Previous entry: County close to hiring investigator of practices in Colorado City
Next entry: Pastor Bush
Related
Advertisements *
Advertise Here *
Elsewhere
Subscribe: RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Subscribe: Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Most Popular
- Scientology security guard kills man who wielded swords
- Beatles bigger than Jesus? Just a Lennon joke: Vatican paper
- Presiding FLDS elder, two other sect members indicted
- Attorney stymied by anti-polygamy activist’s TV demand
- Arkansas judge keeps 20 children associated with evangelist Alamo in state care
- Nigeria sees rise in number of children accussed of witchcraft
- Man killed at Hollywood Scientology center had made prior threats, police say
- Five leaders of Muslim charity convicted in terrorism financing trial
- India puts Witchcraft on school curriculum in effort to combat superstition-related murders
- Hate incidents in U.S. surge
Foundation rewards quest to link spirituality, science
More articles on this topic: Science and ReligionThe offices of the John Templeton Foundation have served as a metaphor for their public profile in the Philadelphia region: only technically above ground level, on the first floor of an anonymous building in the Radnor Corporate Center.
The foundation’s signature product is the world’s largest cash prize for an individual - roughly $1 million, given since 1973 to someone judged to have worked toward common ground between science and religion, subjects that many doubt can ever have a close relation. By design, it is intended to be richer than the Nobel Prizes; awarded in English pounds, the precise amount fluctuates annually.
Now, with a need for more space, the Templeton Foundation is moving up in the literal sense.
By mid-October, it should be in new digs - on the fifth floor of 300 Four Falls Corporate Center, overlooking the Schuylkill Expressway at the Conshohocken exit.
The foundation will have about 22,000 square feet there, about 50 percent more than at present, but it still won’t overawe anyone, said John M. Templeton Jr., the foundation’s president and the son of the billionaire founder.
“I’m sure it will be nicer than this,” Templeton said at the current headquarters, “but we weren’t looking for Taj Mahal qualities.”
The intended significance of the prize, officially the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities, is shown both by its big-dollar amount and the scope of the work it recognizes.
The earliest winners often came from fairly conventional humanitarian or theological fields. Mother Teresa won the first, and the Rev. Billy Graham, the Christian evangelist, won in 1982.
But the last five winners have been noted scientists or philosophers. Laureates have included two Buddhists, a Muslim, and at least one somewhat surprised scientist - nominated by others - who described himself as agnostic.
The most recent recipient, announced in March, was George F.R. Ellis, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He lectures in cosmology - the study of the nature of the universe and how it began - physics and astronomy.
Ellis is also a Quaker and was heavily involved in social activism during the era of apartheid.
He was recognized for his life work in science and his personal religious commitment. Like all winners, he was selected by nine international judges, drawn from scientific or religious fields.
Templeton said at the announcement that Ellis’ work showed “understanding of the reality of love in our lives and, indeed, in all of existence.”
John Templeton Jr., who is 64, is usually known as Jack. His father, who is 91, a naturalized British subject and a resident of the Bahamas, has been knighted for his philanthropy and is known as Sir John.
As a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Jack Templeton has been recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on conjoined twins.
Retired now from surgery, he still teaches, but primarily devotes himself to running the foundation. He makes clear that he follows Sir John’s wishes.
A pioneer in the mutual-funds industry, Sir John sold his Templeton funds group in 1992 for $1 billion. He endowed the foundation with half that amount.
Today, according to foundation vice president Pamela P. Thompson, Sir John’s net worth is about $2 billion. The foundation’s endowment is $850 million.
That will make possible $40 million in grants this year, she said, up from $15 million just a few years ago.
The foundation makes some grants in nonspiritual fields, promoting free enterprise and “character development.” It sponsors the “Laws of Life” essay contest in about 150 U.S. high schools.
But about three-quarters of its grants are for research and publication in science and religion, Sir John’s true passion.
He believes that spirituality, theology and religion can make the same sort of progress that medicine, science and cosmology have in the last 300 years.
“Spiritual progress may be more important than all of these other areas,” Jack Templeton said in March.
Father and son both belong to relatively conservative Presbyterian churches. In Jack’s case, it is Proclamation Presbyterian in Bryn Mawr, which describes itself as “Bible-believing.”
But Jack, speaking as usual of his father’s beliefs as well as his own, said, “He’s a searcher and a great believer that he doesn’t have all the answers.”
He said many people have found it hard to grasp the concept of spiritual discoveries.
“One of the engines for progress is research, including the scientific method,” he said, and the foundation aims to encourage that kind of research.
The idea that science can ever provide religious answers has its critics.
“I think it’s a complete waste of time and money,” said Lawrence M. Krauss, an astronomer and chairman of the physics department at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
Krauss, who has publicly questioned the Templeton Prize, said that, separately, science and religion “are profound and important.”
While the Templetons were well-intentioned, he said, he disputed that “science can somehow validate religion.”
“It demeans science and it demeans religion to somehow try to build these connections,” Krauss said.
To which Ellis replied in a phone interview that Krauss was stating “one extreme view.”
In accepting the prize, Ellis said that it was becoming clear that there were limits to science and that it alone would never be able to describe or explain everyday reality.
He said the Templeton Prize and the foundation were already having an impact by making the interface between science and religion “a respectable academic discipline.” Where such courses at major universities were once rare, he said, there are now hundreds.
Jack Templeton said he was sure that research and new knowledge could yield spiritual progress.
“Four hundred years ago, people called theology the queen of the sciences,” he said. “It would be a bad mistake to say that you cannot make discoveries in the immaterial.”
• Read the Philadelphia Inquirer online
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: County close to hiring investigator of practices in Colorado City Next entry: Pastor Bush
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
