A monument to something else: The Atheon, the first temple for the worship of science
A new kind of temple has been erected in Berkeley, CA. From the press release of Sept 5.08:
For Immediate Release
Contact: jonathon_keats@yahoo.com
BERKELEY ERECTS FIRST TEMPLE FOR WORSHIP OF SCIENCE
New “Atheon” Builds on Latest Cosmology from NASA… Project Conceived by Artist Jonathon Keats to Debut at Judah L. Magnes Museum With Co-Sponsorship from the University of California
September 5, 2008 - Four millennia after Abraham fathered Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and 150,000 years after hominids introduced burial rituals to the Mediterranean, religion has finally been rendered wholly compatible with science. Beginning on September 27, 2008, a two-story downtown Berkeley building dubbed “the Atheon” will provide a spiritual home for rational people in California, and guidance to acolytes worldwide.
The Atheon features stained glass windows with a pattern of the background radiation of the universe, utilizing NASA’s new WMAP satellite data, and here’s a hymn to science created with Virginia astronomer Mark Whittle: a canon of sounds from three hypothetical universes called Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? “The essence of religion is stained glass and song,” in Keats’ view.
“Eventually there will be an Atheon in every town,” Keats enthuses. I certainly hope so. Imagine if the effort expended on the pyramids of Giza or Notre Dame in Paris was channeled to glorify science. The stone and sweat of the awe inspiring Hagia Sophia or Rio’s Christ the Redeemer would be better served in monuments to the real search for truth.
Religion and science are different pursuits. Science ultimately desires to know “how” and religion is the pursuit of “why”? Superconductors might very well duplicate a mini-big-bang, but are not designed to reflect on the motivation for creation. Denying the existence of God is, in effect, denying that which cannot be measured. Denying the existence of God is denying the mystery of infinity. Science is a part of religion in that, with every scientific advance, we understand the universe just a bit better, and therefore reanalyze inherited traditions, fusing our daily rituals with reflective thinking.
Mr. Keats is quoted in the press release for Atheon as saying, “If people are to find spirituality in science, it’s likely to be by immersing themselves in questions.” He has, in effect, missed the point of faith traditions. Every one of them is a spiritual framework for existential questions. Doubt in science is healthy. So is doubt in God. What do I mean when I use the term God? Is it, as Mordechai Kaplan said, “the power that makes for salvation?” Is George Lucas tapping into something sublime with his labeling this power, which can be used for good or for evil, “the force?” I believe so.
An Atheon, if it leads people to do good in the world, is a good thing. But if the premise is that questions only emerge through scientific inquiry, it is based on a mistake and might be just a new form of unhealthy zealotry.
rabbi menachem creditor
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor on September 13th, 2008 11:50 pmcongregation netivot shalom
berkeley, ca
Reading through news stories about the CERN experiment last week, I was struck that as many people seemed to think successful experiments proved God as disproved him. For atheists, recreating the Big Bang suggests there’s no need for God. For theists, it only confirms how great He is.
Your comment was enlightening, because I didn’t grasp that theologians place God outside the measures of science. That explains why shaking the science stick in theist’s faces doesn’t cause them to refute their religion and become agnostics.
Science does ask how, rather than why; the starting supposition (for me, anyway) is that the answer to why is “no reason”. It’s not part of the inquiry because it’s already established and therefore inconsequential.
Posted by Reason on September 14th, 2008 7:59 pm