Private doubt, public dilemma
Subtitle: religion and science since Jefferson and Darwin
By: Keith Thomson
Series: Terry lectures series; Terry lectures
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
ISBN-13: 9780300203677
Subjects: Religion and science
Description: "Each age has its own crisis--our modern experience of science-religion conflict is not so very different from that experienced by our forebears, Keith Thomson proposes in this thoughtful book. He considers the ideas and writings of Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin, two men who struggled mightily to reconcile their religion and their science, then looks to more recent times when scientific challenges to religion (evolutionary theory, for example) have given rise to powerful political responses from religious believers. Today as in the eighteenth century, there are pressing reasons for members on each side of the religion-science debates to find common ground, Thomson contends. No precedent exists for shaping a response to issues like cloning or stem cell research, unheard of fifty years ago, and thus the opportunity arises for all sides to cooperate in creating a new ethics for the common good."--Book jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The long-standing problem; title: Religion and science; title: Mr. jefferson's dilemma; title: Ancient of days; title: Mr. Darwin's religion; title: The devil and Mr. Darwin; title: Debates and academics; title: Clerics and apes; title: The decline of authority; title: A way forward?; title: Bishop Samuel Wilberforce's Oxford address.