Sir John Templeton
- Born
- 29 November 1912
- Died
- 8 July 2008 (age 95)
Sir John Templeton was a skilled investor and philanthropist who held a strong vision for a future that was progressive in our knowledge of ‘new spiritual information’, i.e. understanding not only religion but also human nature and the physical world.
Sir John, born in Tennessee in the United States, attended Yale and Oxford University’s before beginning his Wall Street career in 1937. Here he became a billionaire, though not overnight. He is quoted as being “arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century” by Money magazine.
He is one of the most generous philanthropists in history, giving away over $1 billion to charitiable causes. He set up the John Templeton Foundation in 1987 with the motto ‘how little we know, how eager to learn’, implying that our knowledge of the universe is still very limited. He said “I want people to realise that you shouldn’t think you know it all”. The Foundation provides funding for research into the ‘Big Questions’ through ‘exploration into the laws of nature and the universe, to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity’.
He believed that the work of modern researchers was revealing God to us more than what we can gain from scriptures or holy visions. “Scientific revelations may be a gold mine for revitalising religion in the 21st century”.
They should be eager to learn, to listen, to research and not to confine, to hurt, to kill, those who disagree with them.
Sir John Templeton
In 1972 he set up the world’s largest annual award, the Templeton Prize, which is currently valued at £1,000,000, granted to an individual who provides an exception contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension. Previous recipients of the prize include Mother Teresa, Baba Amte (an Indian social activist) and Francisco J Ayala (an evolutionary geneticist and molecular biologist who opposed teaching creationism in public schools).