The Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion hosted the first of three planned international conferences in June 2021 with the theme ‘The Existence and Nature of God and Other Deities’, as part of its Global Philosophy of Religion Project, a £2.15 million research initiative led by Professor Yujin Nagasawa and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
The conference was held online and attended by more than 250 people, including 70 speakers from 27 countries in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America. Professor Nagasawa reflected on this, saying ‘This has been possibly the most diverse Philosophy of Religion conference ever organised.’
There were over 60 short pre-recorded and live presentation sessions from academic staff and postgraduate researchers from the University of Birmingham and many other institutions. The speakers in these sessions were international scholars whose abstracts had been accepted by the conference committee.
The conference keynote interviews and discussion panels were organised and filmed in collaboration with the production team of the American PBS TV series Closer To Truth (CTT). Distinguished scholars representing Hindu, Islamic and Jewish traditions, as well as inter-religious approaches to Philosophy, participated, which were coordinated by Peter Getzels, the series Producer, and chaired by Dr Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the Host and Creator of CTT. Each discussion panel included three or four leading researchers from diverse traditions and addressed one of the following topics: ‘The Existence of God and Other Deities’, ‘The Traits of God and Other Deities’ and ‘Metaphysics and Religion’.
The CTT keynote interviews and discussion panels* can be viewed below as well as on CTT’s YouTube channel.
Closer To Truth Introduction Interview: Professor Yujin Nagasawa, University of Birmingham
Closer To Truth Keynote Interview I: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University
Closer To Truth Keynote Interview II: Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University
Closer To Truth Keynote Interview III: Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna College
Closer To Truth Keynote Interview IV: Victoria Harrison, University of Macau
Closer To Truth Keynote Interview V: V. V. Raman, Rochester Institute of Technology
Closer To Truth Keynote Interview VI: Aaron Segal, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Closer To Truth Panel Discussions I: Traits of God and Other Deities
Closer To Truth Panel Discussion II: Existence and Nature of God and Other Deities
Closer To Truth Panel Discussion III: Metaphysics and Religion
The next project conference will take place on campus at the University of Birmingham in summer 2022 with the theme of ‘Death and Immortality’. As was the case this year, there will be a variety of sessions addressing the conference theme from multiple religious perspectives. The CTT team will join the conference once more and film the event to produce a whole season of ten episodes based on the Global Philosophy of Religion Project. There will also be financial support for students and junior scholars who wish to attend the conference.
Project events and activities are regularly updated on the project’s website Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The conference organising committee is grateful to the John Templeton Foundation for sponsoring the event.