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Wednesday, March 15, 2006

$1.6M prize to reward spiritual advancement

Today, a relative unknown will win the largest prize in the world for personal achievement. If the public comes to understand why he earned it, the donors figure it will be worth their $1.6 million.

The Templeton Award for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities might be best explained by past winners:

- 2005: Charles Townes, a Nobel laureate in physics, for his work in the convergence of science and religion. "Their differences are largely superficial, and ... the two become almost indistinguishable if we look at the real nature of each," he wrote.

- 2004: George Ellis, a South African professor of applied mathematics, who argued that deep ethical truths are not human inventions, but part of the physical universe.

- 2003: Holmes Rolston, father of environmental ethics.

Mother Teresa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Billy Graham, even Chuck Colson, who founded a Prison Outreach group after serving time for Watergate-related crimes, make an unlikely list for an unlikely aim in philanthropy.

Sir John Marks Templeton, a Tennessee boy who worked his way through school and went on to become a Rhodes scholar and billionaire, has challenged the world to ask: What would happen if we put religion under the same rigorous inquiry that so advanced science and technology? Would mankind benefit as much?

His foundation, now more than 30 years old, has sponsored boundary-breaking research such as the health benefits of forgiveness, science and the quest for ultimate meaning, even the "science of thrift." Does profound religious awe change the chemistry of the brain? A University of California symposium will grapple with the question in early April.

Past work has already found its way in the mainstream. U.S. medical schools are starting to include courses on spirituality. Research on forgiveness and its benefits is growing far beyond Templeton grants, and much of it is finding its way into popular wisdom and self-help groups.

Sir John, 93, does not expect to come to any right answers, just the right questions. "I grew up as a Presbyterian," he told Business Week magazine. "Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. The Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So what I'm financing is humility. I want people to realize that you shouldn't think you know it all."

- - -

On the web: The winner of this year's Templeton Award for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities is to be announced this morning. Go to www.ottawacitizen.com today (look under Editor's Picks) after 11 a.m. to find out who has won, and to explore some of his or her ideas.

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