Krakow

So I came to Krakow for this conference. I gave a talk on evolutionary theology and how the new atheists actually are a kind of fundamentalist creationism. It was a great meeting with people from many religions. Catholics dominated and there were many priests and even habiliment wearing monks. Which was fun fun because the number of monks at BYU is surprisingly thin. My talk was called, "Life as Emergent Agential Systems: Purpose without Teleology" and it was likely as boring as it sounds and that's why it was put on the last day. However, the leader of our session of three speakers, said our session was the best he'd heard in the conference, so at least I didn't drag down the other speakers' talks enough to ruin the session.

The best part of the conference was hanging out with the other Mormon theologians (did you notice that I just slipped myself into the 'theologian' category). There were three LDS theology grad students and a philosopher from Texas that I mostly hung out with. And by 'hung out with' I mean we toured, partied, and in general had a blast. And Krakow is the the place to have a blast. There is much to see as these pictures suggest:

The Krakow town square

Looking down a street

Krakow Castle

Street Performer

Street market



One of the highlights for me was seeing Basia Bulat in concert. She is one of my favorite singers and I have both her albums. It was in a little club. Adam the texas philosopher and I went and it was better than I could have imagined. There were only tops a hundred people in a small space. Before the concert we were sitting there at a table drinking diet cokes and I saw her sitting on the floor helping getting t-shirts for sell ready. I went over and asked if the shirts were for sell then gushed about how wonderful it was to meet her and what a fanboy I was. She was nice, signed a t-shirt for em. I was a little star struck so am not sure I was completely coherent, but she shook my hand. But it was a perfect concert. I was standing about thirty feet away from where she sang. She hit her best songs and some new ones I'd never heard. This blurry picture was taken from my cell and the t-shirt for Emily is below.

There were dark reminders of the terror that had happened under the Nazis. I visited Auschwitz and Burkenau two of the most awful death camps in the horrors of those years. It was sobering. I may write on this later in more detail, but for now I will just say that it was unimaginable.
The first picture is of Schindler's factory about which the movie Schindler's List was made. And was only a short walk from the hotel. It had a great museum showing what life was like for the jews, before, during and after the Nazi occupation of Krakow.

Schindler factory

Burkenau Death Camp

Auschwitz execution wall

Auschwitz

Gate into Auschwitz: "Work Brings Freedom" it says in German