{"id":58019,"date":"2015-05-11T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=58019"},"modified":"2015-05-10T18:15:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T17:15:03","slug":"dante-and-the-eternal-quest-for-nonreligious-divinity-physicist-margaret-wertheim-on-science-and-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/dante-and-the-eternal-quest-for-nonreligious-divinity-physicist-margaret-wertheim-on-science-and-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Dante and the Eternal Quest for Nonreligious Divinity: Physicist Margaret Wertheim on Science and God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI believe that there is a love that moves the sun and the other stars.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"onbeing<\/a>Centuries after Ada Lovelace, the world\u2019s first computer programmer<\/a>, contemplated the relationship between science and religion<\/a>, and decades after Carl Sagan did the same in his exquisite Varieties of Scientific Experience<\/em><\/a>, physicist-turned-science-writer Margaret Wertheim<\/strong> offers perhaps the most elegant and emboldening reconciliation of these two frequently contrasted approaches to the human longing for truth and meaning.<\/p>\n

Wertheim is the creator of the PBS documentary Faith and Reason<\/em>, author of deeply thoughtful books like Pythagoras\u2019s Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender War<\/em><\/a> and The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet<\/em><\/a>, and cofounder of The Institute for Figuring<\/a> \u2014 \u201can organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and engineering.\u201d In her intellectually invigorating On Being<\/em> conversation<\/a> with Krista Tippett, Wertheim recounts how she moved away from the Catholic faith of her childhood and toward science, while maintaining a nonreligious sense of spiritual curiosity. In discussing her beliefs, she offers one of the most luminous conceptions of what secular spirituality stands to offer in the modern world, especially for those of us who hold dear the values of science, and how a deeper sense of resonance with the universe can elevate and ennoble human life:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that I believe in the existence of God in the Catholic sense. But my favorite book is the Divine Comedy. And at the end of the Divine Comedy, Dante pierces the skin of the universe and comes face-to-face with the love that moves the sun and the other stars. <\/em><\/p>\n

I believe that there is a love that moves the sun and the other stars. I believe in Dante\u2019s vision. <\/em><\/p>\n

And so, in some sense, perhaps I could be said to believe in God. And I think part of the problem with the concept of, \u201cAre you an atheist or not?\u201d is that our conception of what divinity means has become so trivialized and banal that I think it\u2019s almost impossible to answer the question without dogma. And \u2026 I\u2019m very, very saddened by the fact that militant atheism has become so to the fore of our society \u2014 I think it\u2019s destructive and unhelpful, and I don\u2019t think it does science any service.<\/em><\/p>\n

[\u2026]<\/em><\/p>\n

One way I think we can understand the God question in relation to science is this: that prior to the coming into being of modern science, [in] the Christian conception of God, God had two functions \u2014 God was the creator of the universe, but he was first and foremost the redeemer of mankind. And with the coming into being of modern science, God\u2019s position as redeemer got shoved into the background, and all of the questions and the public discussion became about God the creator. And that was why Darwinism was so critical \u2014 because [Darwin] appeared to challenge the idea of God as the creator of man. And we, I think, [in] the modern West focus so much on the debate about the creative function of God that, outside of theological circles, we don\u2019t seem to be able to discuss, as it were, the concept of redemption\u2026 And I think we need to be able to discuss that\u2026 We need to start thinking about that.<\/em><\/p>\n

Complement with Alan Lightman on science and spirituality<\/a>, Einstein on whether scientists pray<\/a>, Flannery O\u2019Connor on dogma and the difference between religion and faith<\/a>, and Douglas Rushkoff on science, God, and why consciousness exists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Brain Pickings<\/em> is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for <\/em>Wired<\/em> UK and <\/em>The Atlantic<\/em>, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 brainpickings.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Centuries after Ada Lovelace, the world\u2019s first computer programmer, contemplated the relationship between science and religion, and decades after Carl Sagan did the same in his exquisite \u2018Varieties of Scientific Experience,\u2019 physicist-turned-science-writer Margaret Wertheim offers perhaps the most elegant and emboldening reconciliation of these two frequently contrasted approaches to the human longing for truth and meaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}