Summary
Title: The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science
Author: Taner Edis
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1573929778
Pro:
• Generally easy to read and jargon-free advocacy of naturalism
• Critiques of many religious, spiritual, and postmodern arguments
• Very fair and sympathetic to those he critiques
Con:
• His own voice is lost on occasion as he explains what others think
Description:
• Examination of spiritual explanations of the universe
• Advocacy of a skeptical, scientific, naturalistic perspective
• Critique of common challenges to naturalism, including religion & postmodernism
Book Review
These are the basic questions which animate Taner Edis’ recent book, The Ghost in the Universe. Edis, an assistant professor of physics at Truman State University, may be a skeptic and a naturalist, but he does not hide his appreciation for the appeal and power of religious beliefs. He may accept that a godless universe won’t necessarily be obvious, but he believes that our universe is godless, that there are good reasons for believing so, and that a naturalistic perspective is better and does a superior job at explaining the world around us.”
In the process, Edis addresses quite a few topics — evolution, modern physics, religious scriptures, religious arguments, mysticism, the paranormal, postmodernism, and more. Too often, a book like this runs the risk of developing into an unfocused and personal anti-religious invective, but that isn’t a trap which ensnares Edis. He may seem to simply be on a crusade against things he doesn’t like — what’s postmodernism doing in that list? — but in fact he does have a focused goal: to examine the reliability of scientific investigation and naturalistic explanations against various challenges posed today.
Traditional religion is an obvious topic to consider in such a context, but modern paranormal beliefs and postmoderism also pose their own challenges to the privileged place of reason and science. It is reasonable to examine whether their accounts of reasoning and the world are preferable to the naturalistic and scientific approach. Moreover, Edis is consistently sympathetic in his presentation of others’ beliefs; it is obvious that he understands why these systems are appealing and even popular:
- “At their best, [religions] are stories we can appreciate regardless of whether they are remotely true, morally uplifting, or practically significant. After all, human hopes and desires are an incoherent mess, so to consistently speak to us, a myth must be able to generate many different, contradicting levels of meaning. So even the strange, disreputable corners of religion ...are wonderful stories.”
It is fair to describe Taner Edis as a “gentle critic” of religion, a person who respects religion and can appreciate the power they have over our imaginations. However, there are also times when Edis’ own perspective can get lost in the effort to explain the perspectives of others and this causes his analysis to falter a bit.
Quite a few things in Edis’ book are surely familiar to those who are accustomed to reading critiques of religion; nevertheless, there are features which recommend reading this book as well. For one thing, he discusses liberal, modern theologies instead of focusing only on the more common and easier target of fundamentalism. Analyses which focus solely on fundamentalism poorly prepare readers because, although fundamentalist are especially vocal, most believers are not fundamentalists.
Secondly, he includes references to and critiques of Muslim beliefs instead of focusing almost entirely on Christianity. It is refreshing to see a book like this which is a bit broader in scope, even if it remains within Western monotheism. Finally, Edis doesn’t just criticize; rather, he also offers alternative ways to look at and understand the world around us — and he does so in a relatively jargon free style which is very accessible to non-experts. There are a couple of equations which could have done with a bit more explanation for average readers, but on the whole, the techincal difficulty is not bad.
