The Templeton: making science and religion a prize

Sir John Templeton

Wikipedia says that Sir John Templeton renounced his US citizenship because he didn't want to pay US taxes in his native country. Perhaps, he had an eye on the prize that dual Bahamian and British citizenship might give him - a knighthood that the USA never could provide. Perhaps he just loves the sun of the Carribean.

Now, Miss Eagle professes absolute ignorance of what it is to be absolutely rich. However, a lifelong saturation in the Christian tradition always brings to remembrance entry levels for the rich to the Kingdom of Heaven and comparison with mobility through the size and structure of a sewing implement.

Having said all this, Miss Eagle has to express her fascination with the Templeton Prize funded generously by Sir John. Sir John Templeton asked a big question...

"If even one-tenth of world research were focused on spiritual realities, could benefits be even more vast than the benefits in the latest two centuries from research in food, travel, medicine or electronics, and cosmology?

• Research and innovation in food products just since 1800 caused over 100 fold more food production per American farmer.
• Research and innovation in travel methods since 1950, enabled over 100 fold increase in travel by Americans.
• Research and innovation in medicine just since 1900 caused over 100 fold increase in information about our bodies.
• Research and innovation in electronics just since 1900 caused over 1000 fold increase in information available to us.

In 300 centuries, humans observed less than a million stars; but just in the last two centuries innovations in methods and research has revealed a cosmos of 100 billion times 100 billion stars."

The Templeton Prize is based on the premise that

progress is needed in spiritual discovery as in all other dimensions of human experience and endeavor. Progress in religion needs to be accelerated as rapidly as progress in other disciplines. A wider universe demands deeper awareness of the aspects of the Creator and of spiritual resources available for humankind, of the infinity of God, and of the divine knowledge and understanding still to be claimed.

The prize money for the Templeton Prize is serious stuff. It is deliberately kept in excess of the Nobel Prize.

Listed below are the prize winners including the just announced 2008 prize-winner Michael Heller.
1973 - Mother Teresa of Calcutta
1974 - Frère Roger, founder of the Taizé Community
1975 - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, President of India
1976 - Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens
1977 - Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement
1978 - Prof. Thomas Torrance
1979 - Rev. Nikkyo Niwano
1980 - Ralph Wendell Burhoe, founder of Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science
1981 - Cicely Saunders, hospice founder
1982 - Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, evangelist
1983 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Soviet dissident novelist
1984 - Rev. Michael Bourdeaux, founder of the Keston Institute
1985 - Alister Hardy, founder of the Religious Experience Research Centre
1986 - Rev. James I. McCord of the Princeton Theological Seminary
1987 - Stanley Jaki
1988 - Dr. Inamullah Khan
1989 - Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, physicist and philosopher, Lord MacLeod of Fuinary, founder of the Iona Community and Indarjit Singh
1990 - Baba Amte and L. Charles Birch
1991 - Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits
1992 - Kyung-Chik Han
1993 - Charles Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship
1994 - Michael Novak, philosopher and diplomat
1995 - Paul Davies, theoretical physicist
1996 - Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ
1997 - Pandurang Shastri Athavale
1998 - Sigmund Sternberg, philanthropist
1999 - Ian Barbour, professor
2000 - Freeman Dyson, physicist
2001 - Rev. Arthur Peacocke
2002 - Rev. John Polkinghorne
2003 - Holmes Rolston III, philosopher
2004 - George F. R. Ellis, cosmologist and philosopher
2005 - Charles Townes, Nobel laureate and physicist
2006 - John D. Barrow, cosmologist and theoretical physicist
2007 - Charles Taylor, philosopher
2008 - Michael Heller, physicist and philosopher

Now I am not sure about the scientific credentials of some of the recipients but I do have some favourites with whose recognition I am well-pleased. These include Charles Hard Townes - who was introduced to Miss Eagle on Late Night Live, the lively radio program on ABC's Radio National hosted by the evergreen Phillip Adams - and the cosmologist, George Ellis.

Miss Eagle had the privilege of hearing George Ellis speak in Melbourne in January. Ellis is a Quaker and he delivered the 2008 Backhouse Lecture: Faith, Hope, and Doubt in Times of Uncertainty: combining the realms of scientific and spiritual inquiry (available for download here or in hard copy here; ISCAST review here) at the Australian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Miss Eagle has never heard of Michael Heller - but she looks forward to hearing more.

Aboriginal alcohol reforms: you would never ever know if you never ever go

In all the brouhaha of John Howard's and Mal Brough's military intervention in the Northern Territory on the pretext of protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse, there has been one clear hallmark - lack of consultation with Aboriginal communities.

There is glib talk about banning alcohol in Aboriginal communities in complete ignorance - or taking for granted the complete and utter ignorance of white Australia - of the reality: that a significant proportion of Aboriginal communities are dry and that Aboriginal communities - particularly older Aboriginal women in communities - have worked hard and spoken loud and long to get control over alcohol frequently in the face of feigned deafness on the part of the white powers that be.

