Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection Between Science and Spirituality

by Chet Raymo

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 Believers is 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.

Genres: Religion, Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Spirituality, Christianity, Faith

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Chet Raymo (born September 17, 1936 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is a noted writer, educator and naturalist. He is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachusetts. His weekly newspaper column Science Musings appeared in the Boston Globe for twenty years, and his musings can still be read online at www.sciencemusings.com.

His most famous book was the novel entitled The Dork of Cork, and was made into the feature length film Frankie Starlight. Raymo is also the author of Walking Zero, a scientific and historical account of his wanderings along the Prime Meridian in Great Britain.

Raymo was the recipient of the 1998 Lannan Literary Award for his Nonfiction work.

Reviews

[Trisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Technically this book doesn’t exactly qualify as “spiritual reading” and yet as far as I’m concerned it’s one of the best “spiritual” books I’ve read in a long time. Possibly because Raymo sees things of the spirit as being firmly connected to everything else about the world in which we live. But the problem, according to Raymo, is that religion, with its deplorable history of rejecting what science keeps discovering, has made it difficult to keep that in mind. While not much of a scientist, I tend to agree with him (which is why I kept underlining and highlighting so much of this book!) Raymo expands upon the title of his book by examining two separate ways of dealing with our questions of faith. The first is the way of the Skeptics - those who, despite a deep-seated sense of “something” mysterious and profound at work in the evolution of the universe, have a hard time accepting the black and white answers that have been handed down for generations by the catechisms and doctrines religion espouses, preferring to trust that the human mind’s ability to try making sense of the world is part of “God’s plan.” And so skeptics are comfortable looking at the world in shades of gray even though it means they are continually struggling with issues of faith and plagued by doubts. “True believers” on the other hand need to cling to the simple and certain truths that dogmas and doctrines provide and so anything that threatens that certainty is rejected – even though it often means ignoring physical evidence that what they insist on believing is contrary to the laws of nature and science. Raymo identifies himself as belonging to the former group, adding that he “…believes words like God, soul, sacred, spirituality, sacrament and grace can retain currency in an age of science, once we strip them of outworn overlays. . .” His book looks at the difference between the way we tend to know things and the way we go about continuing to insist on believing things even though there is evidence to the contrary. But at the same time he is passionate in insisting that science can enhance rather than diminish what we can know of the sacred. “Can we remain alive to the sacredness of nature and the specialness of human creation? Yes. Can we collectively worship an Absolute that exists beyond all possibility of human knowing, that creates and animates the universe? Yes. Can we live morally, with a shared sense of responsibility to each other and to the planet? Yes. But only if we begin with what reason tells us to be true and redeem our knowledge by our wisdom and our art, accepting the unalterable consistency of fact and meaning.” For those of us who resonate with this view Chet Raymo’s candid approach to the kinds of questions and doubts that plague us is a wonderful blend of skepticism and reverence. I’m convinced that a healthy spiritual life depends on both.

[TJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author is a little too smug for me. And he's so definite skeptics are the best and true believers are fools who believe in anything. I was hoping for a better examination of faith and science and the interplays, instead I got a book bashing religion and people who believe in religion.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CONSIDERATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION, AS NOT NECESSARILY OPPOSED

Author and science professor Chet Raymo wrote in the introduction to this 1998 book, “I am one of those people, trained in science, who cannot quite accept the idea of God nor quite leave it alone. I am less pessimistic than most, however, that science and religion must remain in conflict. It seems to me that science is part of the traditional religious quest for the God of creation… The apparent antagonism of science and religion centers mostly on cosmological questions: What is the universe? What is the human self? Where do we fit in? What is our fate? Humans have always had answers to these questions. The answers have been embodied in stories: tribal myths, scriptures, church traditions… All of them contain enduring wisdom. But for many of us, these stories have been superseded as PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE by the scientific story of the universe.

