BOOK REVIEW
Science and Faith: An Excerpt from Brother Astronomer
Science is ultimately based on insight, not logic. But it uses logic to explain and test and develop the insights on which it is based.
Religion is not all that different. To say it is based on faith, not logic, is both false and totally misrepresents what we mean by faith.
Explaining faith is like trying to explain a joke, or trying to describe a color to a blind person....
The science fundamentalist believes, and the religious fundamentalist fears, that religion is a fairy tale suitable only for children, and that once you learn science it will leave no more room for religion. But that just doesn't happen.
Some people are tone-deaf. It's not their fault, and I don't criticize them for it. But I might get bent out of shape if a tone-deaf person insisted that my love of music was a hallucination, based on lies my parents taught me.
Or more absurdly, that my love of music would go away once I'd learned the physics of sound waves.
Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist
Brother Guy Consolmagno
McGraw-Hill, $24.95