How Can We Benefit from Suffering?
Psychologists, scientists, physicians, and theologians will participate in a one-day symposium on what we can learn from suffering at the Empire Landmark Hotel, Robson St., Vancouver on Sunday July 25th , 2004.
Vancouver, B.C. (PRWEB) July 17, 2004 -- Psychologists, scientists, physicians, and theologians will participate in a one-day symposium on what we can learn from suffering at the Empire Landmark Hotel, Robson St., Vancouver on Sunday July 25th , 2004.
The symposium The Gift of Suffering: Spiritual Transformation, Science & Medicine" funded by the John Templeton Foundation, will address some of the oldest and most persistent questions of humanity that have confronted religion, philosophy and medicine: Why suffering? What is the meaning of pain, sickness, and death? How can individuals triumph over adversities? What can be done to transform fear to courage, doubt to faith, despair to hope, hate to forgiveness, and sorrow to joy?
This event provides a rare opportunity for dialogue on the roles of religion, science and medicine in exploring ways of transforming and transcending suffering -- an inevitable aspect of the human existence. Some of the foremost authorities on this topic will be present.
Harold Koenig, MD, Duke University Medical School, will deliver the Distinguished Templeton Public Lecture, which is open to the general public and mass media. He will focus on the role of meaning, purpose and hope in coping with suffering and pain from the perspective of integrating spirituality and medicine.
George Ellis, PhD, winner of this years prestigious Templeton Award in Religion, will also deliver a public lecture on the topic of Suffering and joy and their relationship to rationality, faith and hope. His talk will be based on his vast knowledge of cosmology, humanity and religion.
Dr. Solomon Katz, President of Matanexus Institute of Science and Religion, and the Principle Investigator of the largest international research project on spiritual transformation, will speak on recent advances in the scientific study of spiritual transformation via video-conferencing.
Other speakers include Warren Brown, Ph.D. (Fuller Theological Seminary), Salvatore Maddi, Ph.D. (UC, Irvine), Richard Tedeschi Ph.D. (University of North Carolina), D. Cechetto, Ph.D. (University of Western Ontario), Phil Zylla, D.Th. (ACTS Seminary) and Nancy Reeves, Ph.D. (Psychologist and author). They will further expand the frontiers of the positive psychology of resilience by exploring the role of courage, hardiness, theology, story-telling, and personal growth in the face of loss, illness and death
Paul T. P. Wong, PhD, will start the symposium by focusing on Dr. Viktor Frankls Logotherapy and tragic optimism in the spiritual transformation of suffering. Malcolm Jeeves, Ph.D (St. Andrews University) and Mark Tyndall, MD, D.Sc. (St. Pauls Hospital, Vancouver) will provide commentaries and share their views on the positive potentials of suffering.
The event is co-sponsored the International Network on Personal Meaning (www.meaning.ca) and the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation. It is hosted by the Graduate Program in Counselling Psychology and the Psychology Department of Trinity Western University, B.C. This is the concluding event of the 3rd Biennial International Meaning Conference, which runs from July 22 to July 25.
The afternoon public lectures in the afternoon (2 to 5 pm) are free, but to attend the whole day event costs $120.00. CEU credits are available. For more information or to register, visit www.meaning.ca or e-mail conference@meaning.ca. Alternatively, you can call 604-513-2034.
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