Chris Street edits in bold.
The Templeton Prize (wikipedia) awarded annually is currently £795,000. A Nobel Prize awards ten million Swedish Kronor, £745,000. The monetary value of the prize is adjusted so that it exceeds that of the Nobel Prizes. The prize is, as of 2006, the largest single annual financial prize award given to an individual for intellectual merit.
The prize has been criticized by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, a British ethologist and atheist, who labeled it "a very large sum of money given (...) usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion" (Dawkins 2006).
Hindus, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims have been on the panel of judges and have been recipients of the price. There have been no Atheist awardees.
A list of recent winners includes some notable scientists: Professor John D. Barrow (2006), Rev. Dr. John C. Polkinghorne (2002), Professor Freeman J. Dyson (2000), Professor Paul Davies (1995) and others: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1983), Rev. Dr. Billy Graham (1982), Mother Teresa (1973).
The purpose of the Templeton Prize.
"If even one-tenth of world research were focused on spiritual realities, could benefits be even more vast than the benefits in the latest two centuries from research in food, travel, medicine or electronics, and cosmology?
- Research and innovation in food products just since 1800 caused over 100 fold more food production per American farmer.
- Research and innovation in travel methods since 1950, enabled over 100 fold increase in travel by Americans.
- Research and innovation in medicine just since 1900 caused over 100 fold increase in information about our bodies.
- Research and innovation in electronics just since 1900 caused over 1000 fold increase in information available to us.
- In 300 centuries, humans observed less than a million stars; but just in the last two centuries innovations in methods and research has revealed a cosmos of 100 billion times 100 billion stars."
— Sir John Templeton
How might humankind's spiritual information and advancement increase by more than a hundredfold? This is the challenge presented by the Templeton Prize. Just as knowledge in science, medicine, cosmology and other disciplines has grown exponentially during the past century, the Templeton Prize honors and encourages the many entrepreneurs trying various ways for discoveries and breakthroughs to expand human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity.
Their various methods, particularly through scientific research, serve to supplement the wonderful ancient scriptures and traditions of all the world's religions. Many honors and titles and prizes have been given for many centuries and will be given in the future for good works, reconciliation, saintliness or for relief of poverty and sickness. But these very worthy endeavors are not the purpose of the Templeton Prize.
Instead, this award is intended to encourage the concept that resources and manpower are needed to accelerate progress in spiritual discoveries, which can help humans to learn more than a hundredfold more about divinity. We hope that by learning about the lives of the awardees, millions of people will be uplifted and inspired toward research and more discoveries about aspects of divinity. The Prize is intended to help people see the infinity of the Universal Spirit still creating the galaxies and all living things and the variety of ways in which the Creator is revealing himself to different people. We hope all religions may become more dynamic and inspirational.
The Templeton Prize is awarded annually to a living person. The Templeton Prize does not encourage syncretism but rather an understanding of the benefits of diversity. It seeks to focus attention on the wide variety of endeavors toward discoveries or spiritual realities research. It does not seek a unity of denominations nor a unity of world religions; but rather it seeks to encourage understanding of the benefits of diversity. There is no limitation of race, creed, sex, or geographical background.
Progress is needed in spiritual discovery as in all other dimensions of human experience and endeavor. Progress in religion needs to be accelerated as rapidly as progress in other disciplines. A wider universe demands deeper awareness of the aspects of the Creator and of spiritual resources available for humankind, of the infinity of God, and of the divine knowledge and understanding still to be claimed.
The Templeton Prize serves to stimulate this quest for deeper understanding and pioneering breakthroughs in religious concepts and knowledge by calling attention annually to achievements in this area. It is hoped that there will result from this enterprise expanded spiritual awareness on the part of humankind, a wider understanding of the purpose of life, heightened quality of devotion and love, and a greater emphasis on the kind of research and discovery that brings human perceptions more into concert with the divine will.
The judges consider a nominee's contribution to progress made either during the year prior to his selection or during his or her entire career. The qualities sought in awarding the Prize are: freshness, creativity, innovation and effectiveness. Such contributions may involve new concepts of divinity, new organizations, new and effective ways of communicating God's wisdom and infinite love, creation of new schools of thought, creation of new structures of understanding the relationship of the Creator to his ongoing creation of the universe, to the physical sciences, and the life sciences, and the human sciences, the releasing of new and vital impulses into old religious structures and forms.
The Prize, a sum in the amount of £795,000 sterling.
The Templeton Prize is awarded annually on the decision of a panel of judges from the major religions of the world today.
Nominations are sought from all people everywhere. Leaders of theological and religious institutions and those engaged in innovative and creative research are especially invited to submit nominations. Persons desiring to nominate should write to the Templeton Prize, Canyon Institute for Advanced Studies, 3300 W. Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ 85017. To serve as guides for nominators, copies of nominations of earlier winners can be requested.
In some years nominations sent to judges may be limited to encourage a wide diversity of recipients from different races, sexes and religions. It is hoped that the recipients can serve as examples of the wide variety of possible ways to increase more than 100 fold the spiritual information, spiritual principles and concepts of divinity. Nominations are sought for potential recipients from all nations and religions of the world.
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