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NEW! Coming Summer, 2003: Dr. Sarah Voss will teach "Science and Spirit: A Mathaphorical Journey" at Starr King School for the Ministry, 2441 LeConte. Click here for more information.
Dr. Voss offers lectures, workshops, academic classes, and sermons on mathematics/science and religion. |
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Lectures: Dr. Voss has lectured at a wide variety of conferences and campuses. For example, she was the Klein 2000 Lecturer at First UU Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a 1999 featured speaker at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Distinguished Lecture Series on Science & Religion in Albany, New York, and featured speaker at a 1998 CNRS Templeton Lecture Series at York University, Ontario, Canada. Some of Dr. Voss's lectures have subsequently appeared in print form and several of these may be accessed below: "Ten Ways Mathaphors Are Shaping Our Spiritual Lives""Theological Reflections about Freeman Dyson's Mathematics" "Bridging Science and Spirit" "Science, Religion, and Holy Mathaphors" "The Impact of Contemporary Mathematical Metaphors on Faith Understandings of Consciousness" "What Mathaphors Tell Us about the Development of Personhood" "The Unique Place of Mathematics in the Science and Religion Dialogue" "Mathematical Images for God" "Out of Order, Chaos" "Beyond the Copernican Revolution" (PDF) "UUism, the Religion of All Religions: A Mathematical Apology" "Holy Mathaphors" "What Number Is God?" "Mathematics and Religion" Workshops: Science and Spirit: A Mathaphorical Tour is a "Wonder"-filled introduction to topics in the religion and science dialogue. Using metaphors drawn from mathematics as a starting point, Rev. Sarah Voss offers a smorgasbord-approach that traverses much territory and leaves plenty of "pointers" (resources) for those who want to explore a topic in more depth. Areas "toured" include the history of the science/religion dialogue, artificial intelligence, human/machine life, the impact of chaos theory on religion, holographic and other world views, various cosmologies, biology, genetics, and "moral" math. This day and a half workshop is designed to be user-friendly to the non-mathematician and is ideal for informal adult religious education gatherings of all sorts. Shorter, two-hour workshops on specific topics are also available. Academic Course Coming Summer, 2003: Dr. Sarah Voss will teach "Science and Spirit: A Mathaphorical Journey" at Starr King School for the Ministry, 2441 LeConte Avenue, Berkeley, California 94709. Tentative time is 9:00 - 1:00 each day, July 7-11. For more information or to register contact Cathleen Young at the above address or email her at cyoung@sksm.edu. The cost of the course is $350. $100 will hold a place in the course. $50 is nonrefundable unless the course is cancelled. Math: A New Language of Theology is a one or two week intensive course (available in graduate, undergraduate, continuing-education formats) which introduces students to contemporary issues of religion and science. Using mathematical metaphors as a tool, the course offers students a chance to: *review the history of the science/religion relationship Math: A New Language of Theology fits a variety of academic schedules and is user-friendly to the non-mathematician. A precursor to this course was a prize-winner in the 1998 Templeton Religion and Science Course Program. For selected comments from students who took the course during the summer of 1999 through the Chicago Seminary Cooperative, click here. Sermons From pulpits in places as diverse as Georgia and Nebraska, Toronto and the Virgin Islands, Rev. Voss has given a number of math sermons. Here are some of the titles of math sermons she's delivered: "Reflections about Nothing," "Out of Statistics, Hope," "Prayers that Count," "Our Electronic Church," "Gšdel on Evil," "Dare to Be Average," "Beyond Copernicus," "Our Entangled Web," "God and Quantum Transitions," "Computers and Consciousness," "Towards a Cantorian Religion," "The Nature of Love in a World Where Dolly Gives Birth to Herself," "When the Future Is Now." Rev. Voss cautions that "Our Entangled Web" was a bust. Still, one true bust out of the bunch is not so bad, and she allows that that one happened only after she'd listened to William Wootters of Williams College give an absolutely marvelous talk on quantum teleportation -- so marvelous that she committed to doing a sermon on the subject before she realized that it wasn't nearly as easy to communicate the essence of teleportation as Wootters, one of the pioneers in the field, made it appear. Two of the Rev. Voss's recent sermons on religion and science have been edited for the print media and combined into one essay, "Where the Whys and the Hows Meet." This essay may be found at www.science-spirit.org E-mail: sarahvoss@cox.net Voice mail: 402-558-9311. |