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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Education, General Science, Interfaith Coalitions, Religion, Technology
Mission:
The Metanexus mission is well captured by the description Varadaraja V. Raman, professor emeritus of physics and humanities at Rochester Institute of Technology and Chairman of the Metanexus Academic Board. Dr. Raman prescribes for the goals of the Science-Religion dialogue:
- To underscore the emotional, spiritual, ethical, and inspirational enrichment that religions provide.
- To recognize the positive contributions that modern science has made to human civilization: such as providing an understanding of the limitless range of the phenomenal world, enhancing our capacity to probe into the microcosm and also to measure the universe, unraveling the mysteries of matter, life, and mind, eliminating diseases, exposing the superstitions and pseudo-sciences, etc.
- To spread an awareness of the negative human impacts of modern science, and find out how these may be diminished by adopting values enshrined in religious traditions.
- To explore how some of the no longer acceptable aspects of the traditional religious framework may be changed, modified or rejected so as to bring religions in harmony with rationally acceptable criteria for explaining physical phenomena and with the spirit of social/humanistic enlightenment. This includes respecting other religions (in so far as they are non-hurting) as much as enjoying deep devotion to one’s own.
Varadaraja V. Raman, Truth and Tension in Science and Religion, 2009, 47-48.
Programs:
It is now possible to teach the history of the universe, theevolution of life, and the rise of human civilizations as an integrated, singlesemester course or series of integrated courses. Typically science is taught asseparate specializations and history taught in different periods and regions.Unique in Our Common Story is theintegration of all these different specializations into a single, narrativeaccount. Unique in this approachis that the departmental distinctions between the scientific and humanisticdisciplines disappear to the mutual enrichment of the natural sciences, thehuman sciences, and the humanities.
Some call this new integrated story told by science andhistory “the New Cosmology” or “the Epic of Evolution.” Others call it “the History of Nature,”or simply “Big History.” We arecalling it “Our Common Story,” because for the first time humans have an origin“myth” that transcends all of our regional, religious, and tribal differences.
The advantages of teaching general science and worldhistory as an epic narrative are many:
1. The integrative narrative provides a mnemonic forstudents and adults alike to understand and remember the details of science andhistory.
2. This approach helps to inspire students and adults toappreciate the awesome grandeur of the new sciences and the humanadventure.
3. This approach helps students and adults to understandthe unique environmental, political, economic, and technological challenges ofthe twenty-first century global civilization.
4. This approach helps to address profound existential questionsof meaning and purpose, virtues and values, in ways that are respectful ofscience, supportive of progressive religion, and conducive to civil societies.
Our Common Storyis an increasingly factual narrative that transcends and includes all of ourdifferent stories. We see thiscurriculum, and exploratory dialogues about how to interpret this story, as animportant component in addressing the challenges of culture wars and clashingcivilizations, as well as a productive context to solving many of the greatpolitical, economic and environmental challenges in the world today. We seek to incubate such courses inundergraduate colleges and universities, book clubs, religious congregations,and ultimately in age-appropriate ways in K-12 education, here in the UnitedStates and around the world.