Conference Program and Streaming

Here you can find the abstracts for chapel talks, plenary lectures, short papers, book seminars and more. 

Conference​ Materials

Password required to access
These talks are listed below. Those who attended IRAS 2021 can access selected presentations through our conference streaming page.​ These talks are listed below. Those who attended IRAS 2021 can access selected presentations through our conference streaming page. See our membership page.

Program

The stream during the conference week, Sunday, June 27–Saturday, July 3 included:
  • Morning chapel, with talks by Janet Newton
  • Plenary lectures with subsequent discussions. 
    • Naturalism and Religion: Hunting Two Snarks?  |  Wim Drees 
    • Sensible knaves, artful dodgers, and selfish creeps: Ethics naturalized?  |  Owen Flanagan
    • Taking Nature to Mind and Heart  |  Ursula Goodenough
    • Naturalism(s) and spiritual flourishing: Constructive engagement with the new science of psychedelics   |  Sarah Lane Ritchie
    • Buddhism naturalized? Buddhism without Hocus Pocus  |  Owen Flanagan
    • Revisiting ‘Black Animality’ and the Diseased Imagination, or Why America Needs Religious Naturalism  |  Carol Wayne White
    • Science and Religion ‘vs’ Science-Engaged Theology? Some Preliminary Reflections  |  Sarah Lane Ritchie
    • When to be what: Naturalist, Dualist, Pluralist, while Living with Faith  |  Wim Drees
    • Is A Religious Naturalist Orientation Transformable into a “Traditional Religion  |  Ursula Goodenough and Todd Macalister
  • A book seminar with Karl E. Peters, on his manuscript on A Christian Naturalism
    • Invited respondents:  Barbara Whittaker-Johns and Edmund Robinson.
  • Two book seminars with Michael Ruse
    • The first will be on his new, short, and affordable book (May 2021), A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings 
      • Invited respondent Adam Chin b
    • The second on his manuscript Why Do We Hate? Understanding the Origins of Human Conflict
      • Invited respondent Seth P. Hart
  • Papers by the recipients of the Shapley Booth fellowships on
    • Mark Hoelter  |  Rudolf Otto’s Mysterium tremendum in a New Key
    • Curtis Craig  |  The potential contribution of awe and nature appreciation to positive moral values
  • Seven short papers
    • Christopher White  |  Higher dimensions, fantastic science, and the modern spiritual imagination
    • Matt Mackenzie  |  Spiritual animals: Sense-making and self-transcendence
    • Seth Hart  |  Biology’s mistress: The mystifying relationship between theology and biology
    • JD Stillwater  |  Transcending dogma: Nature as globally unifying scripture
    • Jason Keune  |  The aesthetic as a root of spiritual practice in religious naturalism
    • Jim Sharp  |  Theistic evolution in three traditions
    • Mark Iredell  |  with Todd Macalister, JD Stillwater and Antony Van der Mude, Religious naturalist songbook 
Short papers will be presented and discussed in two series in parallel. 
  • Charles Fowler  |  The convergence of science and religion
  • Peter Saulson  |  The nature of time as a puzzle for naturalism
  • Paul Carr  |  Overcoming limitations of ‘naturalism without religion’
  • Stephen Ragsdale  |  Science, spirituality and creativity: Replanting the spiritual roots of science
  • John Calvin Chatlos  |  A framework of spirituality: Toward a naturalistic awakening for all
  • Todd Macalister  |  Religious practices: What naturalists have been discussing and doing
  • Margery Dixon  |  An invitation to dive deeply into the Baha’i vision
Those who have registered for the conference and those who register for the live stream, will receive a password that gives access to the 2021 Conference Streaming page which will have 
  • Manuscripts by Karl Peters and Michael Ruse, for the book seminars
  • Short papers as far as available in advance of the conference
  • Links for the live stream sessions
For the other book seminar with Michael Ruse, on his A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings, participants are informed that the book is available for just under $ 13 at a major online book store. Michael has informed us that he will donate royalties earned during to the IRAS conference book seminar will be donated to IRAS.