“In this book, I identify two intellectual postures we can adopt to questions of knowledge and faith. These two postures represent a fault line in our culture, an attitudinal chasm more profound than differences of politics or religious affiliation. We are Skeptics or True Believers. Skeptics are children of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment… Their world is colored in shades of gray… True Believers are less confident that humans can sort things out for themselves. They look for help from outside---from God, spirits, or extraterrestrials. Their world is black and white… In the following pages, I will closely examine the cultural implications of these two frames of mind, specifically with regard to science and religion. Not all religious people fit into the category defined here as True Believers, just as not all scientists are Skeptics… many … great religious leaders… and thinkers have been Skeptics. On the other hand, those scientists who are invincibly certain of the authority of their science must be counted as True Believers.” (Pg. 2-4)

He recounts, “I was raised in a traditional Christian faith. I took academic degrees in science and found in science a compelling cosmological vision… I did not turn science into a religion… It became obvious to me that certain doctrines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, including … immortality and a personal God who answers prayers, were based on long-discredited views of the world… At the same time, I found within the Judeo-Christian tradition vital mystical and liturgical practices that nourished my quest for encounter with the Absolute. I am today a thoroughgoing Skeptic who believes that words like God, soul…. and grace can retain currency in an age of science, once we strip them of outworn overlays… I hunger for a faith that is open to the new cosmology… without sacrificing historical vernaculars of spirituality and liturgical expression. Science, too, can only gain from a reconciliation of science and faith.” (Pg. 7-8)

He states, “Let me speak for science. Science is boring by design. Scientific communication has evolved a style that is deliberately devoid of passion, poetry, and the longing and despairs of the human heart. Why? To get on with the business of finding out how the world works. Science is the one human endeavor that has proven relatively immune to the passions that divide us… This is not to say that individual scientists can’t be sexist, racist, or politically committed, or that science itself hasn’t been shaped by its Judeo-Christian, European, male-dominated origins. But by keeping, as best we can, human differences out of the communication of science, we have forged a tool for human improvement that is anchored in repeatable, verifiable observation, rather than in prejudice and passionate conviction. (Pg. 45-46)

Later, he adds, “At its best, scientific skepticism is a manifestation of curiosity, intelligence, and imagination---in a word, the best of the human SPIRIT. It slowly, patiently builds the domain of knowledge, pushes back the encroaching darkness, the demons of the deep, but never exhausts the infinitude of mystery.” (Pg. 55-56)

He notes, “Science has evolved an elaborate system of social organization, communication and peer review to ensure a high degree of conformity within an institutionally supported orthodoxy. This conservative approach to change allows for an orderly and exhaustive examination of fruitful ideas. It provides a measure of insulation from fads, political upheavals, religious conflicts, and international strife… Revolutions in science are few and far between, but they do happen. Science is conservative, but of all truth systems that purport to explain the world, it is also the most progressive.” (Pg. 68)

He asks, “Why are so many people irrationally fearful of the millennium? Many of us are willing to surrender rationalism for emotional affirmation, even if the emotional affirmation comes with a frisson of fear. The one thing all superstitions and pseudosciences share is a central significance of the self. We need to feel that the cosmos takes notice of our personal existence, that we are not merely dust motes dancing in the infinite immensity of space…” (Pg. 80)

He asserts, “What does contemporary science say about the big questions?... The answers at first blush are not what we want to hear: We are staggeringly complex electrochemical machines. There is … no soul that exists independently of the body, and therefore no self that will survive the body’s disintegration… There appears to be nothing central or special about who, what, or where we are in the universe of galaxies… We are here to make copies of our genes and thereby ensure the continuance of our species after the deaths of our selves.” (Pg. 134-135)

He observes, “A creationist writer… says of the human eye: ‘… It is not possible, under any stretch of the imagination, that all these parts of the optical mechanisms could haphazardly become functional through random mutations.’ Not possible? Under any stretch of the imagination? This is the sort of thinking that biologist Richard Dawkins calls ‘The Argument from Personal Incredulity’: If it seems impossible to me, then it must be impossible… The only way to decide whether something is possible or impossible… is to go to nature and observe.” (Pg.. 158)

He states that “Charles Krauthammer draws attention to the rampant irrationalism of our own time. The world of scientific fact is too much for us… At precisely the moment when we most require reasoning intellectuals… to give us the courage and the critical means to cope with our new knowledge and new independence, these are often the very people who are leading the retreat into primitivism and superstition… the academic intellectual left … have given themselves over to something called ‘science studies,’ which asserts … that all knowledge is a social construct… and therefore arbitrary, and must be judged by the way in which it serves or does not serve a political agenda---socialist, feminist, environmentalist… Science is judged a failure, a tool of the repressive establishment… Eurocentric.” (Pg. 169)

