DiscussMormonism.com

I was taken aback the other day when browsing pseudo-science blog Sic et Non, where a senior staff writer praised the newest winner of the Templeton Prize. Now, I've known about this sham "prize" for a while, but I had no idea the prize was for 1.5 million dollars! Holy crap! A Nobel Prize will only bring you 1.1 million. Talk about a new twist on "you can buy anything in this world for money" -- including loyalty to faith. If Mormon headquarters is looking for a venture to save their beacon, maybe they should consider paying off the best of the best in science to become Mormon?

Now, I'm sure there's some politics in Nobel Prize selection, but how often are they off by miles?

The insights that get you a Templeton prize, in contrast, are totally amateurish. I mean, go to the theology or philosophy department at any junior college, get their best guy or gal, and you'll likely find much better intellectual support for religion than anything that Templeton secures. So what's their method? Allow me to answer that.

Get a list of names of faith friendly who have the greatest chances of winning a Nobel Prize in science. (that's not meant literally necessarily, but who is the best in their field). Now find the most prestigious name within science who is willing to crow the loudest for faith, and there's your winner. The arguments don't need to be good or original at all, they just have to "sell their birthright for a mess of pottage" as it were. The mess is pretty significant these days.

Imagine if the Nobel Prize in Physics worked by finding the most distinguished priest willing to offer opinions on the way atoms work? Hey, a thousand years ago, that is actually how science did work!

Friends: The Dark Ages are behind us, God is dead; get used to it.

Gadianton wrote:...Imagine if the Nobel Prize in Physics worked by finding the most distinguished priest willing to offer opinions on the way atoms work? Hey, a thousand years ago, that is actually how science did work

A couple of years ago I read a book about what life was like in 12th Century England. One of the things that struck me was that there was virtually no differentiation between science, religion, dark arts and magic. We forget how different the world was before the Enlightenment. The differentiation between science and religion precipitated the rise of secularism and nationalism.

Many of the religions that have been with mankind since the Axial Age seem to be nearing the end of their usefulness as structures for the dealing with the unfathomable unknowns of our existence.

Science is always discovering more, but we are pinpricks of consciousness in the fabric of space/time. We are never going to know it all. Here's a little quote I like:

Ken Kesey wrote:The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Prize

Looking at the list of Templeton Prize winners it dawned on me where Mopologists got the idea for MormonScholarsTestify.org (re-directs to unFairMormon these days). The latest scholar to testify was adjunct professor Holly Hamilton in September 2018. It appears the Mopologists, in true Mormon fashion, took someone else's idea, put a spin on it, and mocked up a Templeton Prize type database where people with a backgeound in academia lend their gravitas to Mormonism's truthiness.

While perusing the two lists, as it were, I was struck by the diversity of spiritual thought as represented by Templeton Prize winners while MST 'winners' kind of just stuck to a Heartsell TM script. One seems genuine while the other seems like public relations. I suppose it's up to the individual to make their own determination.