I am happy to introduce myself, Mathew Chandrankunnel, as a person interested in philosophy, physics and religion. At present I am enrolled as research scholar at Harvard University, assistant to Prof. Owen Gingerich. I am interested in both science and religion. I am blessed by the Almighty to bridge reason and faith in my life; as a catholic carmelite priest, I try to walk in the path of spirituality and having done a doctorate in the philosophy of Quantum Mechanics from the University of Leuven, Belgium which enables me to delve deep into the dynamics of physics and in general, science .

I recieved the Templeton-CTNS award in 2000 as a token of my activities in the field of science and religion and the Local Society Initiative of the Templeton Foundation - thank to their financial assistance - enabled me to form the Bangalore Forum for Science and Religion promoting the interactions between rationality and faith. Twice the Forum recieved excellence award becasue of its innovative leadership in promoting the dialogue between science and religion and as its founding Chairman, I was glad to recieve it from Dr John Templeton at the LSI international conferences held at Philadelphia. The forum also published books on ' From War path to Wholeness: The Condemnation and the Rehabilitation of Galileo Galilei; (by myself) The Science and Religion of C V Raman (Dr. Rajinder Singh) ; The Spiritual Neuron (Dr. Jacob Abraham) ; etc. I will be publishing soon 'Quantum Holism to Cosmic Holism: The Physics and Metaphyscis of David Bohm' a book elucidating the physics of the reknowned physicist David Bohm and deriving the metaphysics he was trying to promote and a probable theology from this metaphysics in the model of the Aristotelian physics-Metaphysics and the Thomistic theology, a great model for theologizing. The best model of theologizing is shown by Aristotle and St. Thomas and the exploding science of the 21st century should lead to an exploration in faith. My book is an attempt in trying to develop a metaphysics from physics and transforming into a theology for the 21st century.

Another aspect I want to pursue is that of intercultural and interreligious dialogue. My idea is presented in the article, crossing the bounderies. I consider that religion has become a political issue now and it has to be seriously studied and encountered. People like Diana Eck speak about the globalisation of religiosity and I am of the opinion that by knowing about other religions and other cultures one will become better equipped to interact with them. So a cultural and religious litteracy is important and a person who known just his own culture and religion is illiterate and can be easily prejudiced. So I would like to associate with people and foundations who are already in the field of promoting global peace and harmony. I propose that through education one can move from a stage of suspicion, tolerence, acknowledgement, fostering and fellowship, a strategy I call as STAFF.

Those who are interested to develop these areas are welcome to be in touch with me and let us pool our resources together so that we may better understand our nature, our presence here and to make it better as a peaceful and harmonious global society.
chandrankunnel@gamil.com