[111] LECTURE XII, Nov. 8, 1955 QN: Please comment on the architecture of Memorial Hall. PT: No comment! [Smiling-pause-sotto voce]: The worst would be too good! LECTURE: We have started the discussion on religion and that part of culture which we call science. Last time I gave you a description of the situation of the man in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the earth was out of its central position, and the consequences for this, for man's feeling of security and for the whole mythological framework within which the man of the Middle Ages moved, in a kind of divine-demonic safety. This shows the reason why a conflict arose between modern science, represented by Copernicus^a and Galileo^b, and the religious groups which felt responsible for the continuation of this system of safety, as it had developed during the Middle Ages. It was not the scientific method as such, but it was that element in the new sciences which concerned man's existence itself: the hidden religious element which brought about the conflict. And this is always the case. My thesis of course is that since religion is ultimate concern, and ultimate concern represents a special DIMENSION of reality, there can be no real conflict on the level of scientific statements as such. But there are very few scientific statements AS SUCH-- they are usually embedded into a matrix of philosophical and religious presuppositions, and the conflict usually arises in the realm of this matrix, in the realm of these presuppositions.^c My first example was the tremendous shaking of the foundations of the medieval man, when modern