The Kalam Argument

Debate to pove the existence of God

Below is the 20 minute version of the 1948 BBC radio debate between Fr FC Copleston SJ and Bertrand Russell.

Scholars Aim to Disprove Darwin

h/t to Zenit

As Theory Turns 150, Scientists Say It's Impossible

As the theory of evolution turns 150 years old, one group of scholars is calling it a scientific impossibility.

After a year of conferences celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin's 1859 book, "On the Origin of Species," a Nov. 9 conference is planned to provide empirical proof to debunk evolution.

Rome's Pope Pius V University will host the daylong conference that will present a scientific refutation of evolution theory.

Peter Wilders and H. M. Owen, organizers of the event, told ZENIT that the conference is aimed to "stimulate debate among scientists" and that it is particularly geared to university students.

"Being young, they have less built-in resistance to new data that conflicts with establishment dogma," a statement from the organizers explained.

"Darwinian evolution has become the accepted paradigm of the scientific community," they noted. "New research data that challenges that paradigm is automatically rejected for philosophical rather than scientific reasons.

"Results of recent empirical research published by scientific academies refutes the basic principles of the geological time-scale. It reduces the age of rocks and therefore the fossils in them. The theory of evolution is undergirded by both the time-scale and the age of fossils.

"This evidence from sedimentology harmonizes with the latest findings in genetics, paleontology, physics, and other scientific disciplines. The implications of this research are fatal for Darwinism."

Not available

According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov, "Everything contained in Darwin’s 'Origin of Species' depends upon rocks forming slowly over enormous periods of time. The November conference demonstrates with empirical data that such geological time is not available for evolution."

Recently returned from a geological conference in Kazan, sedimentologist Guy Berthault will present the findings of several sedimentological studies conducted and published in Russia. In one of these, the age of the rock formation surveyed was found to be 0.01% of the age attributed to it by the geological time-scale -- instead of an age of 10,000,000 years, the actual age was no more than 10,000 years.

"Contrary to conventional wisdom," Lalamov observed, "these rocks formed quickly, and the fossils they contain must be relatively young. This finding contradicts the evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record."

According to U.S. biophysicist Dean Kenyon, "Biological macroevolution collapses without the twin pillars of the geological time-scale and the fossil record as currently interpreted. Few scientists would contest this statement. This is why the upcoming conference concentrates on geology and paleontology. Recent research in these two disciplines adds powerful support to the already formidable case against teaching Darwinian macroevolution as if it were proven fact."

"The Scientific Impossibility of Evolution" conference is being held in direct response to Benedict XVI's request that both sides of the evolution controversy be heard.

Thomas Seiler, a participant in the conference, said: "In the light of astounding new scientific breakthroughs, particularly in geology, we hope the worldwide scientific community will acknowledge the overwhelming evidence against the theory of evolution."

Poll on assisted suicide

Lord Joffe, who has campaigned strenuously for the legalisation of assisted suicide, is giving a public lecture at Bath University to promote his views. The University wishes the public to have their say in a poll on their website.

It is a good, straightforward question "Should assisted dying be legalised for the terminally ill?" Currently there is a massive majority of "No" votes - go over to help keep it that way.

Cast your vote here

h/t to The hermeneutic of continuity

Podcasts - Faculty of Philosophy

Philosophy for Beginners

This series of five introductory lectures, aimed at students new to philosophy, presented by Marianne Talbot, Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford, will test you on some famous thought experiments and introduce you to some central philosophical issues and to the thoughts of some key philosophers.

1. A romp through the history of philosophy
Keywords philosophy, pre-socratics, philosophical history.

2. The philosophical method - logic and argument
Keywords philosophy, logic and argument, philosophical method.

3. Ethics and politics
Keywords philosophy, ethical philosophy, political philosophy.

4. Metaphysics and Epistemology
Keywords philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology.

5. Philosophy of language and mind
Keywords philosophy, rationality, consciousness.

Podcasts - Faculty of Philosophy

What is Philosophy?

What is Philosophy? This video offers an excellent introduction to some of the central problems in philosophy, philosophical methodology and the study of philosophy in contemporary universities. It is thus a useful resource for both students and philosophy educators alike. Topics covered include the nature and importance of philosophical inquiry, problem solving, and certain classical problems of philosophy such as the existence of God, the nature of thinking and the mind/body problem, ethical dilemmas and issues in political philosophy, space and time and the nature of art.

Providence ~ "And this is what men call God"

Fr Ray talks of Aquinas and and therefore of Aristotle's Prime Mover, go and have a look.

