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 PrintableVersion Atoms and EdenConversations on Religion and ScienceQuestions never askedATOMS AND EDEN Steve Paulson is a journalist specialising in the science and religion debate. In this book he interviews 21 intellectuals, including Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, Sam Harris, Francis Collins, Daniel Dennett, Paul Davies and Steve Weinberg. They range from atheists and agnostics to Christians, Buddhists, Jews and a Muslim. As you’d expect from such a variety of interviewees, the conversations cover a broad spectrum from the Big Bang, the nature of consciousness and evolution to the definition of God and religious history. The atheist arguments are mainly predictable, although I was interested to find that some of the so-called ‘new atheists’ admit to ‘mystical’ experiences (not Dawkins!). The conversational style makes the book easily readable, but, because of the author’s agenda, it’s ultimately disappointing. Paulson rules out creationism and intelligent design (ID) before he starts, both dismissed as ‘unscientific’ without justification, so he doesn’t interview anyone from those camps. Consequently the questions both science and the Bible raise against evolution are never asked. The one evangelical in the book, Francis Collins, is allowed to tell of his faith, but is used as a stick to bash creationism and ID, as is theistic evolutionist John Haught. Haught, a Catholic, does, however, explain why the atheistic assumption that science is the only reliable guide to truth is itself unscientific! Sadly, he goes on to say that ‘after Darwin, after Einstein… we can’t have the same theological ideas about God as we did before’. He commits the same error as all theistic evolutionists: making God’s Word subordinate to the changing views of science because he wants to ‘overcome literalism’. Another theistic evolutionist interviewed, Simon Conway Morris, does at least make a good defence of miracles. For me, the most interesting interviewees are neuroscientist Andrew Neuberg and cosmologist Paul Davies. Neuberg is a pioneer of the new field of study called neurotheology. Most neuroscientists assume that consciousness is simply a product of the brain, but Neuberg is open to the possibility that the mind could exist independently of the brain. Davies’s understanding of the fine-tuning of the universe for life is exceptional and it’s intriguing to see him attempt to wriggle out of the obvious religious implication of his studies by inventing far-fetched theories. Andrew Halloway, © Evangelicals Now - June 2011 |
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