Graz, April 20th, 2022 (KAP) “Our genes are not selfish”: The Graz theologian Georg Plank is convinced of that. If people use their social potential and make the desire for a good, meaningful life their own, it will also help them to protect their health and strengthen their inner healing powers, explained the founder of the “Pastoralinnovation” project, who developed empathy in the center of his “Pentecost calendar” which runs until Whit Sunday (June 5th). The topic has become particularly explosive due to the pandemic and the Ukraine war, according to a recent broadcast.
Plank chose the theses of the natural scientist Joachim Bauer as the basis for his daily impulses from a biblical, spiritual and theological perspective. The neuroscientist proves: “Anyone who tries to live according to Jesus’ commandment to love lives more wholesomely – for themselves, for their fellow human beings and for society as a whole,” emphasized Plank. Living faith and natural sciences would also come close in the fields of biology, genetics and neuroscience, for example in fundamental questions of the coexistence and survival of the human species.
According to Plank, with the book “Das empathische Gen” (Herder 2021) Bauer wrote “a pointed counter-writing to the theses of one of the founders of ‘new atheism’, Richard Dawkins”. In 1976, with his book “The Egoistic Gene”, the British biologist not only founded his own branch of evolution theory with the so-called “memetics”, but also linked it to a much-controversial speech against all religions and especially Christianity.
Bauer’s latest book, subtitled “Humanity, the Good and the Destiny of Man,” is a “bang,” Plank emphasized. The physician and neuroscientist shows on the basis of the latest research: “Human beings are humanely – oriented – not only because of their mind, but also because of their biology”, they communicate, cooperate, react to environmental influences and to lifestyle. A self-chosen inner attitude that is geared towards a purpose-led, prosocial life even favors gene activities that serve health.
For the sixth time, “Pastoralinnovation” is offering a daily innovation impulse with the “Pentecost calendar” for the 50 days from Easter to Pentecost under the motto “50 x 50 seconds for the Holy Spirit”. The impulses can be ordered free of charge and also used freely for your own media (online, parish newspapers or social media initiatives). (Info: www.pfingstkalender.org)
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