Providence

The Integration of Psychology and Philosophy

An interesting article culled from Zenit ~ think about subscribing to Zeint.


Interview With Professor Michael Pakaluk

By Genevieve Pollock

ARLINGTON, Virginia, OCT. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- In an institute founded only a decade ago, scholars are gathering in a quest to remedy an age-old problem: the disintegration of psychology and philosophy, science and Catholic thought.

Michael Pakaluk is one of these scholars, a philosophy professor who teaches at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences.

He is the author of many scholarly articles and several books, including the Clarendon Aristotle volume on books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics (1998), and "Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction" (Cambridge, 2005). His most recent book, "The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God," is forthcoming with Ignatius Press.

In this interview with ZENIT, Pakaluk speaks about an integration project currently under way at the institute, which is bringing together psychology, philosophy and theology in both a theoretical and practical way.

ZENIT: What is the project of "integration" that is being pursued at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences?

Pakaluk: "Integration" at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences means simply the study of psychology with confidence in the harmony of faith and reason.

Clearly, that sort of "integration" can be sought within any discipline, although it is most important -- and potentially the most fruitful -- in areas such as philosophy and psychology, which deal with fundamental realities for human life.

John Paul II once remarked in an address to psychiatrists that "by its very nature, your work often brings you to the very threshold of the human mystery."

If one adds to this, as an additional premise, the famous statement of "Gaudium et Spes" that "it is only in the mystery of the incarnate Word that the mystery of man is brought to light," it follows by a kind of syllogism that psychology is unavoidably integrative in this sense.

ZENIT: If that's what "integration" means, why is the Institute for the Psychological Sciences unique? Isn't integration what every Catholic psychology program should be attempting?

Pakaluk: When people used to praise Mother Teresa for being a "living saint," she would downplay this and insist that she was only doing what any Christian should be doing.

Likewise, although people praise the Institute for the Psychological Sciences for its uniqueness, it's correct to say -- I believe -- that we are only attempting to do what every psychology department in a Catholic university should be doing.

And yet these psychology departments are not doing that. If you don't believe me, go to the Web sites of the well-known, historic Catholic universities, and see how the psychology departments there describe themselves.

I was shocked when I tried this the other day for a very famous university. First, the Web site gave a very inadequate definition of psychology, as "the science of human behavior." Then, in the three-page description of the program, one could find not a single word about Christ, man as made in the image of God, the Church, or the Christian understanding of the human person. Not a single word.

I then checked every biography of the 20 or more professors in the department, where they described their interests and their research -- and, again, not a single word about the Catholic faith.

It wasn't that the professors weren't relating psychology to other areas. One professor's research related psychology to multiculturalism; another connected psychology with work on hormones; another looked at relationships between psychology and feminism; and so on. So they endorsed the principle that psychology is profitably integrated with other areas.

But apparently the view of the human person which has been developed in Catholic thought is not one of those areas.

Here's a good way of grasping what the Institute for the Psychological Sciences is like. I've known or been a part of seminars held during the summer, where Catholic graduate students and professors in some academic discipline come together for a week or two to discuss connections between the Catholic faith and their discipline.

Invariably, the participants say with great excitement that these were among the most invigorating and interesting weeks in their lives -- where all kinds of new ideas were suggested in a spirit of true creative collaboration.

At the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, we aim to make that sort of conversation the rule and not a rare exception.

ZENIT: It sounds like the integration pursued at the Institute carries along with it a distinctive view of the human person. Can you say more about this?

Pakaluk: Yes, at this institute we reject any sort of reductionism, which holds that a human being is "nothing but" an animal or a biological machine; and we affirm in contrast that we have free will and a distinctive power of rationality.

We reject that human beings are autonomously individualistic and hold instead with Aristotle and the ancients that we are by nature relational and social.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we reject Cartesianism, which holds that a single human being is in fact a composite of two distinct substances, a body and a mind, and hold that it is important always to see the human person as embodied.

We believe that it is important for a clinician not merely to have expertise in particular sciences of man -- such as neurology and ethology -- but also to acquire an understanding of human nature itself, of the sort that perhaps only skilled novelists attain today, if they are really good novelists.

Walker Percy writes something about this: "The proper study of man is man, said Pope. But that's a large order, especially nowadays, when there is no such thing as a study of man but two hundred specialties which study this or that aspect of man."

One aspect of integration, then, is to arrive at a grasp of the whole reality of the human person by arriving at a grasp of human nature.

ZENIT: Is this integration only theoretical, or is it practical as well?

