At 06:40 PM 3/16/00 -0600, Preston Garrison wrote:
>Hi group,
>
>Looking around at Amazon, I notice a recent book by John Polkinghorne and
>John Hargreaves called "A Guide to Genesis." Has anyone read this or know
>anything about it? Also, any recommendations on Polkinghorne's "Belief in
>God in an Age of Science?"
I don't know about the new one, but "Belief in God in an Age of Science"
was one of the best books I have read recently. The chapters started as a
series of lectures; the intellectual level is high but the writing is
fairly accessible. One won't find much on the creation/evolution issues
that occupy this list so much of the time, but lots of helpful and
thought-provoking writing on deeper issues.
While I seldom disagree with George Murphy about these things, I didn't
like "Faith of a Physicist" nearly as much. Making everything fit an
outline given by the Nicene Creed made the book feel strained to
me. Another factor may be that Polkinghorne is a bit more theologically
liberal than I am comfortable with, and that seemed to show itself more in
Faith of a Physicist. Your mileage may vary.
As an aside, I recently finished reading "Why People Believe Wierd Things"
by skeptic Michael Shermer. Not a bad book, covering some of the silly and
often harmful things believed by many today like UFO abductions, "recovered
memories", "creation science" (including an interesting account of a debate
with Duane Gish), and Holocaust denial. He draws interesting parallels
between Holocaust deniers and antievolutionists, such as pumping up little
discrepancies while ignoring the overall weight of evidence and a
conspiratorial view of those who disagree. But the reason this comes to
mind here is that, in a chapter primarily aimed at Frank Tipler's strange
blending of physics and religion, Shermer says Polkinghorne's Faith of a
Physicist attempts to show that science proves the Nicene Creed. That is
such a mischaracterization that I think he must not have actually read the
book, and it makes me less likely to trust the other things he says.
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| Dr. Allan H. Harvey | aharvey@boulder.nist.gov |
| Physical and Chemical Properties Division | "Don't blame the |
| National Institute of Standards & Technology | government for what I |
| 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303 | say, or vice versa." |
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