Private Doubt, Public Dilemma: Religion And Science Since Jefferson And Darwin (the Terry Lectures Series)
by Keith Stewart Thomson /
2015 / English / PDF
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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.
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.
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.