IDS 2220 - Issues in Science and Religion

3 Credit Hours
(Fall, Spring, Summer)

This course will explore and relate scientific and religious conceptions of the natural world. Survey of major scientific discoveries and theories that both challenge and inform religious belief (including Big Bang cosmology, geologic time, evolutionary biology and paleontology, and Earth systems/global change). Survey of the historic role of religion and religious cosmologies in the rise of science, types of religious experience, concepts of God and divine action, the idea of the sacred as the ground for meaning in nature, natural theology and theology of nature, intelligent design, varieties of creationism, and various metascientific proposals (Anthropic Principle, Gaia Hypothesis, Biophylia, Deep Ecology). Emphasis is placed on integrating and harmonizing scientific and religious understandings to develop a more meaningful and informative, contemporary worldview.

❖This college credit course qualifies as having an international and/or diversity focus for Teacher Education Programs common prerequisites.