Press Release |
New Frontiers in Research on Infinity is co-organized by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) and the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and is funded by a grant from JTF, with additional support from Euresis and the Republic of San Marino.
The mission of CTNS is to promote the creative mutual interaction between theology and science. CTNS is an international non-profit membership organization dedicated to research, teaching and public service. It focuses on the relation between the natural sciences including physics, cosmology, evolutionary and molecular biology, as well as technology and the environment, and Christian theology and ethics. The Center has successfully created and administered large multi-year program grants that have resulted in extending the science and religion dialogue world wide: The Theological and Ethical Implications of the Human Genome Initiative, The Science and Religion Course Program, the Science and the Spiritual Quest Program and currently, STARS: Science and Transcendence Advanced Research Series. As an Affiliate of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California, CTNS faculty offer courses at the doctoral and seminary levels in order to bring future clergy and faculty to a greater awareness of this important interdisciplinary work. Members receive the journal Theology and Science, the quarterly CTNS E-News and other membership benefits.
The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using "the humble approach," the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to healthcare. In the human sciences, the foundation supports programs, competitions, publications, and studies that promote character education and the exploration of positive values and purpose across the lifespan. It supports free enterprise education and development internationally through the Templeton Freedom Awards, new curriculum offerings, and other programs that encourage free-market principles.
Euresis (Italian site) is an Italian association that promotes scientific culture and scientific work. Euresis is open to all those who work in science and who are interested in the far-reaching implications of their activity. Euresis promotes public initiatives about crucial topics in frontier science. The aim is to identify and communicate state-of-the-art fundamental research and cutting-edge technology to a vast public. In doing this they attempt to recognize and highlight the original value of scientific knowledge for the human person and for society. Among the key initiatives of Euresis is the realization of a number of interdisciplinary scientific exhibits, which are shown and presented in schools, universities, museums (in collaboration with Meeting di Rimini); the organization of large conferences and public debates on crucial themes in science held in cultural centers, universities and schools; the participation in Emmeciquadro, a scientific magazine on scientific education; and various editorial and educational projects in science, including collaborations with public institutions.
The Republic of San Marino is located in the Apennines near the Adriatic Sea, southwest of Rimini, in north central Italy. It is the third smallest state in Europe, after the Holy See and Monaco, the world's smallest republic, and claims to be Europe's oldest existing state, celebrating an independence date of 3 September A.D. 301.
In nearby Pesaro, the Rossini Opera Festival will be held from August 7-21, 2006.
With an average of 700,000 attendees every year, the Rimini Meeting, held annually since 1980, is the most well-attended summer festival of culture, seminars, music and entertainment in the whole world. The Rimini Meeting is explicitly inspired by a Roman Catholic view of the world, the result of the initiative of individuals and groups who live their Christian experience through "Comunione e Liberazione" (Communion and Liberation), one of the ecclesiastic movements which has most actively taken part in the history of the Church over the last few decades of this century. At the roots of the Rimini Meeting, therefore, lies a view of the world certainly not held by the majority of people in the culture of our time; a view considered by the established order of contemporary thinkers to be, at best, nobly “specific”, incapable of universal relevance. On the contrary, the Meeting wants to be a place where the Christian faith “loudly announces to the world its love of human nature.” The topic for this year’s Rimini Meeting is, “Reason is the need for the infinite and culminates in the sigh and the presentiment that this infinite be manifested.” It will be held August 20-26, 2006, in Rimini, Italy.
