 |
Atheon Temple To Science Open For Worship Soon
The Atheon Temple of Science is an art project conceived by Jonathon Keats. Using a grant from UC Berkeley's Chancellor's Community Partnership fund, he created the Atheon in downtown Berkeley office building.
Establishment of an Atheon has been a high priority in the scientific community for the past several years, rivaling even enthusiasm for the new Large Hadron Collider. "When you listen to people like Nobel-laureate cosmologist Steven Weinberg, or Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, you hear a lot of talk about how god-based religion is out-of-date," says conceptual artist Jonathon Keats. "The leading minds believe that science can and should provide a spiritually satisfying replacement. But until recently no one bothered to consider what form that alternative might take."
The temporary facility features stained glass windows showing the cosmic microwave background radiation using NASA's new WMAP satellite data.
Four millennia after Abraham fathered Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and 150,000 years after hominids introduced burial rituals to the Mediterranean, religion has finally been rendered wholly compatible with science. Beginning on September 27, 2008, a two-story downtown Berkeley building dubbed "the Atheon" will provide a spiritual home for rational people in California, and guidance to acolytes worldwide.
(Atheon stained glass cosmic background radiation)
"The cosmic microwave background is the sky's natural stained glass, our origin story imprinted on the cosmos," explains Mr. Keats. "And now it's visible to us for the first time, glowing through the windows of the Atheon."
Worshippers have their path to contemplation smoothed by special music, featuring three cosmic voices asking "Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?" Audio files provided by University of Virginia astronomer Mark Whittle provide backup.
Religion and science have been intertwined in science fiction for a long time. A unique view of science and worship can be found in Neal Stephenson's new novel Anathem. In the story, "avouts" are scientifically-inclined men and women who voluntarily accept a life of monastic contemplation of scientific truths. They also have "maths" or cloistered villages and a vast cathedral called a "mynster" forming the body of the necessary multi-millennial clock; rituals are conducted with scientific liturgy and music.
In a sense the clock was the entire Mynster, and its basement. When most people spoke of "the clock," though, they meant its four dials which were mounted high on the walls of the Praesidium - the Mynster's central tower...The chancel, the heart of the Mynster, had an octagonal floor plan (as theors were more apt to put it, it had the symmetry group of the eight roots of unity). Its eight walls were dense traceries, some of stone, others of carved wood...
Today's liturgy was something to do with developments in finite group theorics that had taken place about thirteen hundred years ago...
The Hylean Anathem now existed in thousands of different versions, since every composer among the avout was likely to take a crack at it during his or her lifetime... The most ancient versions were monophonic, meaning each voice sang the same note. The one used at Saunt Edhar was polyphonic: different voices singing different melodies that were woven together in harmonious fashion...
From The Atheon via io9.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/15/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion (Back On) ( 4 )
Related News Stories - (" Culture ")
German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Large corporations seem to be learning that people with autism can have unique strengths.
Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'- Ray Bradbury, 1953.
A Big Collection Of Small Books
'Black, oblong, no larger than the end of Paul's thumb... It's a very old Orange Catholic Bible made for space travelers.'- Frank Herbert, 1965.
SimSensei Plus Kinnect Equals PKD's Voight-Kampff?
'We know this to be a primary autonomic response...'- Philip K. Dick, 1968.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Not a deficit, but a strength.
NASA Supports Pizza Printer
Is it extra with printed pepperoni?
Could Ground-Based Lasers De-Orbit Space Junk?
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...'
'Hello, Computer!' Google Now Highlighted at IO13
'Hello, computer!'
MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'
TrackingPoint Smart Rifle
Not your typical 'smart bullet' approach.
Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
CARMAT Bioprosthetic Total Human Heart Replacement
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'
Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'
Physical Exam? We've Got Apps
See the future of handheld, personal medical devices.
The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'
Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
Japan's Nursing Home Robot Plan
Let's make the Roujin Z-0001 Robotic Bed!
Samsung Smart TVs With Gesture Control
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'
Swiss HCPVT Giant Photovoltaic 'Flower'
'...leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector.'
