A God That Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the

A God That Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet

A paradigm-shifting blend of science, religion, and philosophy for agnostic, spiritual-but-not-religious, and scientifically minded readers
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Many people are fed up with the way traditional religion alienates them: too easily it can perpetuate conflict, vilify science, and undermine reason. Nancy Abrams, a philosopher of science, lawyer, and lifelong atheist, is among them. And yet, when she turned to the recovery community to face a personal struggle, she found that imagining a higher power gave her a new freedom. Intellectually, this was quite surprising.
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Meanwhile her husband, famed astrophysicist Joel Primack, was helping create a new theory of the universe based on dark matter and dark energy, and Abrams was collaborating with him on two books that put the new scientific picture into a social and political context. She wondered, â€œCould anything actually exist in this strange new universe that is worthy of the name â€˜God?â€™â€
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In A God That Could Be Real, Abrams explores a radically new way of thinking about God. She dismantles several common assumptions about God and shows why an omniscient, omnipotent God that created the universe and plans what happens is incompatible with scienceâ€”but that this doesnâ€™t preclude a God that can comfort and empower us.
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Moving away from traditional arguments for God, Abrams finds something worthy of the name â€œGodâ€ in the new science of emergence: just as a complex ant hill emerges from the collective behavior of individually clueless ants, and just as the global economy emerges from the interactions of billions of individualsâ€™ choices, God, she argues, is an â€œemergent phenomenonâ€ that arises from the staggering complexity of humanityâ€™s collective aspirations and is in dialogue with every individual. This God did not create the universeâ€”it created the meaning of the universe. Itâ€™s not universalâ€”itâ€™s planetary. It canâ€™t change the world, but it helps us change the world. A God that could be real, Abrams shows us, is what humanity needs to inspire us to collectively cooperate to protect our warming planet and create a long-term civilization.
Country USA
Brand Beacon Press
Manufacturer Beacon Press
Binding Hardcover
Color Multicolor
ReleaseDate 2015-03-10
UnitCount 1
UPCs 884882493101
EANs 9780807073391

Country	USA
Brand	Beacon Press
Manufacturer	Beacon Press
Binding	Hardcover
Color	Multicolor
ReleaseDate	2015-03-10
UnitCount	1
UPCs	884882493101
EANs	9780807073391

A God That Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet

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