It is presently going to air on the National Geographic Channel on Sky on Wednesdays at 8:30pm.

In Wednesday's episode, in which he explored the concept of evil, Freeman comes to New Zealand, where a researcher shows us that children, when convinced that there is an invisible princess watching them, act significantly more ethically (in this case not cheating in a game) than children who believe they are alone.

"It's good enough research, I think."

"And it shows that children around the age of 5 can benefit from being lied to in the short run," says reviewer Justin Whitaker.

"I'm not so sure how it relates to the rest of us."

"Getting beyond the superficial, we find that religions around the world - people around the world - faced similar problems and often came up with similar solutions in terms of myths or ideas about the nature of the person and the world," says Whitaker.

"This isn't to overlook the differences."

"In fact it was the differences and the unique insights of both Kant and early Buddhism that drew me to my line of study."

It is not clear why Freeman had to come to New Zealand for this segment of the programme. The experiment has been carried out frequently in places closer to home.

The Story of God produced by Freeman, Lori McCreary and James Younger, takes viewers on a trip around the world to explore different cultures and religions on the ultimate quest to uncover the meaning of life, God and all these big questions in between.

Freeman seeks to understand how religion has evolved throughout the course of civilisation, and in turn how religion has shaped the evolution of society.

Although in our current geopolitical landscape, religion is often seen as something that divides, the series illuminates the remarkable similarities among different faiths, even those that seem to be in staunch contrast.

Source

• pathos.com
• Image:natgeotv.com.au

The "science puts God out of a job" trope has been championed by a number of scientists in recent times. "We have discovered," says Lawrence Krauss, "that all signs suggest a universe that could and plausibly did arise from a deeper nothing. In this sense ... science makes it possible not to believe in God."

Krauss is in Sydney to debate the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" - the traditional starting point for an ancient argument for the existence of God. Kraus, of course, is a cosmologist, known in the field for his work on the cosmological constant and dark matter, and to the wider public for books such as The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing. Krauss's opponent is the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. He has built a career around the philosophical defence of theism, and is best known outside academia for his many public debates with atheists.

I am, like Krauss, a professional cosmologist and astrophysicist. I've also interacted with a philosopher or two, and I've read a lot of Craig's work. So I thought it might be opportune to offer a guide to the uninitiated.

Science versus God

There is a temptation among the opponents of God to defend the following argument: "Science, science, science, science, science, science. Therefore the universe is all there is." The assumption is that science will automatically push God out of reality.

What is science? Here's what I try to do in my day job. Physics uses a rather peculiar approach to studying the universe. We can translate physical (measured) facts about the universe into mathematical facts about a "model" of the universe. Mountains of data are neatly summarised in a few equations. Having made the leap into mathematical space, we look for mathematical facts corresponding to measurements we haven't made yet - in other words, predictions. We can then, for example, build a 27 km long, multi-billion dollar machine under France to smash protons together at ludicrous speeds to see if we were right about a type of particle predicted on paper in 1964. This actually works. Continue reading

Sources

• ABC Religion & Ethics
• Image: Wallpaper Search Engine