Skeptics And True Believers

Years ago, noted science 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 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.

A passionate, inquisitive statement that science and religion can mutually reinforce the way we experience the world.

Physicalism, the thesis that everything is physical, is one of the most important yet divisive problems in philosophy. In this superb introduction to the problem Daniel Stoljar focuses on three fundamental questions: the interpretation, truth and philosophical significance of physicalism.

When it comes to God, there are believers and there are skeptics. But there are also Skeptical Believers, a particular kind of believer who lives with an Inner Atheist that is constantly raising objections. The Skeptical Believer is a book about making peace with your Inner Atheist, and about working out useful responses to questions that have no definitive answers. It steers a middle course between the modernist conviction that faith is agreement with a set of statements about God and the postmodernist assertion that religious faith is just one story among many, no more or less true than any other. The Skeptical Believer proposes that one can live a rich and meaningful life of faith without proof (and despite the weaknesses of the church) by seeing oneself as a character within an ancient story. As believers, skeptical or otherwise, always have.

When author Paul Vincent moved into his new home in Bristol, Rhode Island, he was struck by how generously its interior gathered sunlight and decided to keep a record of the annual solar itinerary across its walls, floors and furniture. The result is The Analemma Waltz, a celebration of the sun’s slow-motion dance through his house, facilitated, in part, by its surfeit of windows, but much more so by the analemma—the narrow figure-eight pattern the sun describes in the sky in the course of a year in the Earth’s orbital journey. Vincent’s habit of noting and minuting the changing positions of sunlight, day by day and week by week, was the catalyst for meditations on matters of universal concern, as suggested by the times and the seasons of the year and approached, not from the perspective of a scholar or academic, but from that of an interested layperson. Such matters, addressed in the monthly chapters, include the study of history, the virtue of tolerance, the conflict between science and religion and the morality of war. Despite the varied nature of the essay topics in The Analemma Waltz, certain themes appear and reappear throughout the book, namely the author’s convictions that existential particularity is the occasion of both joy and sadness; that the world’s people, though the beneficiaries of seemingly endless breakthroughs in technology, are, and will remain, metaphysically vulnerable; and that appreciation prompting gratitude is the highest vocation of the human person.

This comprehensive book, written and updated over a period of 43 years with hundreds of references, will appeal to both beginners and experts, skeptics and believers, as well as to fans of Science-Fiction, aviation, students of Psychology, Sociology, Psychiatry plus those interested in psychic experiences and those interested in NASA, CIA and US military coverups of UFO evidence. Foreword by Nick Pope, of Britain’s “X files”. Topics include: summary of findings and evidence from 75 years of UFOlogy; dozens of classic and recent cases which still defy skeptical explanations; 13 famous cases that have been explained or exposed as hoaxes; many government coverups; possible Nazi-Roswell-Avro-CIA connections; psychic aspects, Carl Jung etc.; Hysterical Contagion (Mass Hysteria); the Rendlesham Forest case (triangular craft seen, touched and sketched by a US Air Force security sergeant, and witnessed taking off from the forest by him and another); the famous Roswell case; Shag Harbour USO case and other USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) cases; Belgium case; the recent shoot down of a UFO in Pentyrch England – beginning of a human-alien war? the huge subliminal influence science-fiction movies, TV shows, books, and comics have had on UFO sightings and encounters; origin of the Men in Black; missing time; the technology of flying saucers, including possible propulsion systems; airships of 1890-1912: mass hysteria, UFOs or actual early dirigibles (Zeppellns)? The religion aspect (aliens function as a new mythology / belief system for many); witches (yesteryear's aliens?) Angels v. Aliens; recent US Navy sightings and disclosure in the US and other nations; the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program and Luis Elizondo, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (2020) Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (2021). ABDUCTIONS (a) UFO Neurosis - a new psychiatric diagnosis for some people who believe that they have been kidnapped by space aliens; (b) Some “alien abductions” are actually "screen memories" of sexual assaults, usually committed by family members or trusted friends; (c) Above applied to the famous Barney and Betty Hill case and to a few others; (d) A different hypothesis applying psychologist Julian Jaynes' 1976 theory about the bicameral mind to "experiencers" to suggest that some have bicameral brains like everyone did 4000 years, according to Jaynes; (e) One case that would stand up if it were tried at court (Pascagoula Mississippi).

We live in an age of skepticism. Our society places such faith in empirical reason, historical progress, and heartfelt emotion that it’s easy to wonder: Why should anyone believe in Christianity? What role can faith and religion play in our modern lives? In this thoughtful and inspiring new book, pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller invites skeptics to consider that Christianity is more relevant now than ever. As human beings, we cannot live without meaning, satisfaction, freedom, identity, justice, and hope. Christianity provides us with unsurpassed resources to meet these needs. Written for both the ardent believer and the skeptic, Making Sense of God shines a light on the profound value and importance of Christianity in our lives.