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Building Bridges: Abrahamic Perspectives on the World Today
with Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, Season II
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A first-ever 15-part series conceived by a rabbi for Bridges TV-American Muslim TV Network, the show brings together religious leaders of the three major Abrahamic faiths to grapple with the divisive issues splitting our traditions and country. Fast paced and tied to today's news, it gives viewers a deeper understanding of how people of faith see the world, and each other, with live interviews from the American public.
Price: $25.00 (3 DVD Set)
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| Irwin Blog Oct 26, 2007 |
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| Friday, 26 October 2007 | |
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Science and Religion: A Question of Humility
By Irwin Kula
Albert Einstein said it best, “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. Einstein understood what today’s “leading” scientists (at least those who write anti-religion best sellers) and today’s “leading” public religious figures (at least those who proclaim to know precisely what God wants with regard to public policy) sadly prove in their dismissal, denial, and rejection of each others truths. It seems like the responses to the question of the relationship between science and religion, that take up the most oxygen these days, are either fundamentalist scientific views (Dawkins and Hitchens and co.) that claim religion is a superstitious relic from the past or a survival trick that nature uses to reproduce the species or the religious fundamentalist view (Dobson and Perkins and co.) that science is part of the fallen world and has no access to the Real truth. As entertaining as the fight between these two fundamentalisms is it has led to an impoverishment of public conversation – a disenchanted, flattened experience of the world on the one side and an anti-science literalism that claims dogma and mythic beliefs as truth on the other.
The present tension between science and religion is just the next iteration of the centuries old conflicts of reason an revelation, material and spirit, facts and values, matter and consciousness. Of course, ordinary people, as opposed to our absolutist friends, embrace the fact that there is both scientific knowledge of the material world and religious knowledge of our inner world of values, meaning, and purpose. We can not have no alliance or even mutual respect between these two ways of knowing and explaining reality as long as either overreaches. When science reduces values, spiritual experiences, and transpersonal waves of consciousness - our interior realities - to brain states and chemicals it overextends. Such narrow science can not but be in conflict with religion and ought to be, for the consequence of such science is that we all lose touch with powerful experiences of higher levels of consciousness attested to by mystics of every tradition who have used time tested techniques that any one can use to have similar deep religious experiences. By the same token, when religion makes empirical truth claims about the material world such as the universe was created in six days, a bush was not consumed by fire, seas split, a virgin gave birth, people die and days later are resurrected, or people do not die but fly to heaven, it overextends. Such narrow religion can not but be in conflict with science and ought to be for the consequence of such religion is that we diminish the power of good science to help us master and understand the physical world by replacing knowledge of the material world with superstitious dogma and creed. Can we have an alliance of science and religion? Not as long as science functions as scientism and actually imagines that it is the exhaustive way to explain reality and not as long as religion imagines that its myths and stories actually explain the material world better than science. When science respects its limits to powerfully explain the external, physical and material world and religion respects its limits to powerfully illuminate our interior experience, our inner world, and our higher levels of development and consciousness, then there can indeed be mutual respect and even an alliance. This would be science that transcends the narrow scientific materialism of our fundamentalist scientists and religion that transcends the literalist, ethnocentric understanding of the myths and stories of our religious fundamentalists. One might call this a more humble science and more humble religion each of which invites the other to develop its own potentials to understand the depth and breadth of this radiant Kosmos. |
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| Dec 2009 - Present |
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The Morning Show with Russ Morley, (WFTL, Miami), The Academy Awards and our National Obsession with Celebrities (Click on no. 16), 3/8/10
The Huffington Post, Purim, 2/27/10
The Al Gainey Show, WDUN (Northern GA), CPAC Conference - Young people who are conservative seem less attached to some social issues than their older religious counterparts, 2/26/10 Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2/25/10
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The Lars Larson Show, Compass Media Networks, Sacred Super Bowl Sunday, 2/5/10
Voice of America-Indonesia, "Building Collaborative Communities" Conference (Jakarta), 1/27/10
Kompas - Indonesia's Leading Paper, The Indonesia-US Interfaith Cooperation program in Jakarta, 1/26/10
The Morning Show, WFTL (Miami), Pat Robertson’s Remarks About Haiti, 1/19/10
The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), Martin Kuther King, Jr., 1/18/10
Progressive Talk AM 1150 (Los Angeles), Pat Robertson’s Remarks on Haiti (Jan 14, 5 pm time slot - Time code: 29:20-37:30), 1/17/10
The Louis B. Free Show, WGFT (Youngstown, OH), Martin Luther King Jr. (Brad's on Part II, about 3/4 of the way to the end), 1/15/10 The Mario Solis Marich Show, Progressive Talk AM 760 (Denver), Pat Robertson’s Remarks on Haiti (Jan 14, 5 pm time slot - Time code: 29:20-37:30), 1/14/10
Overnight America with Jon Grayson, KMOX (St. Louis), Brit Hume's suggestion that Tiger Woods convert from Buddhism to Christianity, 1/6/10
Aaron in the Afternoons, KLFD, (St. Cloud, MN), Tiger Woods needs Jesus to turn his life around?, 1/5/10 The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), Brad on Brit Hume, Tiger Woods and Jesus, 1/5/10
The Mario Solis Marich Show, Progressive Talk AM 760 (Denver), War on Christmas (26:30-34:41), 12/21/09
Aspen Daily News, Rabbi Receives Plea Deal in Traffic Case, 12/16/09
The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), The Christmas Wars, 12/16/09 Busted Halo - Sirius Satellite Radio, The Christmas Wars, 12/16/09
State of Belief, Air America, The Christmas Wars, 12/12/09
American Profiles, Voice of America, Brad Hirschfield Brings Style to Interfaith Activism, 12/10/09 |
| Dec 2009 - Present |
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“God Talk,” A Segment on the Fox News web show, “The Strategy Room,” 2/26/10
The Forward, Being Jewish in NY, 2/17/10
Politics Daily, Is Obama Appointee Harry Knox an 'Anti-Catholic Bigot'? , 2/12/10
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Aaron in the Afternoon, KLFD, (ST. Cloud, MN), Valentine’s Day, 2/9/10
NY Jewish Week, Voodoo Dialogue, 2/3/10
FoxNews.com “Strategy Room”, Relationships and Valentine’s Day, 2/1/10
The Morning Show with Russ Morley, WFTL (Miami), Do we get the government we deserve? (Click on the 4th item), 1/28/10
The Mario Solis Marich Show, KKZN Denver, What is the state of the union? (Time — 30:20-38:43), 1/26/10
The Lars Larson Show (Compass Media Network), Bankers’ Apologies and Pat Robertson’s Response to the Haiti Crisis, 1/14/10
At Issue with Ben Merens, WPR (Wisconsin Public Radio), Hopes and Expectations for the New Year (go to 12/24/09, 4 pm slot), 12/24/09
Erik & Jack Attack, Cable Radio Network, Hope for the New Year, Tiger Woods, and Religious Tolerance (47:47-52:10) , 12/23/09
USA Today, Faith & Reason Blog, Pope Pius XII and Sainthood, 12/22/09
Dresser After Dark, How do those who do not identify with organized religion fare during the holidays?, 12/22/09
Progressive Talk AM 1150 - Los Angeles, Holidays, Yearnings, and Tiger Woods, 12/20/09
Mario Solis Marich Show - Progressive Talk AM 760 (Colorado), Holidays, Yearnings, and Tiger Woods, (Click on Dec. 16 - Irwin @ 27:53-36:02), 12/16/09 |