Religion and Science have shared a complex relationship which has historically fluctuated between cooperation and conflict. Both disciplines arise from an intellectual desire to explain the natural world, but their paths have diverged over the nature of knowledge. Holmes Rolston III, a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, sees their missions as complimentary, but different: “Science operates with the presumption that there are causes to things, Religion with the presumption that there are meanings to things.” Religion agrees that the world is intelligible and is capable of being logically understood. However, natural law alone provides only the beginning of illumination. Religion was an ingenious solution to many of mankind’s earliest fears and needs. The understanding gained through our senses is useful, but incomplete. Its full value is realized by imparting significance, or meaning to the phenomenon. Reality is subject to our conscious awareness; shaped by interpretation, as well as, by experience. Religion’s purpose is to supply the meanings for why things happen; to explain what is in order to evaluate what ought to be. Religion may seem irrational to many, but the needs remain.
Videos
Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others
Man, since the dawn of the species, has taken great consolation and joy in his religions. “Faith” and “belief” do not necessarily surrender to logic: they cannot even be declared to be illogical. They can be things quite apart. Religious tolerance does not mean one cannot express his own beliefs or must adopt the ideology of others. It does mean that seeking to undermine or attack the religious faith and beliefs of another has always been a short road to trouble.
Tolerance is a good cornerstone on which to build human relationships. One is at liberty to hold up his own beliefs for acceptance. One is at risk when he seeks to assault the beliefs of others, much more so when he attacks and seeks to harm them because of their religious convictions. When one studies the suffering caused by religious and ideological intolerance throughout human history, it is easy to see that intolerance is a very coercive and non-productive activity.
What Does It Mean to Be Me?
The words ‘know thyself’ – ‘gnothi seauton’ – were inscribed in stone above the Ancient Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Philosophers have mused on self-knowledge and its uses ever since. But is it possible to ever ‘Know Thyself’? Psychologists, such as Bruce Hood, have even suggested that the self is an illusion and there may not be a self to know.
From the BBC Radio 4 series about life’s big questions – A History of Ideas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofideas
This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.
CNN Presents: Selling the Girl Next Door (2012)
Synopsis: According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are at least 100,000 underage females being sex trafficked in America today. That’s a conservative estimate based on what little hard data currently exists; NCMEC believes the real number could be as high as 300,000. According to studies, pimps can make up to half a million dollars a year, and they frequently prey on the young and the vulnerable over the internet — the new marketplace for underage sex trafficking. In 2011, victims’ advocates referred to the internet classified site Craigslist’s Adult Service Section the “Walmart of child sex trafficking.” In a yearlong investigation, CNN’s Amber Lyon reveals the devastating realities of the U.S. commercial trade in underage sex.
John Rawls: The Veil of Ignorance (2015)
Synopsis: What’s your blueprint for a just society? Your answer probably reflects who you are and the situation you find yourself in. If you’re rich, you may well be in favour of the freedom to earn and enjoy the fruits of your efforts; if you’re poor you’re likely to be more supportive of a system that redistributes wealth. John Rawls argued it might be more just to construct this blueprint from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’.
From the BBC Radio 4 series about life’s big questions – A History of Ideas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofideas
This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.
Karl Marx: On Alienation (2015)
Synopsis: Karl Marx believed that work, at its best, is what makes us human. It allows us to live, be creative and flourish. But under capitalism he saw workers alienated from each other and the product of their labour. Karl Marx remains deeply important today not as the man who told us what to replace capitalism with, but as someone who brilliantly pointed out what was inhuman and alienating about it.
From the BBC Radio 4 series about life’s big questions – A History of Ideas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofideas
This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.
Howard Zinn: Hidden History of The American Working Class (1992)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgzB07b2qzs
Synopsis: Social activist, political scientist and labor historian, Howard Zinn, delivers a presentation on “The History Of The American Working Class.” The presentation took place in San Francisco at an educational forum sponsored by the Labor Video Project. Zinn was political science professor at Boston University and was considered the preeminent scholar on civil disobedience during the Vietnam War Era. He has authored more than twenty books, including his highly influential work, A People’s History of the United States.
Martin Luther King Jr: The Other America (1967)
Synopsis: In the final weeks of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. increasingly turned his focus on Americans plagued by poverty – “the other America.” On April 14, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech at Stanford University suggesting there are two America’s: one which “is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity,” and another where individuals “find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” He called for “a guaranteed minimum income for all people,” urging social justice advocates to turn their attention towards organizing a national movement to address the problem of the nation’s growing economic disparity.
Erving Goffman: Symbolic Interaction Theory and the Performed Self (2015)
Do you have a fixed character? Or do you play many roles depending on the situation? Sociologist Erving Goffman argued that we display a series of masks to others, enacting roles, controlling and staging how we appear and constantly trying to set ourselves in the best light. If this is true do we have a true self or are we endlessly performing?
From the BBC Radio 4 series about life’s big questions – A History of Ideas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofideas
This project is from the BBC in partnership with The Open University, the animations were created by Cognitive.
Brendan Schulz: The Trouble With the Golden Rule
Many individuals are familiar with the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Most religious and cultural traditions have an equivalent moral teaching. York University administrator and professor, Brendan Schulz, explores the limitations of this ethic with regard to equity, diversity, cross-cultural communications and inclusion. Schultz draws on his twenty years experience in Organizational Development, Change Management, Human Resources and Workplace Diversity to propose an updated ethic, termed “The Platinum Rule,” along with the conditions necessary to fulfill it.
Camden Civil Rights Project 