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Has Science Displaced the Soul?: Debating Love and Happiness
Can science explain powerful human emotions such as love and happiness? Or, are these emotions something more than the action of biochemicals and electrical impulses? Science is constantly uncovering the mysteries of our nature, but we are uneasy about submitting our most intimate feelings to its scrutiny. Religion tells us that God is love but neuroscience counters with love as a well-timed trickle of transmitters and hormones. In the 21st century, is it necessary to discard our traditional beliefs of a loving God in favor of dopamine? With doctorates in both mathematics and theology, Kevin Sharpe explores these notions and asks the question, Has Science Displaced the Soul?
Unflinching in facing these issues, Sharpe provides a clear and current summary of the discoveries of science and what our spiritual traditions still have to offer in the ongoing effort to understand our deepest urges. He confronts serious unanswered questions. How can the Divine direct a random process like evolution? How can we reconcile the big bang with creation out of nothing? Does it make sense to claim that the non-biological Divine shares in human purposes and desires? Sharpe's solution is controversial since it requires that we demolish and reconstruct some of our most trusted conceptions. By examining the ways in which scientific and religious claims can be harmonized, he offers a radical and powerful interpretation of love and happiness in the divine context.
Unflinching in facing these issues, Sharpe provides a clear and current summary of the discoveries of science and what our spiritual traditions still have to offer in the ongoing effort to understand our deepest urges. He confronts serious unanswered questions. How can the Divine direct a random process like evolution? How can we reconcile the big bang with creation out of nothing? Does it make sense to claim that the non-biological Divine shares in human purposes and desires? Sharpe's solution is controversial since it requires that we demolish and reconstruct some of our most trusted conceptions. By examining the ways in which scientific and religious claims can be harmonized, he offers a radical and powerful interpretation of love and happiness in the divine context.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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January 22, 2016
This book and I got off to a bed start when the author refered to Socrates as 'Plato's mouthpiece'. Really??
The first half of the book presents the materialist viewpoint, and in the author's opinion, it invalidates all the various forms of dualism, particularly substance dualism. The next couple of chapters present theories from two leading theologists, then promptly cuts them to pieces as well. It isn't until the final few chapters that the author finally presents his own case , and while I believe he does make a couple of points, the arguments are largely specious.
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It is much less about the soul than it is about the author's complete re-imagining the nature of the Divine. The newly imagined God bears little resemblance to the Judeo / Christian / Islamic diety. He is closer to some interpretations of the Hindu Brahman. Rather than a divine entity that is omnipresent in the universe, this newly imagined diety IS the universe. Or rather the Divine and the universe are intertwined like the double helix or the snakes of the caduceus.
The first half of the book presents the materialist viewpoint, and in the author's opinion, it invalidates all the various forms of dualism, particularly substance dualism. The next couple of chapters present theories from two leading theologists, then promptly cuts them to pieces as well. It isn't until the final few chapters that the author finally presents his own case , and while I believe he does make a couple of points, the arguments are largely specious.
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It is much less about the soul than it is about the author's complete re-imagining the nature of the Divine. The newly imagined God bears little resemblance to the Judeo / Christian / Islamic diety. He is closer to some interpretations of the Hindu Brahman. Rather than a divine entity that is omnipresent in the universe, this newly imagined diety IS the universe. Or rather the Divine and the universe are intertwined like the double helix or the snakes of the caduceus.
Displaying 1 of 1 review