He suggests, “what will surely be the premier scientific quest of the twenty-first century [will be]: understanding the mind. My intuition in these matters is that there is nothing mystical … about consciousness, and that a computer of sufficient complexity and with rich sensory input might one day be fully conscious… The mind IS the brain; the brain IS an electrochemical mechanism.; therefore, the mind is an electrochemical machine. But I suspect that we have a few theoretical surprises in store before a final understanding is achieved.” (Pg. 192-193)

He states, “My own guess is that life and consciousness are emergent phenomena that arise when material systems have reached a certain threshold level of complexity, and only a computer-based science of complex systems… will explain them. Reductionism has been enormously successful at explaining the terrain of our knowledge, but mystery still laps our ever-lengthening shore. By the end of the next century, we may look back upon reductionist physics as hopefully naïve.” (Pg. 206)

He concludes, “The pieces are in place for a renaissance of religion: cosmic knowledge… awareness of mystery… and a longing for union with the Absolute. What is required is imagination, self-confidence, courage. The world is charged with the grandeur of God. If we are worthy, it will flare out… like something from shook foil.” (Pg. 267)

Raymo is much more an advocate of science than of religion; he is even a little overly-optimistic about science being a strictly 'value-free, objective' discipline. But this book will interest many who are thinking about such issues.

[Noah Isherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly not required reading, but an excellent primer on recent conceptions of how science and religion relate to one another.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned of this book while researching the phrase "between black and white are not shades of gray, but all the colors of the rainbow" which I incorrectly thought was Chet Raymo's. Google picked up on "shades of gray" and pointed me to this book, where Raymo uses it to describe how skeptics think, as opposed to the black and white thinking of the true believers. For Raymo, thinking in shades of gray is a good thing, as opposed to the quote I was remembering.

It seems as though I have read this book before, because I remembered the metaphor Raymo uses of our knowledge being an ever expanding island in an infinite sea of ignorance. As the island expands, so does the shoreline, meaning that although our knowledge expands so does our awareness of the vastness of that which we do not know (at least that is how it should work). It is a vivid picture, and one that I have not forgotten. I suppose I read this book prior to 2012, the year I joined Goodreads, since it does not appear in the list of books I have entered there. I do not know whether I read it before or after 2007, the year I abandoned Christianity.

This book didn’t have me jumping up and down the way *When God is Gone, Everything is Holy* did. *When God is Gone* had more to do with spirituality and *Skeptics and True Believers* was more about science and pseudoscience. This, I suppose, made *Skeptics and True Believers* a drier read than *When God is Gone*. For my part, I found more memorable phrases to write into my notes from *When God is Gone* than I did from *Skeptics*. Spirituality was not totally absent from *Skeptics* and I found this phrase memorable: "Words like God, soul, sacred, spirituality, sacrament, and grace can retain currency in an age of science, once we strip them of outworn overlays of anthropomorphic and animistic meaning."

Another quote I found worthy of writing into my notes was this Einstein quote: "Science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life." Since abandoning Christianity I have become a pretty big fan of Einstein's religious impulses where they exist, and I thought I knew pretty much all his famous quotes on the subject. But this was a new one to me.

Another blast from the past was Raymo's discussion of Frank Tipler's book *The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead*. I read this book years ago and, like Raymo, I wasn’t a big fan. About the only thing I remember about it is that Tipler identifies the universe with God, but in a bizarre way. He identifies the Big Bang as God the Father, the Big Crunch (the so-called Omega Point which will happen at the end of the universe) as the Holy Spirit, and the time in between as God the Son.

Did I learn of Tipler's book via Raymo's book? Probably. I simply don’t remember. I would be terrible at writing memoirs because I have trouble recalling details from my life.

One detail from my life that this book prompted me to recall was Raymo's coining of the acronym NTUs, which stands for New Theory of the Universe. This is his description of various pseudoscientific New Age and cultish descriptions of reality. When I abandoned Christianity and was wondering what to believe, I toyed with creating my own NTUs. One in particular that I was enamored with was that the universe was rotating. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that this was not a new idea.

