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…
Tag: meaning
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….
Dreaming of a White Christmas on Different Levels of Reality
– Tom Uytterhoeven – It's that time of the year again when people start dreaming of (or dreading?) snow. Is it Christmas romanticism? Or just the memory of playing in the snow as a child? Maybe that's why the Calvin-makes-a-snowman cartoons are so popular… This video shows us different aspects of snow. That…
The Mood of Secular Existence
– Tom Uytterhoeven – I just started reading Jerome A. Stone’s “The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence“, and he immediately raised a question I cannot answer myself. Stone describes the secular life, on p. 3: Given that the meaning of secularity is the loss of a transcendent source of meaning, secular existence will either find a…
“Different Worldviews”, or: What is my research about?
“What's your research about?”, friends ask me occasionally – only to get a confused look in their eyes after I start using words like “evolution”, “culture”, and “religion” in the same sentence. I could of course refer them to the online project description (yes, there's a goofy picture of me…). But as pictures say more…
Images: Indigenous culture at Laura Dance Festival
See on Scoop.it – Cultural evolution These stunning images show the display of Aboriginal culture at the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival. (RT @ausgeo: These stunning images show the display of Aboriginal culture at the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival. Tom Uytterhoeven’s insight: Reproducing culture by performance, Daniel Dennett’s classic example of how culture evolves. But he…
Turning Your Personal Biography Into A Cosmological Narrative: An iPad-App
A few months ago I was looking for an app to manage my appointments, to do-lists, etc. I stumbled upon this peculiar app called “Timeline Eon“. The app basically gives an overview of history, starting from the Big Bang (presumably ending at the app's latest update). What you can do, is add your own events…
Resurrection: the Rebellion of Religion
We're about to celebrate Easter again. Besides airing the Passion of the Christ on tv, or hiding chocolate eggs in the garden, this feast has remained untouched by the massive commercialisation that suffocates Christmas (though I like unwrapping gifts as much as the next kid). It's a celebration with a very strange and precious message:…
The Art in Nature – or: Thinking About My Research
Land art is a fascinating form of art, blurring the lines between the artificial and the natural. You could say land art gives us insight in the way culture works: integrating humanity in the natural world, while at the same time changing that world – making it hard to say whether the artist discovered or…
The Fascinating Story of Humanity
Palaeolithic art has a particular appeal to it. We, (post)modern human beings recognise the fact that something is being communicated to us. But time has swallowed the message our ancestors tried to convey. Wentzel van Huyssteen described this in his book “Alone in the World?”, showing at the same time the power of drawings, like…