A biased study of the complicated intersection between faith and reason.
A conservative Christian attempts to put to rest the conflict between religion and science by providing an argument based on Jesus’ teachings.
Miller, who refers to his recent journey into Christianity, opens with Albert Einstein’s conjecture that science is inextricably linked to religion. The author contends that most scientists err in neglecting to consider the wisdom contained in the Bible as scientifically and historically accurate. To illustrate a typical misunderstanding, the book examines the debate regarding the age of the universe. Scientific evidence suggests the Big Bang occurred nearly 15 billion years ago, while creationists claim the universe is considerably younger. The author applies Einstein’s law of relativity (the greater the mass of an area, the slower time passes) to explain the compatibility of the Bible’s contention the world was created in six days. This wordy, dry tome also investigates the psychological speculation about the formation of the human mind and recent neurological findings concerning the dynamics of the brain’s right temporal lobe which, when activated, increases a person’s propensity to accept abstract notions. Coupled with thorough research and the detailed scientific and spiritual explanations are passages from the Bible, declaring that nonbelievers are to be condemned. Unfortunately, the rigidity of Miller’s argument and his dire reactionary warnings significantly limit his potential audience. An important section of the book is devoted to contradicting the fundamentals of other world religions. According to Miller, the development of Hinduism, Buddhism and Protestant Christian belief resulted from man’s tendency to move away from divine thought and toward reason and logic. Dualistic thinking is the culprit here–man’s desire to be both spiritual and deductive not only reflects the destructive polarization of modern society, but also leads to disunity in the Christian church.
A biased study of the complicated intersection between faith and reason.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 1936
ISBN: 978-1-4134-8749-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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