Chesterton House

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He formed the human from the dust of the earth, then commanded the human to engage in technological development so that humans could become free from their bodies, from the constraints of space and time, from the awkwardnesses of real encounters in the body, and finally from death itself.

Of course, we immediately recognize this as a parody, but how often do we live in our digitally-saturated world as if it were true? As if we were meant to live not as embodied human beings made to worship the God of creation, incarnation, and resurrection and to abide in incarnate relationship with others in community, but as humans accepting a call from The Digital to advance into a transhumanist future which aims to deliver us from our bodily limitations?

Unlike early forms of technology, like hammers and windmills and printing presses, modern automatic machine technology is increasingly removing us from a vital and intimate connection with the Creator and the creation. It is affecting our cognition, our skills, our possibilities for employment, and making us more lonely and disconnected from concrete communities of friends we can lean on.

All of this doesn’t come without real benefits. But at what cost? Is technological advance worth the cost of diminishing our ordinary embodied human existence?

Join us for a Chesterton Perspectives event with Craig Gay to explore these questions and to see how the Christian story about a God who creates, incarnates himself, and bodily resurrects the dead invites us to rediscover the centrality of ordinary embodied human existence in the world.

🗓️ April 27th
⏰ 7:30pm EST at 111 The Knoll | 7:45pm EST via Zoom
✨Register for the Zoom link below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfUpkU09qLWv5vYGmlGBo4YN1bmebIDUbRsjcRAt49FlkHMTA/viewform

The Beauty of Understanding: How Wonder and Awe Fuel Scientific Inquiry with Brandon Vaidyanathan, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institutional Flourishing Lab at The Catholic University of America.

For over two centuries, critics have accused science of disenchanting the world, turning rainbows into wavelengths and mysteries into mechanisms. Yet many prominent contemporary scientists describe science itself as a wellspring of beauty, awe, and wonder. What does beauty mean in the everyday practice of science, and how does the pursuit of understanding shape scientific work, motivation, and well-being?

Schedule:
5:30 PM - 6:15 PM Talk
6:15-6:45 PM: Panel Discussion with Brandon Vaidyanathan, Prof. Tomás Arias (Cornell, Physics) and Saun Nichols (Cornell, Philosophy)
6:45 PM - 8:00 PM: Dinner Reception

Join us for this conversation, a collaboration of the COLLIS at Cornell and the Chesterton House.

Registration link: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/3hgwgv8

For more info: https://chestertonhouse.org/events/the-beauty-of-understanding-how-wonder-and-awe-fuel-scientific-inquiry/

📆 Thursday, March 19th at 5:30pm
📍 Clark 700
🍽️Dinner provided!