Skeptics and True Believers - Softcover

Raymo, Chet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802775640 ISBN 13: 9780802775641

Publisher: Walker Books, 1999

Synopsis

Years ago, noted science teacher and writer Chet Raymo embarked upon his own quest to reconcile the miracle stories he learned as a child with the science he learned as an adult. Skeptics and True Believersis the culmination of that search―a passionate, ever-inquisitive statement that science and religion can mutually reinforce the way we experience the world.

Acknowledging that the scientific and the spiritual communities are increasingly split, Raymo builds strong bridges between them. He illustrates his argument with an array of thought-provoking stories, such as the remarkable migratory flight of a small bird called the red knot; the long, glorious glide of the Comet Hyakutake across the night sky; a hilarious alien abduction that didn't happen. Together, they are compelling evidence that religion should embrace the reliable knowledge of the world that science provides, while at the same time science should respect and nourish humankind's need for spiritual sustenance. "Miracles are explainable," Raymo paraphrases the writer Tim Robinson, "it is the explanations that are miraculous."

For anyone drawn to reflect on life's meaning and purpose, Chet Raymo's uncompromising skepticism and reverence for mystery will affirm and inspire.

About this title

From the Publisher:

"Chet Raymo speaks with a voice of sanity that captures wonder; he is one of the best informed and wisest scientists writing for the general public today. He is also a humanistic thinker of the first rank and an inspiring optimist. I hope this book will help bring him the the attention of the very wide readership he deserves."
-Edward Wilson

"These confessions of a wise religious humanist who also loves, practices, understands, and lives by the ideals and findings of science show us how to heal the false and unnecessary rifts in our intellectual cultures, and to bridge the gap between knowledge and morality."
-Stephen Jay Gould

From the Inside Flap:

Science has proved a spectacularly successful way of knowing the world. Yet many people reject one of its basic points: we are ephemeral parts of a silent universe that is vastly larger than ourselves.

Although Chet Raymo disapproves of fundamentalist and New Age beliefs and is skeptical of traditional religion, he argues that science and religion can be mutually reinforcing ways of experiencing the world.

In his view, words like God, grace, soul, and sacrament can retain currency in an age of science.

Using dynamic and thought-provoking stories - a hilarious episode of alien abduction that didn't happen, or a walk on fire - Raymo argues that science should be embraced by religion, instead of distrusted. He also shows that the wondrous universe revealed by science can hardly fail to excite religious feeling. There are no miracles but one, he writes: the miracle of the creation itself, which is the primordial source of all religious feeling.

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0802775640
• ISBN 13: 9780802775641
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288