Book Description
Can science and religious belief coexist?
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 challenges the very validity of religious belief. Whether called atheists, agnostics, skeptics, or “infidels,” these individuals use 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, and questions about the nature of morality. It includes a selection of provocative primary source documents that illustrate the complexity and varieties of nonbelief.
Table of Contents
1. Science, Philosophy and Religious Doubt
Philosophers, Doubting and Devout
The Old Science and the Old Faith
The European Enlightenment
Nonbelief Comes of Age
Science and Nonbelief Today
Scientific Naturalism
2. An Accidental World
Why Physics is Hard
The Nature of Modern Physics
The Burden of Proof
God in the Cracks of Causality
Quantum Mysticism
Cosmic Harmonies
Fine-Tuning the Universe
A Moment of Creation?
Physics and Naturalism
3. Darwinian Creativity
Achieving Complexity
The Physics of Evolution
Evolution and Religion
Old Fashioned Creationism
Intelligent Design
Creation Through Evolution
Universal Darwinism
4. Minds Without Souls
Mind and Matter
Cartesian Dualism
Machines Who Think
Genes and Memes
The Conscious Brain
Qualia and Subjectivity
Mind Over Matter
The God Module
Parts and Wholes
Nonbelief Adapts to Brain Science
5. The Fringes of Science
Ultimate Explanations
Miracles and Rejected Knowledge
Scripture as Miracle
From Spiritualism to New Age
Skeptics vs. Psychics
Miracles in the Laboratory
UFOs and Aliens
Direct Experience of the Paranormal?
Paranormal Skepticism and Nonbelief
6. Explaining Religion
Too Many Religions
Religious Studies
Rational Choice Theory
The Secularization Thesis
Religion and Group Selection
A Virus of the Mind
The Religious Mind
Explaining Theology and Nonbelief
7. Morality and Politics
More Than the Facts
The State of Science
The State of Nonbelief
A Morality of Reason
The Science of Morality
Separate Spheres
An Uneasy Alliance