|
Reading
The God Theory
by: Bernard Haisch
Bestsellers by Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have denounced the evils of religion and proclaimed that science has proven that there is no God. Their angry accusations are partially correct. Religions have been used to justify crimes against humanity: witness the Inquisition of centuries past or the sectarian slaughter in the Mideast today. Religions are indeed a problem. But the human misuse of religions and the existence of God are very different matters.
A remarkable discovery has emerged in astrophysics: that key properties of the Universe have just the right values to make life possible. Most scientists prefer to explain away this uniqueness, insisting that a huge, perhaps infinite, number of unseen universes must therefore exist, each randomly different from the other. That way ours only appears special because we could not exist in any of the other hypothetical universes.
The author proposes the alternative that the special properties of our universe reflect an underlying intelligence, one that is consistent with the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution. Both views are equally logical and beyond proof. However exceptional human experiences and accounts of mystics throughout the ages do suggest that we live in a purposeful universe. In The God Theory speculation on what that purpose might be… what that purpose means for our lives… how it might explain the riddle of evil.
|
