scholarly journals Finding Faith between the Sciences: The Cases of ‘The Outer Worlds’ and ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Frank G. Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Relationship

Science fiction, as a genre, has always been a place for religion, either as an inspirational source or as a part of the fictional universe. Religious themes in science fiction narratives, however, also invoke the question of the relationship, or the absence thereof, between religion and science. When the themes of religion and science are addressed in contemporary science fiction, they are regularly set in opposition, functioning in a larger discussion on the (in)comparability of religion and science in science fiction novels, games, and films. In the games The Outer Worlds and Mass Effect Andromeda, this discussion is raised positively. Involving terminology and notions related to deism, pantheism, and esoterism, both games claim that science and religion can co-exist with one another. Since digital games imbue the intra-textual readers (gamer) to take on the role as one of the characters of the game they are reading (avatar), the discussion shifts from a descriptive discourse to a normative one in which the player cannot but contribute to.

scholarly journals Kuyper’s razor? Rethinking science and religion, trinitarian scholarship and God’s eternity

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renato Coletto
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Scientific Reflection ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

This article explores three research fields in contemporary Christian scholarship and argues that the way they are approached is often questionable due to the basic assumptions, the methods or the implications. The following allegations are proposed. Research on the relationship between religion and science is based on a framework of assumptions which does not reflect the biblical standpoint properly. Trinitarian scholarship expects too much from the presumed correspondence between Trinity and created reality, whilst it tends to neglect other resources available to Christian scholarship. Scientific reflection on God’s eternity is speculative in as much as it tries to transcend the modal horizon of knowledge. In these three cases (other cases are also briefly mentioned) it is argued that ‘Kuyper’s razor’ (an approach promoted in the Kuyperian reformational tradition) would help rethinking research in these areas.Kuyper se skalpel? ’n Heroorweging van wetenskap-en-religie, trinitariese navorsing en God se ewigheid. Hierdie artikel verken drie navorsingsterreine in die kontemporêre Christelike wetenskap en voer aan dat die manier waarop hulle benader word dikwels bedenklik is weens basiese aannames, die metodes of die implikasies daarvan. Die volgende kritiek word voorgestel. Navorsing oor die verhouding tussen religie en wetenskap is op ’n raamwerk van aannames gebaseer wat nie ’n behoorlike weerspieëling van die skriftuurlike standpunt is nie. Trinitariese navorsing verwag te veel van die veronderstelde ooreenkoms tussen die Drie-eenheid en die geskape werklikheid, terwyl dit neig om ander hulpbronne wat vir die Christelike wetenskap beskikbaar is, te verwaarloos. Wetenskaplike besinning oor God se ewigheid is spekulatief vir sover dit poog om die modale horison van kennis te transendeer. Dit word aangevoer dat ‘Kuyper se skalpel’ (’n benadering wat in die Kuyperiaans-reformatoriese tradisie bevorder word) sal help om navorsing in hierdie drie gevalle (ander gevalle word ook kortliks genoem) te heroorweeg.

scholarly journals China Whispers: The Symbolic, Economic, and Political Presence of China in Contemporary American Science Fiction Film

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-161
Author(s):  
Kenneth Longden
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Western Science ◽  
The West ◽  
Yellow Peril ◽  
American Science ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Contemporary Film ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract China has long been present in Western science fiction, but largely through notions of Orientalism and depictions as the 'Yellow Peril'. However, with China's new ascendancy and modernization over the last 15 years, along with its investment and collaboration with Hollywood in particular, contemporary film in general, and contemporary science fiction in particular, has embraced this new China in ways hitherto unseen before. This essay examines three contemporary western/American science fiction films which each represent and construct China in slightly different ways, and in ways which reveal the West, and Hollywood's reappraisal of the relationship with China and its emerging 'Soft Power.'.

scholarly journals Gülen on Nature of Knowledge

Aqlania ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Zenno Noeralamsyah
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Complete Separation ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Scientific Approach ◽  
Current Context ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Science And Faith ◽  
The Universe

