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When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: The Making Of A Religious Naturalist (2008)

by Chet Raymo(Favorite Author)

4.01 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1933495138 (ISBN13: 9781933495132)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Sorin Books

review 1: I think the publisher’s blurb and a few reviews here do this book justice - it’s a fine book, displaying ”spirituality that is consistent with the empirical way of knowing.” It is, in fact, rich with interesting references, including the simple complexity, if you will, of the 959-celled worm C.elegans, Deus absconditus, and Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem “God’s Grandeur” - “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil...” The book offers an example, and elucidation, of reverence for all things in the universe without a personal anthropomorphic god, and with an emphasis on epistemology. Indeed, a foundation to Raymo’s thesis is that epistemological thinking should come before believing. ”Epistemolog... morey is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.“ We can justify scientific beliefs, but we cannot justify most non-scientific beliefs. He quoted Francis Bacon: “What a person would like to be true, he preferentially believes,” and he points out more than once that the main determinant of what one’s religious beliefs are is where you are born, but that scientific beliefs are almost exclusively independent of birth place. Amen.
review 2: Another book sent for me to review . . .I am usually a very quick reader of books, as long as the subject matter isn't too dry or boring. Unfortunately, this book did not hold my attention very well, but that could be because I am not really interested in science all that much. At first glance I thought that this book would be about spirituality, in a sense of truly exploring one's existence with nature too -- but that wasn't the case here.There are a few points I'd like to make about the author's ideas and arguments. First, I do not think that it is impossible for people to intertwine their personal faith with the scientific theory of evolution, or any other aspect relating to evolution. In a sense, reincarnation would make perfect sense in relation to evolution.Also, the author makes the point that we really don't know anything in the end; however, he then goes on to say that science knows pretty much, well, most everything. I also did not understand the statement that some self-transcendent people (i.e. prone to faith, etc.), are psychotic. Does it matter, since some scientists and atheists are also prone to mental disorders and psychosis as well? This proves nothing, and we are led full-circle back to where we started from.Even if one's faith-based behaviour is more "hard-wired" into our DNA, as the theory contends, and some are more prone to this than others, one still cannot completely refute the idea that certain belief systems could still coincide with such: for instance, the idea of reincarnation. It is believed that if one lived life in a savage state, a savage state of mind or emotion, then one may even be reborn as a wild animal. None of this would basically contradict the DNA theory. You would simply become what you are.I also know a Catholic priest who believes in evolution, and evolution does not necessarily conflict with all religious beliefs, at least not in a mystical sense. Perhaps life began with a "divine spark" and God allowed the world to take its own course. As the author contends, we don't really know everything, do we, so why would we know all there is to know about the world unseen? We don't even know enough about all the facets of physics yet -- we're barely like little children on the road to knowledge in this regard, even infants.If my comments amuse those who would look upon my reasoning (or lack of such in their perception), as one of these weird transcendental types, then so be it, but Raymo and others of scientific bent should also be aware that Einstein was also a basically transcendental person. No, he was never religious, but, he was certainly very different than most scientists and had a certain mystical character to him, and to this day is viewed as having been eccentric. Without people who are transcendent, there would never have been great contributions to mankind in the form of art, literature, music, and even science. The Benzene ring was seen in a dream (the snake eating its own tail). This very "unscientific" formula, applying a dream to real life, is not the usual way you'd typically relate science in its workaday sense. Why does this happen? That's a good question. Scientists would say it's only coincidence.I try not to be a judgmental person, but at times, it's difficult. I recently had a conversation with a well-respected psychic who told me he doesn't judge others, not even biased scientists, and I have to give him credit for that. I think that there is a gross attack on things unscientific these days, but the strange thing is, I don't see very many psychics or ghosts trying to attack the ideas of scientists. Why must scientists be so close-minded? No, I'm not as nice as he is, so I will question. This reminds me of an excerpt from a book called Isis Unveiled (H.P. Blavatsky). The quote goes, "Many of our greatest scientists are only animated corpses -- they have no spiritual sight because their spirits have left them."I would rather that science and the spirit walk hand in hand. They do not need to mix and mingle, but they can at least be "nice" to one another, at least I think so.At the end of the book, Raymo concludes that when God is gone, everything is holy; however, I say that when God is gone, everything is still God, even if you don't believe in "God per se, because God could be in everything, in everyone.In page 103 of this book I also notice a certain disdain for the character of God, but the author should note that the Judeo-Christian God is not the God that everyone believes in, and yes, I understand that many people have anger towards this God because they feel betrayed somehow -- that is unfortunate.I also noticed a quote on the back of this book that caught my attention. It reads, ". . . In an age of militant atheists and strident believers . . ." I have to interject here and ask what one means by this quote. The entire book really pisses (pardon my language) on believers in the end, and doesn't really have much of a spiritual ground to offend atheists or unbelievers (excuse the naive term). In the end, I would ask those who have praised the book and the author himself, what does it mean to believe. Believe in what? I do not understand this, because for some people, belief might mean a very one-sided cardboard cut-out of the Judeo-Christian God, while for another it might even signify a pantheon of pagan Gods/Goddesses, while yet for another, it may be believed that God is within everyone and everything. The latter seems somehow related to Raymo's idea of God, if you think about his own obsession with nature, but it isn't the same. Raymo sees nature as being holy somehow, yet ironically, not transcendent, and he doesn't believe in souls. The difference between Raymo and someone who would revere nature and creation, but also believe that such have a certain quality (a "soul" if you will), is that the latter does not pretend to know everything either, but he or she doesn't expect others to share in the same exact worldview (unless they're knocking at your door trying to convert you). Expecting others to see things in the same exact frame of mine is unfair.In the end, Raymo, you are right: no one knows anything; but if this is the case, then why pretend that science knows everything as well? This just doesn't gel. less

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