Prometheus Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?

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Excellent, rational, well reasoned arguments, addressing the root cause for the past and ongoing "war" between science and religion; i.e. that war that only exists between the rational methodology of science - seeking the understanding of the physical world - and that of the irrational psuedo science - anchored in fundalmentalism - now masquerading with its new monica: "creation science".

Nearly all the essays in this collection are either transcripts of papers read at a "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?" conference or reprints of essays that originally appeared in either the "Skeptical Inquirer" or "Free Inquiry." As such, they're addressed to an educated, nonprofessional audience. But for the most part, they're rigorously argued pieces that challenge the reader to take a close look at the relationship between scientific and the religious worldviews.The minority opinion among the authors, most famously expressed in Stephen Jay Gould's essay (pp. 191-203) defending his NOMA (nonoverlapping magisteria) thesis, is that science and religion aren't incompatible because they ask separate questions, science dealing with facts and religion with values. Paul Kurtz argues (pp. 351-59) for a different kind of compatibility, one that recognizes that religious language is aesthetic but wholly mythical, and thus offers no serious challenge to religion. But most of the authors collected here tend to agree to one degree or another with Jacob Pandian's ("The Dangerous Quest for Cooperation between Science and Religion") suggestion that academic departments of religion be renamed "departments of superstition (p. 171), or Steven Weinberg's ("A Designer Universe?") claim that he's "all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment" (p. 40).The overriding reason for dismissing the truth-value of religious claims is the authors' commitment to methodological naturalism, and the merits of that methodology is defended again and again in their essays. Part I uses the method to deny the cogency of design and cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Part II uses the method to criticize ID and creationism. Part III offers the most explicit defenses of naturalism found in the volume. Part IV focuses on the NOMA thesis. Part V applies the naturalist/physicalist method to questions of after-death existence. Part VI offers natural history explanations for the popularity of religious belief. Part VI offers essays that find great meaning and purposefulness in looking at the world through the lens of methodological naturalism.As one would imagine, the quality of the articles is uneven--the contributions by Feynman and Lovelock, for example, are so flimsy that one wonders why they were included in the first place--but overall quite good. Especially noteworthy are the essays by Victor Stenger on the anthropic principle, Quentin Smith on big bang, Dennett on scientific method, the debate between Gould and Dawkins on NOMA, and Morton Hunt on the biological roots of God-belief. Editor Paul Kurtz's introduction to the collection is excellent.My only reservation about the collection is that none of the authors really do a critical meta-analysis of methodological naturalism. An argument could be made that such an inquiry is outside the volume's scope. But it seems to me that an essay devoted to an explicit scrutiny of the strengths and limitations of naturalism as a method--and perhaps also a comparison of it methodological to ontological naturalism--would've been helpful.

This is probably the best collection of writings/speeches/lectures ever compiled on the subject of religion's incompatability with science.It is a "must read" for anyone struggling to believe the unbelievable. When you finish these chapters, you will NOT believe the unbelievable.

I am not a Christian but I still was offended by the one-sidedness of this collection of essays, most of which first appeared in Skeptical Inquirer. The volume is titled "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?" but a more honest title would be something like "Scientists' Views of Religion: How to Leave it Behind". Out of the 39 essays, I counted barely a handful that defended religious views. There is a place for such a collection, but editors should have been more honest about their bias. That said, the essays did provide insight into the 'science overcomes religion' perspective. Especially helpful was Gould's essay presenting his famous 'non-overlapping magisteria' argument (that religion and science are not incompatable because they preside over entirely separate domains of values vs facts), and a rejoinder by Dawkins.