Program

Papa ante portas: While Pope Benedict XVI is in Austria visiting the pilgrimage church at Mariazell, Michael Schmidt-Salomon, a philosopher critical of religion, will be dispensing enlightenment at Ars Electronica in Linz on the “Irreconcilability of Science and Religion.”

According to Schmidt-Salomon, we’re living in a “time of asynchronicity.” Technologically, we stand firmly in the 21^st century, but our world views continue to be characterized by millennia-old myths. This juxtaposition of “state-of-the-art technical know-how and the most naïve, childish beliefs” could, the philosopher maintains, have fatal consequences: “We’re like five-year-olds placed at the controls of a jumbo jet.” Accordingly, Schmidt-Salomon is a zealous advocate of consistently carrying on the project of the Enlightenment: “A humanity that splits the atom and communicates via satellite must possess the intellectual maturity necessary for this.”

Michael Schmidt-Salomon Ph.D. was born in 1967. He is a philosopher and author, member of the board of directors of the Giordano Bruno Foundation and member of the scholarly staff of fowid–Weltanschauung in Germany Research Group. He has published numerous works on scholarly, philosophical and artistic subjects, including the following books: Erkenntnis aus Engagement (1999); Stollbergs Inferno (philosophical novel, 2003, 2007), Manifest des Evolutionären Humanismus. (2005, 2006); Aufklärung ist Ärgernis… Karlheinz Deschner: Leben – Werk – Wirkung (together with Hermann Gieselbusch, 2006); Die Kirche im Kopf. Von „Ach Herrje!“ bis „Zum Teufel!“ (together with Carsten Frerk, 2007); Wo bitte geht’s zu Gott?, fragte das kleine Ferkel (children’s book critical of religion, together with Helge Nyncke, 2007). Additional information about the author is available at www.schmidt-salomon.de/.