Centre for the Study of Divine Intelligence 2011 - 1

The CSDI is a new venture in advancing dialogue, research and education on the cusp between scientific, spiritual and theological research. The nub of the question which we will be asking at CSDI is: If there is a Divine Intelligence at work evidenced behind the universe, what is it is like, how could we know, how could we prove it, and what implications does this have for knowledge, society and action ? CSDI wishes to move scientific discourse into a new dimension, namely the study of the possibility of divine intelligence itself as a new academic field of study and a new orientation for modern scientific research. As the recent documentary film Expelled reveals, some scientists are today being persecuted in some countries for refusing to believe in a strictly neo-Darwinian universe, and for arguing that the complexity of nature indicates some kind of intelligent design process at work. In some other countries, scientists are being marginalised for refusing to believe in specific theological or spiritual formulations of reality. The CSDI wants to help move this debate on further and work with all those academics, intellectuals, scientists, philosophers and theorists who feel that there is truth on both sides, and to mediate the debate. Many contemporary intellectuals feel there is indeed something is not quite right with conventional materialist and non-spiritual explanations of the universe, ranging from problems with cosmology, to psychology, to sociology, global politics and historiography, and yet who are not content to merely adopt an "off-the-shelf" package of "religious" explanations to answer such puzzling and profound problems. Other thinkers do not wish to abandon the hard-won legacy of the enlightenment and instead want to reconcile science and spirituality, faith and reason, scientific and mystical methods of knowing. Our purpose is to assess the findings of the fruits of the enlightenment project and the works of modern scientific thought over the past several centuries and to reassess them in the light of the paradoxes of the limitations of modern knowledge, and to ask whether there are sufficient indications now to point towards some Divine Intelligence at work behind the nature, structure, origin and purpose of the universe, life, evolution and humanity. We are asking whether the long conversation between Darwin and A. R Wallace, who earlier debated the role that spirit plays in evolution, should be reopened in a higher key. If so, the purpose of CSDI is to work with leading edge thinkers across all academic and scientific and spiritual disciplines. A DVD is available on the inaugural meeting of the CSDI in Dec. 2011, which included contributions from the Jewish, Hindu, Chinese, Christian, Shamanic and Ancient Greek philosophical traditions on the nature of Divine Intelligence. For further information please contact: Dr Thomas C Daffern, Coordinator, Centre for the Study of Divine Intelligence, International Institute for Peace Studies and Global Philosophy, Castle of the Muses, Carrick Castle, Loch Goil, Cairndow, Argyll and Bute, PA24 8AG, Scotland, Tel. 01301 703053, Email iipsgp@educationaid.net www.educationaid.net www.holisticchannel.org.uk Facebook: "International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy"