Record your own voice message in our online conversation – and it may even be included the radio program! One of the latest additions to the social networking bag of tricks is Audioboo. It’s a way to record short comments and post them for posterity online. If you would like post an audio comment on […]
Author Archive
October 19, 2011
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Be heard and not seen: Record your audio comments
By Chris Mulherin in brief notes
October 13, 2011
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Feynman and beauty
By Chris Mulherin in brief notesNobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman is the voice beyond an evocative and thought provoking 5 min video titled Beauty which can be found via this page at The Immanent Frame. The blog post there says: While Feynman himself was a self-acclaimed atheist, and the project itself aims to “promot[e] scientific education and scientific literacy […]
October 3, 2011
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A word from my mentor
By Chris Mulherin in main postsAs you might have gathered, I’m a neophyte radio freelancer working on only my third program. I’m enjoying the challenge but I don’t have years of experience or training. And some of the ropes are tricky to learn. Margaret Coffey is an ABC old hand and my mentor at Encounter. So I asked Margaret to […]
September 30, 2011
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Of Gothic cathedrals and natural wonders
By Chris Mulherin in main postsInterviewing Nancey Murphy and Denis Alexander Allow me to introduce two guests featuring on the coming Encounter program. One grew up on the land in North America and finds little awe in nature but wonders at Gothic cathedrals. The other, from Britain, has had his fill of cathedrals but finds the mountains awe inspiring. Recently […]
September 27, 2011
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An interview with John Lennox
By Chris Mulherin in main postsChris Mulherin: John Lennox, you’re an Oxford mathematician but perhaps better known to the public as one of those who does public battle with Richard Dawkins and the new atheists. Recently you debated atheist philosopher Peter Singer in Melbourne. Why do you divide your time in such disparate pursuits? John Lennox: I don’t think they’re […]
September 23, 2011
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A time for everything?
By Chris Mulherin in main postsThere’s an old anecdote that haunts me as I rush about my life in the global fast-lane. It’s about a Western traveler in another culture, in a hurry to get to the end of the journey. One version goes like this: In the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trek. Local […]
September 21, 2011
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Matthew Del Nevo’s “The Work of Enchantment”
By Chris Mulherin in contributionsThis week another book related to our theme is being launched in Sydney. It’s by Matthew Del Nevo and called The Work of Enchantment. Matthew lectures in Philosophy at the Catholic Institute of Sydney and his interesting thesis is that it is a lack of “enchantment” in rich, developed countries that causes soul-starved Westerners to […]
September 19, 2011
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Enchantment of the gaps?
By Chris Mulherin in contributionsIn a comment on “Is awe still possible in a secular age?” (on the ABC Religion & Ethics portal) Harry Kerr offers some thoughts on teasing out the issues involved in “the enchantment debate.” He says: I think there is room for some serious defining of terms like re/de/enchantment, awe, wonder, secular, transcendent etc., otherwise […]
September 16, 2011
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Is awe still possible? – George Levine responds
By Chris Mulherin in main postsGeorge Levine has kindly responded to my original article which posed the question, “Is awe still possible in a secular age?” In that article I mentioned Professor Levine’s book The Joy of Secularism which contains chapters by 11 authors, including Charles Taylor. Levine’s introduction to the book explains its purpose this way: This book was […]
September 9, 2011
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Apostates for Evensong
By Chris Mulherin in contributionsOne of the more colourful characters I know is Dickie Gross. Colourful in dress and metaphorically too. The other day Dickie was waxing lyrical about Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne. A lovely thing I’m sure… except that Dickie is an atheist with a popular blog called Godless Gross. I asked him to write […]
September 8, 2011
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Brief notes: All things shining… a book review
By Chris Mulherin in brief notesThis morning I received a review of an interesting new book by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly. The book is All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (Free Press, 2011.) Here’s an edited excerpt from the review: Dreyfus and Kelly open All Things Shining with a promise […]
September 7, 2011
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That’s awesome! But is it true?
By Chris Mulherin in main postsThis post is based on the second part of an article originally published on the ABC Religion site. In a previous piece, Initial thoughts on awe, I asked whether enchantment is still possible in a secular age. Traditionally the sense of awe or wonder has been linked to religious or transcendental views of the universe […]
September 2, 2011
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Brief notes: More on wonder and “Beauty as a way to God”
By Chris Mulherin in brief notesThanks Margaret for links to a couple of pieces on wonder from Commonweal Magazine: Joseph A. Komonchak comments on a meditation by Pope Benedict which speaks of art and transcendence. Here’s an excerpt from the Pope’s meditation which is called “On beauty as a way to God”: Perhaps it has happened to you at one […]
September 2, 2011
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Brief notes: CS Peirce, musement and God
By Chris Mulherin in brief notesCharles Sanders Peirce ‘the father of pragmatism’ had an interesting argument for the reality of God based on what he called musement, akin to wonder or awe. The article was called A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God. One discussion of it can be found here.
August 31, 2011
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Initial thoughts on awe in a secular age
By Chris Mulherin in main postsThe following post is an edited part of an article originally published on the ABC Religion site. In a Nietzschean world without God or gods, is enchantment still an option? In a world bereft of the Platonic forms of beauty and goodness, in a world where we “know” that love and wonder boil down to […]
August 21, 2011
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An invitation
By Chris Mulherin in main postsWelcome to “A Sense of Awe,” a discussion about science, faith and wonder. Please look around and join the conversation. This weekend I’ll be heading south to the cooler climes of Tasmania seeking re-enchantment. I’ll be attending a conference put on by ISCAST, a group of mostly scientists who are also Christians. The conference, which […]
