July 2019 Newsletter
In this Clergy Letter Project update, you’ll find the following six items:
- Evolution Weekend 2020: Help Needed;
- Astrobiology News for July 2019: NASA’s Dragonfly to Explore Titan;
- Too Big a Flood for the Ark;
- The Frightening Nature of Christian Nationalism;
- The Intersection of Zen and Science: Part Two; and
- How Erasmus Darwin’s Poetry Prophesied Evolutionary Theory.
1. Evolution Weekend 2020: Help Needed
I don’t explicitly ask for help very often but I’m doing so now! In fact, I’m asking for two things.
First, I’m asking as many of you as possible to sign up to participate in Evolution Weekend 2020 (14-16 February 2020). Although it is hard to believe, this will be the 15th annual Evolution Weekend. For 15 years, we’ve been reaching out to parishioners and community members with a message of reconciliation between religion and science. For 15 years we’ve been elevating the discussion about the relationship between religion and science. And, for 15 years, we’ve been doing all of this at the local level with each participating congregation doing what it thought best for its members. Our efforts have reached over one million people directly and many times that number via news reports.
All the while, we’ve been resolutely positive in our messaging, making it clear that religion and science can work together, often reaching the same conclusions, and pressing for respect of our fellow community members. We’ve embraced religious differences while celebrating our own beliefs. We’ve articulated the importance of caring for the natural world from both a religious and an ecological perspective. And we’ve argued persuasively about the value of truth even as many of our leaders seem to care little about such things.
_____ Yes, I want to help keep the movement of bringing religion and science together alive. Please sign me up to participate in Evolution Weekend 2020.
Name of Congregation:
Location:
Your Name:
My second request is for your thoughts for a theme for Evolution Weekend 2020. What do you think a good theme would be?
To provide a bit of context, here are the themes for the past four years:
2019: The Confluence of Religion and Science
2018: Our Shared Humanity
2017: Celebrating 25 Years of The Universe Story
2016: Exploring Ways to Engage in Complex Discussions in a Civil Manner
Please send me your thoughts and help us make Evolution 2020 a huge success.
2. Astrobiology News for July 2019: NASA’s Dragonfly to Explore Titan
In this month’s Astrobiology News, Clergy Letter Project consultant and Adler Planetarium astronomer Grace Wolf-Chase discusses how a drone may be used to explore Titan, a moon of Saturn, in search of clues to the origin of life.
Having purchased a drone for my spouse’s birthday this month, NASA’s recent announcement about an astrobiology mission selected to explore Saturn’s moon, Titan, caught my eye.(1) Scheduled to launch from Earth in 2026 and arrive at Titan in 2034, the Dragonfly lander has eight rotors and flies like a large drone. It will investigate multiple sites around this unique world, seeking out prebiotic environments and searching for chemical evidence of past or extant life.
Larger than the planet Mercury, Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere – 4 times denser than Earth’s, with a surface atmospheric pressure 50% higher than Earth’s. Dragonfly will maneuver through Titan’s thick atmosphere and low gravity, becoming the first vehicle flying its entire science payload to examine surface materials at many interesting regions on another world.
Titan is the only world besides Earth in the Solar System with flowing liquid on its surface. Not only does Titan have lakes and rivers of methane and ethane, it has clouds, methane rain, and other organics that form in Titan’s nitrogen-based atmosphere and fall like light snow. With its wide variety of organic compounds, Titan may offer important clues about the origin of life itself. The moon’s weather and surface processes combine these complex organics, energy, and water similar to processes that may have sparked life on Earth.
Dragonfly is taking advantage of 13 years of data from the Cassini mission(2) to choose when and where to land on Titan, as well as interesting scientific targets to visit. Its planned tour will include dozens of locations, including the “Shangri-La” dune fields, which Dragonfly will explore in a series of flights up to about 5 miles, and the Selk impact crater, where there is evidence of past liquid water. Over the course of its 2.7-year baseline mission, the drone will fly more than 108 miles – nearly double the distance traveled to date by all the Mars rovers combined!
Dragonfly is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, which supports missions that have been identified as top Solar System exploration priorities by the planetary community.Until next month,
Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D. (gwolfchase@adlerplanetarium.org)
1. https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/nasa-announces-astrobiology-mission-to-titan/, also https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-dragonfly-will-fly-around-titan-looking-for-origins-signs-of-life
2. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/overview/
3. Too Big a Flood for the Ark
The irony in this story is simply too great to ignore.
As you likely know, Ken Ham’s creationist organization, Answers in Genesis, has constructed a theme park called Ark Encounter to go along with his previous theme park known as the Creation Museum. It turns out that Ark Encounter is having serious flooding problems leading to landslide problems on an access road. These problems have led to a fight with the insurance company about responsibility.
You can read more about the situation here and here.
4. The Frightening Nature of Christian Nationalism
I’ve shared a fair bit of information in recent Newsletters about Project Blitz but I thought you’d want to see this article published in Religion Dispatches. The title of the article, “A Recent Local Controversy Reveals the Theocratic Heart of ‘Project Blitz’,” says it all. The piece is well worth reading.
5. The Intersection of Zen and Science: Part Two
Taiun Michael J. Elliston, a member of The Clergy Letter Project, serves as Abbot of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center. He has written a two-part article exploring the intersection of Zen and Science. I shared Part 1 with you last month. I’ve now posted Part 2. Let me tease you with one of his conclusions: “In summary, Zen thinking finds no disagreement with Rationalism or Science, except perhaps in their most extreme speculations. Theism or Religion, and some forms of philosophy, offer more opportunities for debate, owing to the lack of evidence for claims made, and insistence on inerrant authority. Thus, Zen in general leans toward the scientific side, and away from religiosity.”
As he notes in his essay, if you have any questions or comments about what he’s written, please don’t hesitate to contact him. He can be reached at taiunmelliston@gmail.com.
6. How Erasmus Darwin’s Poetry Prophesied Evolutionary Theory
Those of you interested in history will likely find a recent piece published in Aeon to be well worth your time. The article discusses how the poetry of Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather, foreshadowed evolutionary theory. Looking to the future and celebrating the value of the arts, the piece concludes by saying, “In an age that needs such healing and wisdom about the natural world, we too need poets who shall rise to the challenge, who can sing a song of evolution, of climate change. In some small but hopeful sense, maybe they can cure the world.”
Concluding Thoughts
Last month I concluded with a paragraph decrying the rise of discrimination that seems to be permeating our world. As things have gotten worse this month I feel that I should repeat what I wrote: As you all know so very well, religion and science come to similar conclusions about many topics. At a time when discrimination in all of its insidious forms is on the rise, The Clergy Letter Project’s message of respect for difference, a message that is supported both by religion and science, is more important than ever. Please continue to do whatever you can to help stem the tide of intolerance and the violence that arises from it in any way you can. We are stronger, better and more humane together.
Finally, as always, I want to thank you for your continued support and as I do every month, I urge you to take one simple action. Please share this month’s Newsletter with a colleague or two (or post a link via any social media platform you use) and ask them to add their voices to those promoting a deep and meaningful understanding between religion and science. They can add their signatures to one of our Clergy Letters simply by dropping me a note at mz@theclergyletterproject.org. Together we are making a difference.
Michael
Michael Zimmerman
Founder and Executive Director
The Clergy Letter Project
www.theclergyletterproject.org
mz@theclergyletterproject.org