other discoveries 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Christocentric Pluralism John Cobb advocated a theology that managed to be both Christo-centric and pluralistic in its approach to other faiths. He proclaimed that Christo-centrism is rooted in Sophia, or divine wisdom, which is the essence of God who is embodied in Christ. He asserted that it requires a Christ as the center of history, but not the whole of history… Wikipedia article 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Christocentric Pluralist 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Thoughts of Newton and Darwin 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

TS Eliot We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Biggest knock on Science …are the blind spots of the domain to the ethical implications of research and the moral dimensions of its technology? Science’s urgent challenge is to address its use and abuse by political and ideological agendas? 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Therefore…in my opinion We stand at the horizon peering into a future of extraordinary and robust opportunities for science and religion to work together for the benefit of the whole non-human and human cosmos and creation? 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Checkers, not Chess 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Emergent EPIC is post-Newtonian 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Newton’s Discipleship 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Stretch of Utah Highway 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

The Wise-Fool “I think I’ll go home. ” 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Thanks You are a fantastic bunch of students. Darrel, Don and Harry 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Following SLIDES: The next slides are supplementary to the whole course but especially the last session. Read on… 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Steven Weinberg Breakthrough in Big Bang’s earliest nanomoments—First Three Minutes: 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Paul Davies--Physicist Davies Collins 1/8/2022 Houghton Creation and Cosmos

NOT ALL-MEN’S CLUB Lecturer on genetic science: Celia Deane. Drummond (also has a doctorate in theology!) 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Harvey Cox November ’ 06 Interview But science as science cannot make decisions about how its findings should be applied -that is not within the scientific method -- or which project to take on next. If it's going to cost $20 million, should you do it or should you not do it is a question, as science, it can't decide on. The thing that we (Gould and Cox) agreed on is that when religion and science both do their thing and don't step over the boundary and try to do what the other is doing, it can be a mutually enhancing process. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Demski—Mathematical Probability The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design (Hardcover) by William A. Dembski (Author), Charles W. Colson (Foreword) "THINK OF MOUNT RUSHMORE-what about this rock formation convinces us that it was due to a designing intelligence and not merely to wind and erosion? . . . " (more) 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Niels Bohr l l Niels Bohr Physicist 1885 - 1962 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Truth as a Complementarity The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -Niels Bohr. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Falsifiable Question Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot. " The other disagrees, "There is no gardener. " So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener. " So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen. ) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves. " At last the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener 1/8/2022 at all? " Creation and Cosmos Andrew Flew in an essay written in 1950

Death by a thousand knives? Question: at what point in “compromise” does the effort become pointless? Answer: Never, for the very word compromise suggests a diminution rather than an enrichment or growing appreciation. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Overcoming cosmic parochiality Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. And where there is information, says panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers’s slogan, “Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside. ” NY Times Magazine Nov. 18/07 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Does a rock have consciousness? Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards “see” the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Complexification flap and EPIC The argument from irreducible complexity is a descendant of the teleological argument for God. This states that because certain things in nature are very complicated, they must have been designed. William Paley famously argued, in his 1802 watchmaker analogy, that complexity in nature implies a God for the same reason that the existence of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker. This argument has a long history, and can be traced back at least as far as Cicero's De natura deorum. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Ladder of Knowledge A process ladder shows processes (tasks, activities) and the sub-processes (subtasks, sub-activities) of which they are composed. All relationships are the part of relationship, e. g. boil the kettle is part of make the tea. A process ladder is a useful way of representing process knowledge. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

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Check website on Ladder Models 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Matrix Definition and Matrices Ladder of Knowledge matrix (aka grid) tool is a type of tabular representation that comprises a 2 dimensional grid with filled-in grid cells. One example is a problem-solution matrix that shows the problems that can arise in a particular part of a domain as the rows in the matrix and possible solutions as the columns. Ticks, crosses or comments in the matrix cells indicate which solution is applicable to which problem. Another important type of matrix used by knowledge engineers is a focus grid. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Information Systems Theory Gödel's Theorem has been used to argue that a computer can never be as smart as a human being because the extent of its knowledge is limited by a fixed set of axioms, whereas people can discover unexpected truths. . . It plays a part in modern linguistic theories, which emphasize the power of language to come up with new ways to express ideas. And it has been taken to imply that you'll never entirely understand yourself, since your mind, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Good “Doctor” again “If you make a mistake about Creation, you will necessarily make a mistake about God. ” St. Thomas Aquinas 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Stephen Hawking 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Three audiences for God talk l Academic—specialized and technical l Public—street or political/social sense l Ecclesial—church or “choir language” Target audience determines the “language game” 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Wise Rabbi—Martin Buber 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Francis Collins; Geneticist Collins' book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (July 2006) considers scientific discoveries an "opportunity to worship. " In this book Collins examines and subsequently rejects creationism and Intelligent Design. His own belief system is Theistic Evolution (TE) which he prefers to term Bio. Logos rests on the following premises: (see six points below in notes…) 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Don Page’s EPIC view of Creation "God creates and sustains the entire universe rather than just the beginning. Whether or not the universe has a beginning has no relevance to the question of its creation, just as whether an artist's line has a beginning and an end, or instead forms a circle with no end, has no relevance to the question of its being drawn. " Co-author with Hawking 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