Raymo's description of true believers in the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin as a cult has emboldened me to apply the term "cult" to other outlandish beliefs. I have occasionally applied the term "cult" to other outlandish beliefs such as Israel Only, an offshoot of Full Preterism which insists that the biblical story doesn’t just center on Israel but is *all about* Israel. I have resisted calling it a cult in the past, preferring to call it cult-like, but if true believers in the Shroud can be called a cult, so can IO. So too, for that matter, can FP. Some have gone so far as to call Christianity and/or Islam cults, but I think they are too diverse in their beliefs to be called cults. On the other hand, I think it is fair to call American Evangelicalism, Zionism, and Wahhabism cults.

Speaking of bizarre beliefs, the chapter on creationism and evolution was fascinating. Raymo begins this chapter with a couple of quotes: "Nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution."—Theodosius Dobzhansky, and "The alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all."—Sir Peter Medewar. I was familiar with the Dobzhansky quote but not the Medewar quote. The Dobzhansky quote is actually a misquotation. The actual quote goes "Nothing *in biology* makes sense etc.", an important caveat.

Commenting on the age of the earth as computed by geologists and creationists, Raymo recalls a class project in which a student brought in a 450 foot long ball of yarn where each foot represents 10 million years of earth history and compares it to the 10,000 years of earth history posited by creationists. The difference is comparable to one and a half football fields (450 feet) vs the thickness of a piece of paper!

Many of those reviewing this book on Goodreads objected to Raymo's enthusiastic preference of skeptics to true believers, calling skeptics "socially optimistic, creative, and confident of progress," and "tolerant of cultural and religious diversity," and "more interested in refining their own views than proselytizing others." To his credit, he does not confine his view of skeptics to those enthusiastic about science and true believers as the religion. The religious can be skeptical minded and, indeed, one of the enthusiastic endorsers of this book quoted on the back cover is a member of the Society of Jesus. On the other hand "Strong reductionism is not science. It's a personal philosophy, a matter of faith."

Part of this reason I read (or actually reread) this book was to explore Raymo's relationship to pantheism. In *When God is Gone, Everything is Holy* he writes, "So this is my Credo. I am an atheist, if by God one means a transcendent Person who acts willfully within the creation. I am an agnostic in that I believe our knowledge of 'what is' is partial and tentative–a tiny flickering flame in the overwhelming shadows of our ignorance. I am a pantheist in that I believe empirical knowledge of the sensate world is the surest revelation of whatever is worth being called divine. I am a Catholic by accident of birth." However in this book he appears to dismiss pantheism by saying "If we can define God so broadly that he can be identified as the impersonal laws of nature, what's the point?"

Rating this book is hard. If I rated *When God is Gone, Everything is Holy* 4/5 stars it make sense to rate this book 3/5 stars, since I liked it less. That seems a bit low to me. Maybe 3.5 stars?

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the points presented in the book. Chet Raymo is a good author who points out the pros and cons of both Science and Religion. An excellent read for the open-minded.

[Linda Branham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thought provoking look at the perspectives from each point of view

[Alan Wilt · Rating 5 out of 5]

An accessible and enlightening review of the connections/disconnections between science and religion.

[Mdaly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tagline promised a lot more than it delivered. While Chet was pretty good at explaining the science his musings on religion were extremely poor and mostly anecdotal. He seemed to rely a lot on his memory of being brought up as a Catholic yet he never even engaged with the central tenet of Christianity, Christ.
He naively gives scientists the benefit of the doubt in this discussion. He doesn't mention that most scientific enquiry these days is 'sponsored'. Such study is rarely neutral but typically done with a desired outcome. I think this was why he stuck to the safety of cosmology most of the time. He never entered into a discussion around the ethics of scientific experimentation on humans.
He seemed to almost obtusely single out Christian fundamentalist religion as his religious model. And when he dealt with miracles and other religious phenomena he chose topics he could easily dismiss. Interestingly, he said that he spent time in Ireland. It would have been an interesting study if he had applied his scientific skepticism to the Knock apparitions of 1879, where 15 people, of different ages and different families, claim to have witnessed a Marian apparition that lasted for 2 hours.