Pakaluk: Yes, of course, just as Christianity is dogmatic but also implies a way of life, and a way of relating to others.

It should be said that the clinical focus of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences assists this project of integration: The goal of clinical practice is the mental health of the whole person who is the client; thus, the whole person and not some fragment needs to be taken into account.

Integration even calls for a new way of pursuing science and putting it to practical work. When I teach "The Abolition of Man" to students here at the institute, I point out the passage in Lewis's third lecture where he calls for a "new Natural Philosophy," which is such that "when it explained it would not explain away," and "whose followers would not be free with the words only and merely -- and I tell them that at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences we are attempting to study one natural reality, at least, in this way.

ZENIT: The Institute for the Psychological Sciences is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. That's an important milestone, and yet the Institute has a relatively short history, considering the fact that psychology has existed for hundreds of years. Why have Catholics, it seems, been so slow to take up this task of integration?

Pakaluk: It's true that some Protestant programs in psychology, such as at Fuller Theological Seminary, have been speaking of "integration" now for several decades. Yet it's not that Catholics in contrast have been laggards.

Recall that generally for the learned world, until relatively recently, psychology was regarded as a branch of philosophy. Psychology acquired an autonomy only through the development of empirical methods which seemed to be distinctive to it; and also, curiously, on account of the influence of Freudianism, which held that the unconscious, because of its non-rationality, was precisely not tractable by philosophy.

Catholic thinkers could hardly embrace the view of human beings endorsed by behaviorism, which was the direction that empirical psychology was taking, or Freudianism, and so the traditional view that psychology is a branch of philosophy survived longer in Catholic circles.

This view was demolished, however, when in the '60s Thomism was for better or worse rejected by Catholic universities as the main organizing framework for knowledge. Since then there has been a "disintegration" of psychology and philosophy -- and theology --, which the Institute for the Psychological Sciences has lately tried to remedy.

ZENIT: Your own expertise is in classical philosophy, especially Aristotle's ethics. How does your expertise fit in with what the institute is trying to do?

Pakaluk: The connection between Aristotle's ethics and clinical psychology might seem remote.

Yet actually Aristotle's ethical theory proves to be highly relevant to clinical psychology.

An entire new movement in clinical psychology, called "positive psychology," is based essentially on a view of the virtues similar to that found in Aristotle: It maintains that psychologists, to their detriment, have paid too much attention to mental illness, and not enough attention to the modes of human flourishing -- the virtues -- which can provide a kind of safeguard against mental illness.

Also, Aristotle's theory of friendship corresponds to a deficiency in Thomistic "rational psychology" as traditionally expounded. Thomism is excellent at identifying the "constitution" of human nature -- its powers, habits, and operations -- but, frankly, it is deficient in discussing those things that are most important for mental illness, that is, development and relationships.

One might also add that one aspect of the integration sought at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences is between ancient and modern; certainly the institute wishes to take account of the classical view of psychology as "the study of the soul."

ZENIT: Are Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas something like the official philosophers of the institute?

Pakaluk: No, we have no official philosophers, and we are definitely eclectic.

Aristotle and Aquinas are important, but Augustine and Edith Stein no less so, and then too we encourage students to take what they can from less systematic, more intuitive thinkers such as Victor Frankl, Walker Percy, and even G.K. Chesterton.

When all is said and done, perhaps the most important philosopher for us is Karol Wojtyla, insofar as his "Love and Responsibility" provides what I think is the best single example of the sort of integrative approach we are aiming at.

--- --- ---

On the Net:

Institute for the Psychological Sciences: http://ipsciences.edu/

Plato and his "Forms"

Congratulations

Just wanted to say "congratulations" to all of you. It has been a delight to teach you this year and I think the grades are a great reward.

Well done ~ keep in touch

The Test of Faith

A video is being launched with some most impressive contributors. I is addressing the Science and Religion debate, the trailor can be viewed at The Test of Faith website

Natural Law Not Going Out of Style.

Theologians Affirm It's Still the Base of Ethics

ROME, JUNE 11, 2009 (Zenit.org ).- The objective values of natural law continue serving as the base for universal ethics, according to a new document from the International Theological Commission.

The document, "The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law," was published on the Holy See's Web page in Italian and French.

L'Osservatore Romano published today a summary of the document in an article by French Dominican Father Serge-Thomas Bonino, a member of the commission.

The commission emphasizes the need for a consensus on objective and universal ethical values, which should be promoted to avoid the ups and downs of public opinion and government manipulation.

