The G.O.D. Experiments: How Science Is Discovering God In Everything, Including Us by Schwartz Ph.D., Ph.D. Gary E. [Atria Books, 2007] (Paperback) [Paperback]
G.O.D stands for Guiding, Organizing, Designing process. Gary Schwartz attempts to prove that there is, by secular experiments, Intelligent Design throughout the universe. Can science take us to God? For Gary the answer is Yes; but not any specific god or religion. He disproves that chance has any basis for describing how anything works, including evolution. He uses the examples of coin flips, and computer design, and how everything works together. Interdependence is the rule and not the exception in nature, especially at the quantum level. There is no support of a randomness theory. The evidence overwhelmingly rejects chance alone as a plausible explanation of order and evolution in the universe, and strongly supports the conclusion that some sort of an intelligent G.O.D. process exists in the universe.
"For the record, I should state what is hopefully obvious by now. If you asked me the question 'Are you trying to use science to prove the existence of God?' my response would be, 'Absolutely not. What I am attempting to do is to use the scientific method in an open-minded manner to enable God - if he/she/it/they exist - to prove his existence himself.'"
The G.O.D. Experiments: How Science Is Discovering God In Everything, Including Us by Gary E. Schwartz with William L. Simon. Wow what an interesting angle to an age old debate. First off this is not a pro-Christian book attempting to Bible thump at skeptics and atheists the Gospel of Jesus. This is an open-minded exorcise that leaves the question of "Is there a God, or Not" still pretty wide open. The author at the time of publishing was a professor of psychology, surgery, medicine, neurology, and psychiatry the University of Arizona. He approaches the age old question of "Does God exist?" from a skeptical scientists view. Rather than quote the Bible at every opportunity and say "It's in the Bible, so there!", he conducts psychological experiments to try to show that there is some sort of force or energy that influences the universe. He uses a rather clever term "Guiding, Organizing, Designing" Process (G.O.D.) rather than God.
Even though this book tends to read like a college text book, it does have some pretty interesting events and results. One thing that I think readers will come away with from reading this book is that the universe is not just made up of random cause and effect events. There is some sort of force that at least started some organization in the universe. The author doesn't attempt to claim that the G.O.D. process he describes is the Abrahamic God of the Bible, or that God even still influences people and events in the universe. He leaves all that up to the reader to make his/her own conclusions.
It has been several months since I last read this book to when I am writing this, so my initial thoughts I had while reading the book have been lost to time. Just as the author lets his readers draw their own conclusions about the existence of God or of Intelligent Design of the Universe I will let readers of this review draw their own conclusions about whether or not they wish to read this book.
I do recall that when I heard about this book and saw a description of this book, I had some questions that I thought this book would answer. Well those questions were not answered. The book does follow a similar train of thought that I have had for several years concerning the nature of God. Most peoples views about God don't fit that thought. People who are looking for some kind of physical or human trait God will be disappointed. This book tends to follow the belief that what we tend to call God is actually some sort of force or energy that has some influence on the universe in ways that we don't really look at.
when i bought this book , i thought it was going to be good but turned out to be terrible. it is by a man called Gary E.Schwartz with William L.Simon. it is by this man who is a professor at the university of Arizona. its about how the world would be without religion. and about his friend Christopher Robinson who can predict the future. it is about Richard Dawkins and Isaac newton and the theory of gravity. it is about how he went to the church and synagogue but was not very religious and hated it. he was actually kind of an agnostic. he talks about the relationship between god and science and stuff like that. it is about science and religion. in the end he has mentioned the god experiments. to top it all up , it was a horrible book!. i did not like this book!. (less)
I really enjoyed reading this. There are a lot of people that are on the fence about this subject. Life is an amazing experience. The older I get the more I realize how lucky we are to be able to experience the wonders of this world. The Eclipse we experienced proves to me that there is something or other that wants us to learn and experience the beauty and love. That took love and a lot of organization to pull off. It was perfection. This experience is one of learning that we can trust our Creator. Hopefully both Science and Religion can join together, they are both on the same journey. Coincidence and chance are rarer than our true reality. Thanks for sharing. Kevin
I should have read John McGraw's review first! I confess that I didn't have the patience to follow the author's "scientific/logical" proofs -- why get in a argument about something I already sense is true? But for those who really want to be serious about this, the book has a 20+ page review and study guide!
A waste of time. I don't think the author should be allowed to use the word "experiments" because that sort of implies a scientific experiment. Following a guy around Tucson who guesses at what the trqaffic/weather will be like is not very convincing or entertaining.
Very disappointing. Remarkable how somebody claiming to be a prominent scientist can get such basic science so wrong. He may have a point here and there but to get to them one must wade through really elementary erroneous assumptions and a lot of waffle that says nothing at all.