RLGN 240 -- THE HEAVENS IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
| Mon, Wed, Fri 10:30-11:20 | Guilford 323 |
| DATE | TOPIC | DESCIPTION | ASSIGNMENTS |
| Jan 12-16 | Intro to the Heavens |
|
Russell 1 |
| Jan 21-23 | The Bible and the Ancient Near East |  This
week we will look at the earliest cosmologies (understandings of the structure
of the universe) among the ancient Babylonians, Egyptian, Greeks and how
all of this influenced the writings in the Hebrew Bible/ Old Testatment |
Koestler, I:.2 |
| Jan 26-30 | The Beginnings of Western Cosmology |  An
examination of the cosmological theories of Plato and his pupil Aristotle.
Although these two thinkers disagreed profoundly on many issues, their teachings
formed the basis of Western astronomy, astrology and theology until Galileo.
Their views also form the basis of our calendar. |
Koestler, I: 3,4 Russell 2 |
| Feb. 2-6 | The Heavens in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam |  A
look at the births of both Early Christianity and early Rabbinic Judaism
in the world of the late Roman Empire. Both religions (and Islam a few centuries
later) adopted Roman physics and cosmology as a basis for their theologies.
We shall look at the relationship between science and theology in these
three religious traditions. |
Koestler I: 5 Russell 3, 4 |
|
Feb 9-13 |
Medieval Cosmology and Theology |  The
full development of Christian, Jewish and Muslim astronomy and theology
occured during the Middle Ages, we shall look at the scientific progress
made, especially by Muslim scientists, and look at the teachings of such
theologians as Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonides |
Koestler II: 1,2,3 Russell 5, 9 |
| Feb 16-20 | Popular Religion: Heaven as Paradise |  Besides
the intellectual arguments about the physics of the universe, there was
a popular religious understanding of the heavens and of the location of
Paradise or Eden, and of the Underworld. We will look at a number of religious
writings, paintings and manuscript illuminations which show this popular
side of Western religious traditions. |
Russell 6, 7, 8 |
| Feb 23-27 | The Copernican Revolution and Protestantism |  The
sixteenth century saw the breakdown of nearly two thousand years of Greco-Roman
thinking, both in the sciences, with Copernicus, and in Roman Catholicism,
with Luther and the Protestant Reformation.. We will look at how these changes
came about and how Protestantism and new scientific discoveries related
to each other. |
Koestler III |
| March 1-5 | Galileo and the beginning of Modern Science |  Copernicus
observations and calculations challenged the accepted cosmologies. His work
was carried forward by Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe.But the real breakthrough
to a new understanding of "how the heavens go" goes to the credited
of Galileo Galilei. We shall look at his physics as well as his new view
of the heavens and what these meant for Western religion. |
Koestler IV |
| March 8-12 |
B R E A K
|
||
| March 15-19 | The English Reformation and Newton |  Although
Galileo was instrumental in breaking down the old Aristotelian view of the
heavens, it was Isaac Newton who first came up with a viable alternative.
In fact, Newton's physics remains useful to this day. But Newton's new physics
ad massive implications for theology, which had been based on the now discredited
Aristotelian model. One new religious movement heavily dependant on the
science of Newton was Deism. We will look at the breakdown of Catholic hegemony
in England and how this made possible the new physics of Newton and some
of the new theologies of the time. |
Koestler V |
| March 22-26 | The Heavens of the Protestants |  Distrustful
of Roman Catholic theaching and armed with the new theories of Newton, Protestant
thinkers in Europe began to rethink the nature and physics of heaven. We
will look at some of these Protestant thinkers, including Swedenborg. |
Russell 10, 11, 12 |
| Mar 29-April 2 | The Nineteenth Century - electricity and the spiritual world |  Newton
assumed the world was physcial (corpuscular" in his words). But the
nineteenth century discovered that there were realities beyond the corpuscular.
In science was the discovery and investigation of electricity and electro-magnetic
waves. Religion saw the birth of a variety of spiritualist, theosophic and
mystical movements. We will look at the interrelationships between the scientists
and the religious thinkers at this time. |
|
| April 5-9 | Relativity |  By
the beginning of the twentieth century it was clear that the physics of
Newton could not account for all reality. The whole notion of physics, now
including electro-magnitism, had to be re-thought. It was Albert Einstein
who developed a new theory -- relativity -- which included but went beyond
Newtonian science. The world as Einstein saw it was very weird, and has
had tremendous impications for modern day theologies. |
Martin Buber (excert) |
| April 12-16 | Quantum Physics and the Discovery of the Universe |  As
weird as the universe of relativity is, the physics of quantum mechanics
is even weirder. At the same time, the first few decades of the twentieth
century, astronomers began to see the universe as we know it. Galaxies,
for example, were first discovered and studied. The universe by the middle
of the twentieth century was a very strange place, destroying almost all
of our old assumptions. How were theologians, and religious people in general,
to make sense of all this when using language still based on Aristotle? |
History of Astronomy (look especially at the 20th century) |
| April 19-23 | God, Chaos, Black Holes and String Theory |  This
last week looks at some of the latest theories about the cosmos and the
questions they raise about how it works and where the divine might be in
all of this (How was the universe "created" , for example, orhow
might God still be able to play a role in what is going on, etc.). |
|
| April 26 | Where Do We Go From Here | General conclusion, evaluations, etc. | |
| DATE DUE | TOPIC | LENGTH | PERCENTAGE |
| Feb. 9 | Greco-Roman Cosmology | 3-4 pages | 15 |
| March 5 | Traditional Western Heavens | 4-5 pages | 25 |
| April 7 | Modern Physics and Spirituality | 4-5 pages | 25 |
| April 29 (final) | Where Are We Now? | 4-5 pages | 25 |
| Class Participation | 10 |
A
basic overview of what the ancients observed in the heavens- the movements
of the sun, moon, etc. Explanation of the Zodiac and the movements of
the planets.