His dismissal of the soul fell into the same anthropomorphic fallacy he accused religious people of doing. He seemed to think the short human lifespan, so insubstantial when put against the age of the universe, was proof that we are fleeting specks in an uncaring firmament. Yet he never explained why the Universe's age should be the measure against which God's plan for mankind should be measured. He seems to imply that if God's plan was the creation of mankind well he should have got on with it sooner rather than leaving homo sapiens as the afterthought at the end of Time. That is illogical on so many levels. At no point did he reference theologians on the subject but stuck with the same tried and trusted sources that confirmed his view. He never once mentioned 'Natural Law Ethics'. It would appear in his view faith went from paganism to fundamentalism in one fell swoop. He even avoided mention of the patrimony of the Church in promoting science, hence the calendar we use today!

I was getting frustrated with Chet's obvious anti-Christian bias, Christ was reduced to the role of MiddleEastern guru, and hoping to get to the substance of his argument sooner. But it turns out the substance of his argument is that we should revert to some sort of nature worship. What a let down!

[Glen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is a wonderful book, written by someone with scientific credentials galore but for whom the yearnings of the religious spirit portend more than an atavism of our primitive past. I particularly appreciated his emphasis on the fact that what offends the religious traditionalist about the story told by modern science is that human beings are not at the center of it. That reaction has not changed markedly since Galileo was threatened with the stake. That fact though does not and ought not put dampers on our amazement and awe at the workings of our incredible universe, from the very large and very old things studied by astronomers and cosmologists, to the very small and very fast things studied by quantum physicists, to the astounding plethora of life that has emerged from the bowels of the non-living, to the phenomenon of consciousness that even Raymo admits persists as a mystery rather defiant of scientific attempts at reductionist explanation. There is food aplenty for a religion that seeks not the reassurance due to a fearful child, but a discharge of the feeling of fulness and gratitude for being alive and aware and surrounded by wonder. I was especially pleased that the author invokes Buber's classic I and Thou in his concluding chapter that looks forward to a new religion of immanence, a work that I have returned to time and again and that offers, like the Tao Te Ching, the Ethics of Spinoza, the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, and numerous other like works, voice to that religious feeling that spurns the sort of codswallop that frequently passes for answers from New Age and traditional religions alike.

[John Fredrickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another excellent book by Raymo. In this book, he considers the tendencies of people to believe in things like astrology, ESP, a monotheistic biblical god, and miracles of various sorts, and he then contrasts these tendencies with the dictates and demands of a (skeptical) scientific orientation. While never being abusive of the "true believer" types, it is clear that he considers their stance(s) curious and generally unnecessary.

What is really outstanding about this book is that while Raymo spends a lot of text extolling the virtues of the scientific approach, he does so with a sense of wonder and awe for the vast scope of our universe, our world itself, and the marvelous diversity of all the creatures within it. The final chapter is where he sets out to truly discuss an appreciation of the awesomeness that we are surrounded by (if we choose to actually look), but really the bulk of the book sets the stage for this.

Along the way, he quotes numerous historical and current scientists as well as poets (including numerous quotes from Mary Oliver, whom I now have to investigate), to either garnish his arguments with their support, or in some cases, to directly challenge their stance.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage. It's the "intelligent design" myth dressed up with a positive commendation to science. Total junk from start to finish.

The author's basic premise is that scientific findings about the natural world are more amazing, harder to believe, than miracles in the Bible. And since we believe the science, we have to also believe that some entity, power or thing put those amazing scientific wheels in motion. How does a double-helix "know" to split apart, find another split double-helix, and merger and then split apart again? Because the "creator" set it up that way! Of course. That's basically his argument, repeated dozens of times with other examples such as baby birds knowing how to fly thousands of miles to the mating grounds of their parents, or something about sea scallops and their eyesight. It goes on and on.

Don't pick up this book. If you want to read about intelligent design, just go to YouTube and watch a few videos. If you want a serious look at religious belief and skepticism, go elsewhere.

