August 18, 2020 Webinar
The Unifying Potential of a God that is Real in the
Scientific Universe
The scientific revolution of today is bringing us into harmony more rapidly than ever before. We have before us the possibility of a coherent and exciting Big Picture that lets us bring together our full selves – our emotions, our spiritual values, our growing scientific and historical knowledge, our origin story, and our sense of place in the universe. There is a radical way to re-envision God that supports, rather than thwarts, this harmony and might well unify humanity. Based on this Big Picture, I propose eight principles of a planetary-scale morality. There is no better time to do this than now. Today’s simultaneous sabotage of our country by our own government, widespread social upheaval, the global pandemic, a pending economic crash, have converged to shock the system as never before. Drastic change on a large scale is looking to many people not only possible but essential. Can we leave petty squabbles behind us? Can we envision a planetary Big Picture within which we can build a common future?
Time: August 18, 2020 04:00 PM in Central Time (US and Canada)
Time: August 18, 2020 04:00 PM in Central Time (US and Canada)
COVID-19: A Message From Our IRAS Conference Chairs and President
Dear IRAS members, 2020 IRAS conference registrants and others with an interest in the 2020 conference,
We’re sure you are wondering whether, in light of the rapidly evolving coronavirus situation, our 2020 Star Island conference (Naturalism — as Religion, within Religions, or without Religion?), scheduled this year for the week ending on July 4, will actually be held.
As some of you have already heard, the short answer is that we don’t yet know. Together with Star, we are monitoring the situation closely. We are acutely aware of the potential dangers of holding the conference, and neither we nor Star will be willing to do so if the health of our conferees (to say nothing of the Pelicans and other Star staff members) is put at risk. It is also possible that New Hampshire or federal authorities will in any case not allow the conference to occur although we expect that we and Star will be even more conservative than government decision makers.
We will keep you informed and notify you promptly as soon as we, Star or government authorities make a decision. We expect to have more information, and be able to provide an update, no later than the week of April 6th, but we can’t guarantee that a decision will be made by then.
Financially, your registration fees and deposits will be returned if the conference is cancelled. If the conference goes forward, both IRAS and Star have committed to return all registration fees and deposits to anyone who decides to cancel attendance, right up to the day the conference commences. So you can register at any time with confidence that you will get your money back if there is no conference or you subsequently decide not to attend.
We realize that a number of you would need to fly in order to attend and that the airlines are unlikely to commit to return your fares, even if they waive cancellation or flight change fees, if you make a reservation and decide not to use it. Unless it is clear that cancellation/change fees will be waived and you feel sure that you could use your fare to later take other flights, we suggest in that connection that you not make flight reservations until the situation becomes clearer – we believe it likely that plenty of seats will be available if a decision is made that the conference will go forward.
Our hearts are with you in these troubling times. Please stay safe.
Ted Laurenson, IRAS president, and Wim Drees and Barbara Whittaker-Johns, conference co-chairs
EDWIN C. LAURENSON
Partner
We’re sure you are wondering whether, in light of the rapidly evolving coronavirus situation, our 2020 Star Island conference (Naturalism — as Religion, within Religions, or without Religion?), scheduled this year for the week ending on July 4, will actually be held.
As some of you have already heard, the short answer is that we don’t yet know. Together with Star, we are monitoring the situation closely. We are acutely aware of the potential dangers of holding the conference, and neither we nor Star will be willing to do so if the health of our conferees (to say nothing of the Pelicans and other Star staff members) is put at risk. It is also possible that New Hampshire or federal authorities will in any case not allow the conference to occur although we expect that we and Star will be even more conservative than government decision makers.
We will keep you informed and notify you promptly as soon as we, Star or government authorities make a decision. We expect to have more information, and be able to provide an update, no later than the week of April 6th, but we can’t guarantee that a decision will be made by then.
Financially, your registration fees and deposits will be returned if the conference is cancelled. If the conference goes forward, both IRAS and Star have committed to return all registration fees and deposits to anyone who decides to cancel attendance, right up to the day the conference commences. So you can register at any time with confidence that you will get your money back if there is no conference or you subsequently decide not to attend.
We realize that a number of you would need to fly in order to attend and that the airlines are unlikely to commit to return your fares, even if they waive cancellation or flight change fees, if you make a reservation and decide not to use it. Unless it is clear that cancellation/change fees will be waived and you feel sure that you could use your fare to later take other flights, we suggest in that connection that you not make flight reservations until the situation becomes clearer – we believe it likely that plenty of seats will be available if a decision is made that the conference will go forward.
Our hearts are with you in these troubling times. Please stay safe.
Ted Laurenson, IRAS president, and Wim Drees and Barbara Whittaker-Johns, conference co-chairs
EDWIN C. LAURENSON
Partner
IRAS Special Session at AAAS: February 13, 2020
Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? Reflections on the Earth's Future
A new way of envisioning tomorrow will be offered. When on a rugged landscape, complexity science teaches us to explore every possibility for which we have resources. In 2020, we find ourselves on such a landscape. It will not soon get smoother. Today, the dominant response of our modern cultures is still yesterday’s response — we commit ever more resources to solving the problems we can now see by developing STEM in conventional ways. In effect, we moderns have come to believe that the core work of the 21st century is to make modernity globally sustainable. Overwhelmingly, this is our driving focus. Accordingly, no serious and sustained efforts are being made to explore, understand and respond to today’s complexity with an entrepreneurial and imaginative spirit that questions the soundness of our commitment to sustaining current educational and scientific practices. We neglect, possibly at our peril, insights such as these: (1) No version of modernity can be made to be sustainable. (2) The core human work of the 21st century is not as we now assume. (3) Rather, we need to transcend our modern/industrial form of civilization. This means learning to let go of modernity by outgrowing it at every scale of our existence and to face the utterly new and historic work of becoming the conscious cocreators of the next form of human civilization — the Consciously Co-creative. A path forward will be offered, including new roles for science, technology, and religion.
Speakers:
Dr. William Rees, professor emeritus University of British Columbia
Mr. Ruben Nelson, Executive Director, Foresight Canada
Moderator:
Chuck Fowler
Science and Religion Track at the Parliament of World Religions
The Science & Religion track was created jointly by the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) and the International Society on Science and Religion (ISSR), specifically addressing the major themes of the 2019 Parliament.
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