P This article aim to explore perspective of Fethulleh Gülen about knowledge. The idea that science and religion coalesce in the structure of the universe has been expressed by Western philosophers, that contributed to the almost complete separation of intellectual and scientific activities from religion. In this view of dualism, science and religion both find their apotheosis and its keeping religion and science separating by an unbridgeable chasm. The ontological argument of the idea of giving birth to materialism, which supposes that the nature of existence based on matter. Associated with this, Fethullah Gülen offers a new typical scientific approach that will fuse scientific knowledge and religious beliefs closely associated with spirituality, reconfigures modern understandings of science and faith to relieve the dichotomous presumption of the reason-revelation divide. He is deeply interested in the problematic of the relationship between religion and science, while he does not reject the modern scientific approach, neither does it deify it. The essence of the philosophical thought of Fethullah Gülen (who was otherwise known simply as Hoca Effendi) is that understanding the religious texts and the creeds of Islam should be performed using sufi interpretation and commentary by transmission, without denying current context. In Gülen’s view, religious belief and scientifical reason should be combined, for they are a single truth with two expressions. Therefore, the unification of physics and metaphysics in the nature of knowledge, fundamental concept of bridging science and spirituality, both traditional and modern influences in Gülen's treatment of science will be analyzed in this article, to examine what nature of knowledge is in accordance with Gülen's worldview.

In Pursuit of Consonance: Science and Religion in Modern Works of tafsīr

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayman Shabana
Keyword(s):  
Modern Science ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Modern Knowledge ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Exegetical Tradition

One of the most important types of scholarly literature to highlight the contentious debate on the relationship between Islam and modern science has been modern commentary on the Qur'an (tafsīr). This paper examines how modern commentators have conceptualised the relationship between religion and science and how, in turn, this modern concern with science has led to the emergence of a new genre within tafsīr literature. The article explores the extent to which this new genre represents an extension to earlier forms of tafsīr and how authors of this genre relate their work to the extended exegetical tradition. Special attention is devoted to Tafsīr al-manār by Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Rashīd Riḍā and its impact on subsequent works of tafsīr, with a particular focus on Tafsīr al-jawāhir by Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī. The article aims to analyse the epistemic authority of science in these works and explore how this authority has been used for the construction of the divine text in light of modern knowledge and sensibilities.

scholarly journals A metabolism of Adam and Eve: Damien Hirst meets Edvard Munch

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
Sari Kuuva
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Edvard Munch

Evolution is a theme which crosses the boundaries of art, science and religion. In this paper the problematics of evolution are approached by analysing the works of Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and Damien Hirst (b. 1965). Key attention is paid to Munch’s workMetabolism (1898–9) and Hirst’s work Adam and Eve Exposed (2004), both of which relate to the thematics of the Fall and combine the perspectives of religion and science. The relationship between evolution and art is further discussed through a distinction between pictures and images and the concept of remediation.  

The Scopes Trial

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R. Shaprio
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
New South ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Scopes Trial ◽  
The Bible ◽  
William Jennings Bryan ◽  
The Relationship

The 1925 Scopes trial was a widely followed court case in Dayton, Tennessee, that attracted the attention of the nation. A prosecution against a schoolteacher charged with violating Tennessee’s new law prohibiting the teaching of human evolution, the trial became a great public spectacle that saw debates over the meaning and truth of the Bible, and the relationship between science and religion. The trial is most famous for the involvement of the lawyers William Jennings Bryan (for the prosecution) and Clarence Darrow (for the defense). Despite being a legally insignificant case, the trial has remained important in American history because it is seen as symbolizing some of the country’s great social issues in the early 20th century: fundamentalist responses to modernity, the autonomy and clout of the “New South,” and the eternal clash between religion and science.

Religion and Science

Philosophy ◽  
1929 ◽  
Vol 4 (13) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
William Brown
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
The Relationship

In considering this perennial question of the relationship between science and religion it is important to avoid any appearance—or reality—of burking the facts. When one speaks of science one speaks of science as it is understood, and as research is carried out in it, by specialists in the various fields; and it is the most honest and the wisest course to consider in each separate science what exactly the results amount to and what the theories represent.