[Sharon Archer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine an island in a vast sea. The island is knowledge, scientific or otherwise. The sea is the mystery. As our knowledge grows, the island grows. It is larger yet still insignificant against the vastness of mystery. Plus, the greater the shoreline, the more we’re aware of the mystery.

The author talks of I/it and I/thou relationships. When we think of the earth and all it’s inhabitants as I/it, it’s no surprise that we think we can use and exploit them for our own use. Ah but if it’s I/thou, we realize we are all members of the earth to live in as much harmony as possible.

The author suggests looking to the miracle of our own earth and creation and less to supernatural explanations for our magnificent world.

[Thomas Stark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raymo seems uninterested in why anyone chooses (if that’s the word) to become a Skeptic rather than a True Believer. He suggests that skepticism will be the result of serious study of science, as occurred in his life. Why does he believe this?

[Ben Raterman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can religion and science co-exist? There will always be a human need for a spiritual connection to the cosmos, those who search within. There will always be those who search for meaning through scientific enterprise. Raymo finds paths that intertwine the two.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book about finding the wonder in science and knowledge and keeping this as the starting point for religious understanding.

[James P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good insight into the indefensible position of ‘liberal Christian believers’

[Paschalis]

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[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raymo is a physicist and astronomer who cannot quite accept the idea of God, nor quite leave it alone. He makes the case that science is part of the “traditional religious quest for the God of creation.” He defines a vital religious faith as having three components: a shared story of the universe and our place in it (cosmology), a personal response to the mystery of the world (spirituality) and a public expression of awe and gratitude (liturgy). Before getting into his argument, he identifies two “postures” that reveal the schism in our culture: Skeptics and True Believers. The Skeptic trusts the human mind to make sense of the universe, accepting the “evolving nature of truth” and a measure of uncertainty.

True Believers look to the outside for help in understanding God, spirits, extraterrestrials, looking beyond human capabilities. “They are repulsed by diversity, comforted by dogma, and respectful of authority.” Many great religious leaders can be counted among the Skeptics and numerous scientists, blindly accepting the authority of science, fit into the category of True Believers. Our culture is woefully schizophrenic. We embrace the fruits of technology and science while often holding religious beliefs flatly contradicted by scientific evidence. A 1993 poll revealed almost 50% of Americans believe in a geologically young earth despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A two-to-one majority of Americans picked religion when queried which explanation they would choose between conflicting religious and scientific explanations. Raymo finds his miracles in the wonders of the world: the Red Knot a bird that flies 9,000 miles to return to specific feeding grounds without ever having been there. This ability is apparently coded in its DNA, an extraordinarily simple sequence of paired nucleotides that enables profound complexity. “Miracles are explainable; it is the explanations that are miraculous.” Ironically, what the Skeptic believes is often harder to imagine than what the True Believer accepts: the impossibly twisted strands of DNA reproducing themselves flawlessly, versus the familiar finger of God imparting life to Adam. The Skeptic is willing to believe the unfamiliar. “Certainly it is easier to believe in fairies than in DNA. It is also more consoling, more selfedifying, more entertaining. Fairies play into the whole gamut of human emotions: love, fear, power, powerlessness, ‘the land of lost content’ of childhood. But ‘fairies’ are a concept we can do without and still make perfect sense of the world. We cannot do without the concept of DNA whether we are Skeptics or True Believers.” Science is deliberately boring, he says. It is the “one human endeavor that has proven relatively immune to the passions that divide us. There is no such things as Jewish science, Christian science, Muslim science, Buddhist science. There is no such thing as male or female science, black or white science, Democratic or Republican science.” That doesn’t mean it can’t be misused or misinterpreted or argued about, but it remains a tool “for human improvement that is anchored in repeatable, verifiable observation, rather than in prejudice and passionate conviction.” “Give me evidence for your belief,” Raymo asks, to which the response often is, “It makes me feel good,” or “The truth is out there.” “They have become, in short, True Believers by default. And fair enough. Certainly it is better to feel good than to feel bad. But the price the True Believer pays for feeling good can be a chasm between intellect and intuition, and exile from a scientific story of the universe that, like it or not, is our best story, a story that is empirically reliable and therefore ultimately more meaningful than any mishmash of New Age enthusiasms. The choice, on the face of it, is between a hard truth or an easy high.” Yet, to use his metaphor, “knowledge remains an island in a sea of mystery.” We all yearn to be part of something greater than ourselves. Yet finding the proper balance between yearning and learning is essential. . “We learn by hard experience that miracles don’t happen. . . . We cannot be fully human without both. . . Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd. . . [or] following whatever current guru offers the most promising prospects of eternal life. . . .Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, idées fixes. . . believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. . . science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty.. . Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas.”

