Science and Religion in a Post-Colonial World (Paperback)

This book explores several issues in the emerging field of science and religion which are of common interest to different religions. The main idea underlying this book is that modern science poses challenges shared by religions. As such, discussing them in an interfaith setting is expected to offer new perspectives to those issues. The first of four parts of the book addresses issues which often have not been discussed in the science and religion discourse - issues around what may be termed 'customisation of sciences'. A form o of such customisation is known as the ideas of the Vedic science, and Islamic science. The secnd part discusses science and the sacred from Islamic and Christian perspectives. Similarly, the third part takes up those perspectives in discussing religious resonse to new theories in cosmology and biology. The book ends with an article about the care of the earth, and the creation of sustainble global community, which is proabbly today's biggest challenge for both religion and science.

Zainal Abidin Bagir is a doctoral candidate at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University. His previous education includes undergraduate in mathemathics (Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia) and Master’s program in Islamic philosophy and science (International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Kuala Lumpur). His Master’s thesis on The Problem of Definition in Islamic Logic (al-Faridi’s and Ibn Taimiyyah’s Criticisms) was published by ISTAC (1998). Since 2002 he has been a staff at the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, where he organized the program on religion and science, which includes organizing seminars and workshops, and editing several books. He is the chairpeson of Yogyakarta Society for Science and Religion. His academic interests are mainly science and religion (esp. in the context of Islam), contemporary philosophy of science, and Islamic philosophy. Prior to his study at IU he was a managing editor for a weekly news magazine in Indonesia (1994-1997), and is now a contributor of essays to several Indonesian magazines and newspapers.