Scientific Meditations - John C Caiazza

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Résumé :
Why would an atheist engineer become a religious believer -- a priest in fact -- and after his conversion, how would he understand the physical universe? This book is an attempt to answer that question in detail so as not to avoid the difficult questions involved. The priest's thoughts are expressed not in a straight forward monograph, but in a series of separate but tightly connected meditations and thoughts. The language is clear and deals directly with scientific issues but explains them in a religious sense. There are five areas by which the thoughts are organized including the hot button issue of evolution, which accepts the time-line of evolutionary development of 4" billion years, but distinguishes between the evolutionary theory and the materialistic philosophy which is often but incorrectly attached to it. General issues regarding the supposed conflict between science and religion are dealt with next, including how a scientist might read the Bible. Five models of the relationship between science and religion are presented. Creationism is a highly contentious issue with some fundamentalists going so far as to claim the Bible states that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. This assertion is refuted in light of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. A compromise solution is presented which accepts the Biblical account that God created the universe but also accepts the scientific time-line of cosmic and biological evolution. But how is a Christian to live in a time and social setting so dedicated to scientific understanding? Meditations on the question are offered in the fourth section, which includes thoughts on working in large corporations where job loss is a constant danger, but not an unusual event in one's working life. In the fifth and final section, answers to objections, scientific and fundamentalist, are answered in dialog format to try to make the case for "creationism rightly understood".