[Frank Jude · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skeptics are children of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment; they accept the evolving nature of truth and are willing to live with uncertainty; since they hold their truths tentatively, they tend to be tolerant, more interested in refining their own views than in proselytizing others. True Beleivers tend to look outside of life and nature -- to god, spirits, extraterrestrials, angels -- for salvation. Their world is black and white, with Truth provided by revelation by a source more reliable than the mind; their universe is human-scaled, they are fearful of diversity, comforted by dogma and love to evangelize.

A recent Gallup poll indicates that nearly half of Americans believe in a geologically young Earth despite the fact that not a shred of evidence can be adduced in favor of the idea and a mountain of evidence is arrayed against it. These folk are True Believers, but so are most New Agers who may think of themselves as 'progressive' though in fact they are quite reactionary.

Raymo points out that we are a culture/society divided. We embrace the technological and medical fruits of science, but hold religious beliefs that stand in flat-out contradiction to the scientific way of knowing. What is wonderful about this book is that Raymo shows how a fusion of knowlege with religious feeling need not weaken the rigor of scientific skepticism. In fact, it can create a truly integrated spirituality that remains open to the new cosmology -- skeptical, empirical, ecumenical, and ecological -- and offering liturgical expression. His model, though using theistic language, can also work for non-theistic folk with 'spiritual' orientations. It is much in line with my Zen Naturalism.

I heartily recommend this book to all those with religious feeling and scientific, rationalistic understanding. I'd also LOVE to see True Beleivers read this, and see if they might not feel at least a bit inclined to step into wide-open uncertainty science invites us into. One metaphor Raymo uses is that scientific knowledge is an island in a sea of mystery. If we can understand that this finite island exists within an infinite sea of mystery, than the growth of the island does not diminish the sea. In fact, the growth of the island increases the length of the shore along which we encounter mystery. It is Raymo's assertion that we are at our human best as creatures of the shore, with one foot on land and one in the sea. Bureaucrats, technocrats and drudges keep to the high ground. New Agers flounder in water over their heads with near horizons. At the shore, the creative work of the mind is done -- the work of the artist, poet, philosopher, and scientist. I'll meet you there!

[Chazzle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book grabbed me right away, in its discussion of fairy tales, and that atoms, black holes, and all sorts of scientific concepts are really just man-made concepts denoting the unseen. Already, I could tell this would be a perception-altering book. And it was.

Had I been the editor, I would've deleted much of what the author learned in his encounters with other thinkers, such as Stephen Hawking and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Or, at least, I would have forced him to express the lessons much more in his own language, which is top-rate, to better match the rest of the book, if nothing else. (Of course, the likes of Hawking et al are also first-rate communicators; it's just that the bridge from quotations from their works to the general flow of the book was a bit rickety.)

That said, I should add a second warning that probably no ready will be 100% simpatico with the opinions of Chet Raymo.

OK, warnings aside, this is one of the deepest, most wonderful books I've read in a long time. It really caused me to view many things from perspectives that I've never dreamed of, and made for exhilarating reading, especially in the passages popularizing science. The book describes the miracle of everyday occurrences. For example, there is a species of bird whose DNA suffices, without training from parent birds, to guide the baby birds in flight from a northernmost Canada to southernmost South America. Think about it - it is a miracle.

[bkwurm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read. The author highlights the fact that while we embrace the technological and medical benefits of science, we frequently hold beliefs that contradict scientific thinking.

While the bulk of the book was focused on a brief debunking of those beliefs, for me, the most thought provoking bit was the illustration of just how scientifically illiterate we all are. This was done by asking which of the following terms the reader could confidently provide a reasonable explanation for : - ESP, PCR, Yeti, SETI, cosmic microwave background radiation, Adam and Eve, parallel processing, cellular automata, reincarnation, Loch Ness Monster, hot fusion, superconductivity, Shroud of Turin, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Genome project, the Bermuda Triangle, scanning tunneling microscope, horoscope.