John T. Houghton--Climatologist "There is widespread suspicion of science, fostered by the feeling that science goes against the Bible. ” Houghton has said. “This is very unfortunate; it takes a very small view of God, and a very inadequate view of science. " 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Ian Barbour—Apostle of Dialogue Gifford Lecture and Templeton Prizes— Crossover scientist and theologian argues for Pluralistic Dialogue that will impact the next millenium. Upsloped, Enriched, and Equiposed between our two ascendent influences: Fundamentalism and Materialism 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Conciliation Tzar 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Beyond naive dialogue BILL MOYERS: What do you actually do when you forgive someone? ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Well, basically, you are saying 'I am abandoning my right to revenge, to payback. I mean, I have…’ By the fact that you have abused me, you have hurt me, whatever it is that you have done, you have wronged me. By that you have given me a certain right over you that I could refuse to forgive you. I could say that I have the right to retribution. When I forgive, I say, 'I jettison that right, and I open the door of opportunity to you to make a new beginning. ' That is what I do when I forgive you. Interview on PBS 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

More Hartshorne For Hartshorne, God is less an active force within the world's processual commerce than an intelligent being or mind…his God less a force of some sort than a personal being who interacts with the other mind-endowed agents through personal contact and love. Hartshorne wants neither to separate God from the world too sharply nor yet to have him be pantheistically immanent in nature…an intelligent world-separated being who participates experientially in everything… 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Lutheran Theologian’s Co-creatorship “Human beings are God’s created co-creators whose purpose is to be the agency, acting in freedom, to birth the future that is most wholesome for the nature that has birthed us— the nature that is not only ourown genetic heritage, but also the entire human community and the evolutionary and ecological reality in which and to which we belong. Exercising this agency is said to be God’s will for humans. ” Philip Hefner, The Human Factor : Evolution, Culture and Religion 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Particle Astrophyics— 21 st Century The term "dark energy" was coined by Michael Turner in 1998. [10] By that time, the missing mass problem of big bang nucleosynthesis and large scale structure was established, and some cosmologists had started to theorize that there was an additional component to our universe. The first direct evidence for dark energy came from supernova observations of accelerated expansion… Wikipedia article 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

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Two “ism” Camps to exclude Biblicism is a view of the Bible that is literal and inerrant. It is supremely confident that God speaks directly and without interference through the “words” of the Bible. Scientism is a view of science that is extremely reductive and maintains eventually all really big questions can be answered by its method. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Darrel’s five biases: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. I will not hesitate to focus narrowly on science and religion, challenge their assumptions, respect all convictions, expand boundaries, and express my own faith in God. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Complementarity Principle Opposites are not contradictory but complementary. Niels Bohr again! 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

The Mystics Thomas Merton 1915 -1968 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Recent Bali/Global warming conference of UN December 2007 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Hardest Questions “Scientific eschatology” and “Evolutionary Theism” ask two questions: 1. is the universe directional? Evidence seems strong that evolution is irreversible (unless you think Hindu or Mayan). 2. is the universe purposeful? Evidence is mixed. The question is not does God play dice, but are the dice loaded, and if so, by what or by whom? Chance leaves the question open. 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Last Review Summary to date or Creation and Cosmos as 1. Story (Memory) 2. Record (Revelation) 3. Chronicle (Special truth) 4. Account (Trans-symbolics) 5. Sketch (Agnostic tale) 6. Epic (Interdisciplinary multilevel notion of cosmology/fate and ethics) 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Matrix Model/Knowledge Paradigm Theology Critical dialogue Philosophy Life Sciences 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos

Did we have FUN? 1/8/2022 Creation and Cosmos