In the past couple of days, I’ve come across a pair of books that I want to add to my reading pile, both of which offer an interesting and seldom-seen blending of the topics of science and religion.
First up was Vox Day’s “The Irrational Atheist”, a book so new (or perhaps so unpopular) that there isn’t a page for it on Wikipedia as of this post. I found out about the book from a guest posting by Mr. Day on John Scalzi’s Whatever. “Vox Day” is a pseudonym of Christian apologist Theodore Beale.
Mr. Day’s thesis in the book is that atheists pride themselves on logic, rationality, and the scientific method, and then proceed to throw all that out the window in declaring that God does not exist. He’s making the exact opposite argument from folk like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris or many others, and I look forward to reading this counter-argument.
For myself, I’ve long taken the position that when I say “God does not exist”, I’m speaking about the existence of the specific God of the popular world religions. The existence of the God of the Old Testament, for example, using the bare text as the evidence, just doesn’t stand up to any kind of scrutiny at all. If someone can present any kind of evidence that points to the existence of God (after first explaining what they mean by the term “God”), I will be happy to reconsider.
The second book that has come to my attention is Michael Dowd’s “Thank God for Evolution”, which I discovered from the Willamette Week’s interview with the author. This book, too, is unrepresented in Wikipedia as of this post. Rev. Dowd’s book takes as its premise the thought that evolution, far from being a threat to faith, enriches faith. Again, an argument I have rarely seen put forth, and I, for one, am eager to read what he has to say.