As the author points out, the vast majority of us can do so for the terms that the scientific community considers bogus but few of us could do so for the terms derived from actual science. Food for thought indeed.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raymo presents the idea that people are divided into two categories: Skeptics and True Believers. Clearly labeling himself a skeptic, he proceeds to explain how religion needs to catch up to science and incorporate science. While he makes some fascinating points and explains the wonder of nature and science, he dismisses many treasured religious concepts.

Personally, I consider myself to be a very scientific person, but a few of Raymo's chapters and ideas were hard for me to swallow. While he professes that it is illogical to say something is impossible just because you, individually, don't believe it's possible, he seems to think a lot of things are impossible.

I enjoyed the book because he presented his ideas, which often oppose my own, in a way that did not seem arrogant or condescending. However, I guess my own skeptic mind just cannot allow me to fall into his arena of true belief. He has not converted me to a religion of scientific wonder, but I appreciated reading his perspective.

[Greg Simpson]

Very good. Raymo, a retired physics and astronomy professor at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, is a skeptic who "just can't leave the idea of 'God' alone!" Although not a religious believer in an anthropomorphic, gray bearded, omniscient "sky father," he believes the concept of God can be subsumed into a reverent attitude toward the natural world. If we divest "religion" of all its supernaturalism, we are still able to get a sense of "the divine" inherent in nature. He discusses the differences between those like him, whom he calls skeptics, and the traditional religious believer, people he refers to as "true believers." Both see the world in quite different ways, of course, but both can share a sense of awe and wonder when confronted with our universe. Very interesting book.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered Chet Raymo's writing some time ago and have been picking up his works whenever I discover them - usually at used book stores or Friends of the Library sales. Some of the then cutting-edge science he writes about in this 1998 book is no longer cutting-edge, but there's still plenty to consider. As a religious naturalist I appreciate his insistence on scientific rigor. As a minister, I appreciate his acknowledgement that we are drawn more to poetry and story than to cold facts, presented in mind-numbing abstraction. There is much here in common with the work of Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd, as Raymo speaks also of "The Great Story" - a new, scientifically supported, story of creation. I'll be going back through a few essays, marking pages for future reference.

[Beejai Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to plow through the first 2/3 to get to the good stuff. His argument isn't with Christianity, it is with fundamentalism. Of that I don't have a problem. But he paints his argument against fundamentalism (what he calls "true believers") in such a way that most Christians, of any stripe, would be offended. If you can wade past this, and his dogmatic (shall we say fundamentalist?) view of the superiority of science (skepticism) over religion, there is a lot to be gleaned in the last few pages.

[Lump · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is certainly not objective or neutral, but it would be pretty boring if it was, so that's fine. I get it, and I think the points made are rational and valid, but personally I greatly respect "True Believers" in some ways, and even envy them. I think some things are better left unscrutinized and picked apart, for their beauty and the positive effects they can bring, the comfort they can give. There is no need to categorically belittle "True Believers" the way Raymo does, but I'm strongly in favor of critical thinking.

[Sharon Crosby · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who finds the difficulties with religion because of its obvious conflict with scientific truth, Raymo sympathizes but goes on to discuss the connection between science and religion, a connection which many who espouse religion certainly would not accept or understand if they are fundamentalists. There is more than one kind of truth -- factual truth being just one kind. Great explanation of the the difference between scientific theory and religious belief.

[Willowwind · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a fondness for Raymo. His writing has grace, humor and good science. This book is a gentle discussion of why the way that people approach belief leads to such conflicts in our perceptions of the world. An elegant philosophical bridge between the anthropological orientation of Atran, Rue and Boyer to the more socio-political works of Kirsh and Charles Freeman.

[Joel Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

disappointing. i had hoped for a balanced read, but it was terribly lopsided and bias. the author probably dedicated 10% of the book to spirituality, and most of that he approached with a hostile and somewhat smug tone. moreover, i had a difficult time taking the author seriously when he made false statements about Christianity and inappropriate blanket statements on religion and faith.