Bellingham Lectures in Philosophy and Religion set for Feb. 21 to 23

Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray will present two lectures as part of the Bellingham Lectures in Philosophy and Religion (BLPR),at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21 and Thursday, Feb. 23 in the Performing Arts Center on the Western campus.

The presentations are free, open to the public and will be streamed live through the BLPR website www.blpr.org

In the first lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 21, Schloss and Murray will present “Evolutionary Theories of Religious Belief: Does Biology Explain Away God?”In the second lecture on Thursday, Feb. 23, they will present “Natural Evil in a Fine-Tuned Universe: Is Evolutionary Suffering Compatible with a Good God?” The lectures will be recorded and become available on the BLPR website afterwards.

Schloss is a distinguished professor of Biology and the T.B. Walker Chair of Natural and Behavioral Sciences at Westmont College. He also serves as the director of Westmont’s Center for Faith, Ethics and Life Sciences. Murray is a senior research scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College. Murray is the author of several books, including “Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering” and he and Schloss are co-authors of “The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion.”

The BLPR are designed to facilitate informed, articulate thinking and civil conversation regarding big questions present in philosophy, religion, and science. The lecture series is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

For more information on the BLPR , call (360) 927-0640 or visit the BLPR website at http://www.blpr.org/.