"These values can guarantee for human rights, for example, a more solid base than fragile juridical positivism," Father Bonino explained. "They should be founded on what defines human beings as humans and in how human nature is concretized is each person, regardless of race, culture or religion."

The document suggests that natural law as the base of ethics continues maintaining its validity, in a culture that elevates the individual to the level of a final reference point who creates his own values and acts outside of objective ethical norms, making use of ideologies that have little concern for human dignity.

The International Theological Commission document thus contributes to the current debate on the search for universal ethics, aiming to combat the growing separation between the ethical order on the one hand, and the economic, social, juridical and political orders on the other.

These latter sectors of human activity try to develop without normative references to a moral good that is objective and universal, the document notes.

It goes on to offer two alternatives, Father Bonino explained: Either globalization advances "more or less regulated in a juridical framework that is purely positivist, incapable of avoiding in the long-term the power and rights of the strongest, or else man involves himself in the process to orient it based on the finality that is properly human."

Living Law

The experts note in this regard that natural law affirms "persons and human communities are capable, in the light of reason, of recognizing the fundamental orientations of a moral act in conformity with the nature itself of the human subject and of presenting them in a normative way, in the form of precepts or commands."

"These fundamental precepts -- objective and universal -- are called to found and inspire together the moral, juridical and political determinations that regulate the life of man and society," the document proposes.

"To propose natural law in today's context, one should distance himself from the caricaturist presentations that have made it incomprehensible to many of our contemporaries [and] take advantage of the recent innovate elements of Catholic moral theology," Father Bonino suggested.

The document recalls that there is already a common ethical patrimony, as witnessed by the numerous convergences among the cultural and religious traditions of the world.

It also opposes a rationalistic vision of natural law, though it defends its rational dimension, and indicates that the "interior call to follow the good as such is the experience on which all morality is founded."

The final chapter of the document considers the "profound change of perspective in the presentation of natural law" that was offered by Christ.

"In the light of faith, man recognized in Jesus Christ the eternal Logos who presides over creation, and who, in incarnating himself, presents himself to man as the living Law, the criteria of a human life in conformity with natural law," Father Bonino explained.

"Natural law is not abolished," he concluded, "but taken to its fulfillment by the new law of love."

Octave of Pentecost

Please go to Fr Ray's e-petition and sign

http://petition.co.uk/restore_the_octave_of_pentecost

He is asking the Holy Father to restore the Pentecost Octave, maybe if this gets somewhere we should ask for the Bishops of England and Wales to restore the midweek holydays!!??!!

Superb

Can I point you in the direction of:

http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2009/06/crisis-of-metaphysics.html

from Fr Ray Blake's blog, it is all at the same time: challenging, provocative and inspiring. The excellence we expect from Fr Ray's keyboard.

The 13th Day

A new film about the visionaries and visions at Fatima. Does it make us believe in miracles?
the13thday.com

Does God exist?

My lads ~ the original "socrateasers"

This is inspired by and dedicated to you, all the best.

Urbi et Orbi 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaKwuDbLdTE

Easter

Surrexit Christus et illuxit populo suo, quem redemit sanguine suo, alleluia

Holy Saturday

O mors, ero mors tua; morsus tuus ero, inferne.

Good Friday

The texts for the Papal Way of the Cross can be found here.

Maundy Thursday

The Lord gives the most simple and yet complex commandment ever given.
"Love one another"

The Easter Triduum

Benedict XVI reflected on the Easter triduum at the general audience, which he called the "fulcrum of the entire liturgical year."

Wednesday in Holy Week

Tuesday in Holy Week

St. Prisca
o.p.n.

Monday in Holy Week

Judica, Domine, nocentes me expugna impugnantes me: apprehende arma et scutum, et exsurge in adjotorium meum, Domine, virtus salutis meae.

Palm Sunday

As the Church moves towards the celebration of Holy Week, the question in all of our hearts might well be "Where is my Jerusalem?" Are we entering a time/place that will challenge us to the moment of decision making?

It is worth taking a moment to look for the limits of our fidelity.

Hosanna Filio David: benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini. O Rex Israel: Hosanna in excelesis.

What does the future hold for you?

I am thinking that I will aim at posting something relating to the content of our syllabus material every now and again and open this up for comment/development. How does this sound?

Salve

Welcome to this blog. It springs from an 'idea' and a 'conversation' meeting in my classroom today. I am not sure how it will unfold in practical terms and what use it will be. But the thought is now a reality. Feel free to comment and suggest contributions as you think may be interesting or useful.