Forum guidelines | Year one summary | Previous events

Forum guidelines

Science and religion are fundamentally important in our society. But too often people are asked to talk about issues in a way that forces a false choice between science and religion. Sadly, much of American discourse has become polarized and politicized. The Life Science and Religion Community Forum of Central Virginia hosts seminars that are intended to provoke thoughtful dialogue and conversation.

We are here not to change what you think, but to help you explore how you think. We are here to increase faith literacy among those who don’t know what various faiths stand for or why they believe as they do. We are here to increase scientific literacy among those who do not know what scientists are doing or why they do as they do. We are here to help you examine your own values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. We are here to initiate better mutual understanding between science and faiths, and between the various faiths as well. We are here to provide examples of people of faith and science: people who maintain their faiths as they work in laboratories, clinics, science classrooms; and people who hold onto scientific claims when they step into a pulpit or into their seminary classrooms. We are trying to facilitate what we call “humble, critical pluralism.”

So our guidelines are simple — let us regard ourselves with some humility, treat each other with great respect and use our critical thinking to assess our own or others’ arguments.