Cosmos, God and People

The universe fascinates us. With ever more precise physical methods, we are learning to penetrate deeper and deeper into its past, its complex mechanisms and dimensions. The larger the universe becomes, the smaller we feel as humans, as a "speck of dust in the vastness of space". The more we know about the history of its origins, the more fascinating it becomes. The further back the history of the universe goes, the more we realise how short the history of our own human race is. As human beings, we do not simply stand in awe of the findings of astrophysics, for example, but rather they have an effect on our image of man and God: are we not currently becoming increasingly aware of what we are gambling away if we put the future of the earth at risk - for example in the face of the global ecological crisis? Is a new kind of "reverence" for a universal creative force emerging in view of the enormous size and time dimension of the universe? prominent astrophysicist and natural philosopher Harald Lesch will give a lecture on these questions. He will then talk to the philosopher Wilhelm Vossenkuhl about the tense relationship between the natural sciences and the humanities. The two professors have known each other for many years through the television series "The Great Thinkers: Philosophy in Dialogue", which resulted in a book. Our evening is taking place as part of the Science Year 2023, which has been proclaimed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the motto "Our Universe".