Survey-based Research on Science and Religion: A Review and Critique

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-54
Author(s):  
Jonathan P. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Trends Over Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

This chapter evaluates survey measures, primarily from the USA, on science, religion and beliefs about human origins. The bulk of the chapter offers a compilation of measures used in high quality, representative surveys. This scope is limited to the two most central types of items: those measuring beliefs about the relationship between science and religion and those measuring beliefs about evolution and human origins. Measures are analysed for trends over time and disaggregated by key measures of religious identity, practice, and belief. The chapter concludes with several critiques and considerations for improving survey-based analysis of science and belief. These critiques include a call for measures to be more carefully calibrated to how the public reflects on these issues. They also encourage the development of new measures on morality, progress, teleology (for both religion and science). Likewise, they argue that measures of social context (friends, family, congregations), and group identity and dynamics are often missed by conventional measures. Finally, the conclusion calls for careful attention to domains of conflict outside of human origins along with the development of techniques to avoid unintentionally priming conflict between religion and science.

scholarly journals The shaping of rationality in science and religion

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wentzel J. Huyssteen
Keyword(s):  
Science And Religion ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Scientific Rationality ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Epistemological Complexity ◽  
Human Rationality ◽  
Rationality Of Science

In this paper the focus is on the extreme epistemological complexity of the relationship between religion and science as two dominant forces in our culture today. This complexity is aggravated by a seemingly conflictual postrnodern, pluralist challenge to a culture that already reveals itself as decidedly empirically-minded. For theology  and science a meaningful dialogue becomes possible only if both modes of reflection are willing to move away from overblown foundationalist epistemologies and, for theology at least, from the intellectual coma of fideism. The paper finally argues for a postfoundationalist epistemology where theo-logy and science, although very different modes of reflection, do share the  richness of the  resources of human rationality. In so doing it attempts to answer three crucial questions: i) are there good reasons for still seeing the  natural sciences as our clearest available example of rationality at work? ii) If so, does the rationality of theological reflec-tion in any way overlap with scientific rationality?  iii) Even if there are impressive overlaps between these two modes of rationality, how would the rationality of science and the rationality of religious reflection differ?

scholarly journals Afraid of the Dark and the Light: Visceralizing Ecocide in The Road and Hell

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-56
Author(s):  
Alexa Weik von Mossner
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
The Road ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
The One ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
The Relationship

The essay is concerned with the ways in which contemporary science fiction films explore the future subjectivities and societies that may result from radical ecological changes, looking at two pertinent examples from two different national traditions: John Hillcoat’s 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-win­ning novel The Road (2006), and one of the very few German-Swiss science fiction films with an environmental theme, Tim Fehlbaum’s Hell (2011). It is particularly interested in the relationship between the films’ imagined ecological spaces and the actions of the protagonists of each film on the one hand, and in the relationship between these futuristic diegetic spaces and the contemporary real-life ecological spaces that “play” them on the other hand. Together with the performances of the human actors and the tension and suspense built by the narratives, it argues, the spectacle and insinuated agency of these ecological spaces are centrally responsible for the films’ emotional force and for their ability to engage viewers in stories of global ecocide and human survival.   Resumen               El ensayo analiza cómo las películas de ciencia ficción exploran las sociedades y subjetividades futuras que pueden surgir de cambios ecológicos radicales, atendiendo a dos ejemplos relevantes de dos tradiciones nacionales diferentes: la adaptación cinematográfica de 2009 de la novela de Cormac McCarthy The Road (2006), ganadora del premio Pulitzer, dirigida por John Hillcoat; y una de las muy escasas películas de ciencia ficción germano-suizas de  temática medioambiental, Hell (2011) de Tim Fehlbaum. Se presta especial interés a dos aspectos: por un lado,  la relación entre los espacios ecológicos imaginados en las películas y las acciones de los protagonistas de cada película; y por otro lado,  la relación entre estos espacios diegéticos futuristas y los espacios ecológicos reales que los representan. Junto con la interpretación de los actores humanos y la tensión y el suspense que construyen las narraciones, el espectáculo y la agencia insinuada de estos espacios ecológicos son en gran medida responsables de la fuerza emocional de las películas y de su habilidad  para implicar a la audiencia en historias de ecocidio global y supervivencia humana.

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