Deep history, or the evolutionary history of the human species, is an interesting context for theology. Recent research offers insight in the way early humans (50 000 – 30 000 years ago) created a symbolic world in the region north of Australia. Two things strike me as important: It’s just a side note in the…
Tag: Culture
The Way We Were: Why Remembering Matters
I wrote a new blogpost for the group-blog of the Anthropos Research Group. What I try to do, is to suggest a link between an evolutionary perspective on the development of cultural traditions, and a theological perspective on tradition. You can read the full post here, of course. Or you could just skip to the part where…
The Beauty of Theology
Using academic vocabulary is sometimes perceived as being elitist, ‘ivory tower talk’. And sometimes such criticism is justified. But then there’s this perspective on theological jargon… Source: Vítor Westhelle, Zygon, vol. 39, no. 4 (December 2004), p. 750. What do you think? Do you regard the vocabulary of your discipline, or concepts specific to it, as…
Hefner on Meaning Making
What do we want to accomplish by bringing theology and science together? Lutheran theologian Philip Hefner offers us an answer in an article of just over ten years ago[1]. In this blogpost I summarize the main points of the article. Hefner argues that the significance of the interaction between science and theology lies in the meaning…
The Evolution of the Alphabet
A beautiful overview of the alphabet, classic example of cultural evolution. Found on Imgur, where reddit is indicated as original source. However, I think the original is this academic site, where each step is shown separately. Even more examples of human writing can be found here. You might have noticed the little buzz on social…
Philip Hefner on Experience
This blogpost offers a summary and review of “Theology and Science: Engaging the Richness of Experience“. Philip Hefner argues that the significance of the relation between science and theology is to be found in the meaning that emerges from this relation. This meaning is both expressed and recreated through language. Hefner sees theology’s role as interpretative….
Ideas Having Sex
Religions on the Rise?
A recent contribution to the ESSSAT discussion forum on Linkedin offers some interesting numbers on religion. Brian Grim, author of The Price of Freedom Denied (amongst other publications), posted a link to his summary of the Yearbook of International Religious Demography. To offer just one figure out of his list: Religionists account for 88.4% of the world’s population in 2013, up…
Myth-busting in Science and Religion
Popular opinion has it that science and religion are in conflict, as they always have been and as they always will be. That is of course false, as historical research as shown: see for example this and this article (JSTOR-links, create a free account to acces the articles online – yes, for free!), or this…
Cultural Evolution and a Rubber Band
– Tom Uytterhoeven – I disagree with two points in this article on biological, cultural, and technological evolution: (1) it suggests that biological, cultural and technological evolution are separate processes, while I see them as deeply connected; (2) it suggests cultural evolution/history must be read as the emergence of different 'stages', leading to ever greater…