Summer 2021

In 2021, the Los Alamos Faith and Science Forum invited the public to our eighth annual summer program entitled “Why Do Faith and Reason Interact?”  – again via Zoom

Our lecture series took place every Wednesday evening at 6:30 pm MDT, starting on June 2 and running for 9 weeks, through July 28.

These sessions were available on the internet via Zoom. Participants connected to these sessions using this Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83384636721?pwd=WDZHa08xaUhvVWRqd2NHTXcrYkxidz09

The Summer 2021 series explored a wide range of issues at the forefront of the science-religion intersection. At the first session, we reminded our audience about the mechanics of Zoom. Bob Reinovsky then presented an introduction to, and relationships among, the topics that were presented throughout the summer. The summer series included two talks on the foundations of modern science, two talks dealing with ethics related to science and religion, three talks related to Adam and Eve, and a final lecture on the very timely issue of vaccines.

Here is the schedule of the presentations

All sessions began at 6:30 PM MDT

(Click on the talk title below to see an abstract of the presentation, and to find links to a video recording of the talk, and the slides.)

June 2       “Why  Can/Should  Faith and Reason/Religion and Science Interact?” – Bob Reinovsky

June 9        “How Christianity Laid the Foundation for Modern Science … and many other things, such as human rights and individual freedom — Part I: The Psychology of Europe”  – Nels Hoffman

June 16     “How Christianity Laid the Foundation for Modern Science … and many other things, such as human rights and individual freedom — Part II: The Work of the Church” – Nels Hoffman

June 23    “Ethics: The Common Ground Between Faith and Science” –  Bob Dryja

June 30    “Ethics of Science Informing Theology” – Gerry Wood

July 7        “Scientific constraints on the Existence of Adam and Eve” – Chick Keller

July 14      “Christology without the ‘fall’: Do we need Adam and Eve? Impact on Jesus’ mission(s)” – Morrie Pongratz

July 21      “Adam and Eve’s origin and impact: How they fit into evolutionary history, why they are essential to religion, and how they enabled the explosive success of mankind”  – Gary Stradling

July 28      “History of Vaccines and Christian Response” – Glenn Magelssen 

During our first six summers (2014-2019), the Forum presented programs featuring Wednesday evenings of suppers, lectures, and discussions, based on specific themes and featuring highly recognized experts in areas at the intersection of religion and science. In 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, large gatherings and strong social interactions were not allowed. In response to this situation — while maintaining the desire to continue our tradition of a summer lecture series — we embraced electronic social media as our solution and used ‘Zoom’ to stream our talks out to all our previous participants as well as new people interested in these topics. We continued this tradition for the 2021 summer series, with many of us well experienced with this new mode of interaction and information exchange. Copies of the abstracts for the 2021 season’s presentations and viewgraphs of the talks themselves can be found on our website: www.lafsf.org.

Contact us at lafaithscience@gmail.com

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