Synopses & Reviews
Can science and religious belief co-exist? Many people (including many practicing scientists) insist that one can simultaneously follow the principles of the scientific method and believe in a particular spiritual tradition. But throughout history there have been people for whom science challenged the very validity of religious belief. Whether called atheists, agnostics, skeptics, or infidels, these individuals used the naturalism of modern science to deny the existence of any supernatural power.
Science and Nonbelief chronicles, in a balanced and accessible way, the long history of the battle between adherents of religious doctrines and the nonbelievers who adhere to the naturalism of modern science.
Science and Nonbelief provides a nontechnical introduction to the leading questions that concern science and religion today:
- What place does evolution hold in the arguments of nonbelievers
- What does modern physics tell us about the place of humanity in the natural world?
- How do modern neurosciences challenge traditional beliefs about mind and matter?
- What can scientific research about religion tell us about the nature of belief?
- How do skeptics react to claims at the fringes of science, such as UFOs and psychics?
The volume also addresses the political context of debates over science and nonbelief, as well as questions about the nature of morality. It includes a selection of provocative primary source documents that illustrate the complexity and varieties of nonbelief.
Synopsis
Complete with an historical chronology, an extensive annotated bibliography, and selections from primary sources, Science and Nonbelief is an indispensable and accessible reference work on the relationship between todays sciences and religious nonbelief.
Synopsis
Scientists have raised questions about religious belief since the earliest development of scientific thought. Over the centuries, as science has become ever more sophisticated and answered many of the questions previously in the domain of religion, more and more people have developed a skeptical point of view regarding religion. Today, many scientists are nonbelievers with a secular, science-based perspective.
In this wide-ranging overview, physicist and acclaimed science writer Taner Edis examines the relationship between todays sciences and religious nonbelief. Beginning with a brief history of science and philosophical doubt, Edis goes on to describe those theories in contemporary science that challenge spiritual views by favoring a naturalistic conception of the world. He provides a very readable, nontechnical introduction to the leading scientific ideas that impinge upon religious belief in the areas of modern physics and cosmology, evolutionary biology, and cognitive and brain science. He also shows how science supplies naturalistic explanations for allegedly miraculous and paranormal phenomena and explains widespread belief in the supernatural. Finally, he addresses the political context of debates over science and nonbelief as well as questions about morality.
Complete with an historical chronology, an extensive annotated bibliography, and selections from primary sources, Science and Nonbelief is an indispensable and accessible reference work on the subject.
About the Author
Taner Edis (Kirksville, MO) is an associate professor of physics at Truman State University and the author of The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science and An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam, among other publications.