The Tennant Creek story is very different. This is the mainstream town that closed the pubs at the behest of a powerful Aboriginal community. It is documented by the 2007 Miles Franklin Award winner, Alexis Wright, in her book Grog War which was commissioned by the Julalikari Council.

To-day, on The World Today on ABC's Radio National, there is the report of an investigation by the National Drug Research Institute - including Dr Tanya Chikritzhs and fellow researcher Professor Dennis Gray from Perth's Curtin University - which has found that, ten years on, there are positive statistics demonstrating the impact of what Tennant Creek did more than a decade ago. Transcript available here.

How good it is to hear Tennant Creek being recognised; their work being justified and verified; and the public statement of indigenous instigation of alcohol reform.

If you only listened to Howard and Brough, you would never ever know if you never ever go!

Agriculture going North?

Will a shift of agribusiness to Northern Australia mean that the picture of the flooded Durack River in Western Australia will become a scene similar to the picture on the left of salinated soil?

Let's listen to Tim Flannery and the voices of knowledgable people before replicating in Northern Australia what Australians of European descent have done to Southern Australia.

Back in January 2007, John Howard did a not very good job of the old soft shoe shuffle with his ministerial arrangements. The Prime Minister appointed his vile-hearted attack-dog friend and close Liberal ally, Senator Bill Heffernan, to lead a taskforce that will consider ways to encourage farmers to move north.

Miss Eagle was so gob-smacked by this horrific appointment and its antecedents, implications, and portents for the future that it has taken this long for her to try to achieve some coherence in commenting on this mind-boggling scenario.

Miss E will start with some bullet points (and a warning, dear Reader: this post is almost certain to descend into incoherence, frothing at the mouth, tearing out of hair and similar lunacies. Please be patient. Northern Australia is Miss Eagle's very lifeblood. It is her very being even though she has been transplanted to the Land of the Eagle, Creator Spirit in this part of the world.)

1. The Howard Government has never given a damn (or a dam) about Northern Australia. "One of the first acts of this coalition government was to cut $250 million in regional projects as well as cutting general purpose funding to the Northern Territory by $12 million. In the Territory we have experienced massive cuts to the Public Service, which means not only jobs are taken out of the region but also vital services are removed. Offices that have closed in the Northern Territory include Darwin's office of the Department of Transport and Regional Development, AusAID--the Australian Agency for International Development--Radio Australia, the Office of Northern Development, and the Department of Finance's regional office. " From the maiden speech in the Australian Senate by NT Senator Trish Crossin.


2. What does Bill Heffernan, farmer from southern New South Wales, know about Northern Australia? Someone correct me please with some good solid facts, but Miss Eagle thinks Bill knows sweet you know what. Bill was born in Junee and has not moved far. He was educated at St Joey's at Hunters Hill. For my North Australian friends, Miss Eagle wishes to advise that when she went to live in Sydney, on her first day there she went to hear Richard Rohr speak at Joey's. Miss Eagle knows of no school as posh as this in Northern Australia. In fact, Bill, most of your generation and mine who grew up in Northern Australia - and of a number of generations since - had no educational opportunities such as you had. So, Bill, the Liberal Party under Menzies, Holt and McMahon and the Liberal-National Party Coalition under Bjelke-Petersen have much to answer for.


3. Farmers following European and North American farming practices have wrecked the soil and water of this nation, none more so than those practising farming in the older settled areas of southern Australia - where Bill has his farm.


4. Agriculture, in some areas of the north, has not been successful. One of the major reasons is insect attack. Again, correct Miss Eagle if she is wrong by producing some facts, but Miss Eagle believes that if widespread agriculture is to succeed north of the Tropic of Capricorn heavy use of pesticides will be required. There is an exception. Genetic modification of crops is being given or will be given the green light to avoid pesticide use. This will be of great benefit to cotton which has GM crops ready to go.


5. The cane growing industry, because of its chemical run-off, in North Queensland has been detrimental to the Great Barrier Reef and contributes to its almost certain demise. The industry organisation has been antedeluvian in its denialist attitudes. If these attitudes have changed, please give Miss Eagle the evidence. Miss Eagle is targetting the industry as a whole in these comments and the industry organisation in particular. Miss Eagle is aware of some of the insightful, innovative techniques undertaken by individual growers to prevent run-off from their farms.


6. The grazing industry now sends more live cattle overseas than it does to meatworks. There are few meatworks in the north these days. The live cattle - and sheep - trade is severely detrimental to animal health and welfare. In fact, it is downright cruel.

So, dear Reader, are you now ready for a reality check after that tirade (minimalist, BTW. More could be said.)? Pop across to these statements by Tim Flannery.