Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection Between Science and Religion

Responding in part to the rise of millennial-driven New Age spirituality, Raymo (Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God) writes along the tender edges of mystery that bind off objective science from religious faith. Using a light journalistic style, Raymo seeks to find some common ground upon which to construct mutual appreciation between science and religion. Sources diverse as John Donne, Charles Darwin, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Albert Einstein enliven the discussion. Raymo begins with a brief autobiographical sketch of his early life in Roman Catholicism. He moves on to his college-aged discovery of the satisfaction in the complete, verifiable and reproducible, if limited, answers that science affords. A scientist through and through, Raymo yet maintains an appreciation for the ineffable in life. While the author does not disguise his scientific preferences, it will take readers some time to see that this is not an evenhanded discussion. By lumping astrology, UFO enthusiasts and fundamental religionists together, Raymo's intellectual prejudices and disdain for what he calls ""True Believers"" finally becomes apparent. The work lacks proper responses by contemporary philosophical theologians, as well. Still, Raymo's book will prove worthwhile for those curious about science as the myth of the modern age. Rights (except world English, translation, audio): Palmer & Dodge. (June)