Defensible Faith

Robert Ryan

Description

This spirituality book explores the complementary nature of science and religion and shows why belief in a supreme being, a God, is the smart choice.
A persistent dumbing down of religious faith and the perception that science is the only path to truth are key reasons the Nones, those with no religious affiliation, represent nearly fifty percent of all young adults in America today.
God and science are falsely portrayed as conflicted and innately incompatible. Afraid to offend this new status quo, and unable to defend religious beliefs against increasingly aggressive intellectual bullying, the young have flocked to the safety of no belief.
In Defensible Faith, author Robert Ryan demonstrates that God and science are both true and are both necessary in understanding ourselves and the world around us. He looks at how science provides many compelling arguments for belief in God as well as the more philosophical justifications for faith and the evidential basis supporting Christianity. If you have ever struggled to defend your faith in an intellectually well-reasoned manner, then let this book be your guide.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Living
• Social Issues
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• God
• Roman calendar
• Catholic
• Creation
• Faith
• Nones
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 19 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798385000951
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Defensible Faith
Helping the Nones Find God
 
 
 
 
ROBERT RYAN
 
 
 
 
 
 
Copyright © 2023 Robert Ryan.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book.
 
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) with the imprimatur of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Catholic Bible Press, April 6, 2014)
 
Cover images are as edited and adapted by author and Delos Studio from purchase of licensed images for use here from: Depositphotos_26711983_XL.jpg, Depositphotos_202970884_XL.jpg Depositphotos_220615694_XL.jpg,
and Depositphotos_12005527_ XL.jpg, ( www.depositphotos.com ).
 
ISBN: 979-8-3850-0094-4 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-3850-0096-8 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-3850-0095-1 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911192
 
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 07/18/2023
To my family, who said it could be done.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: The “Problem” of Nones
Nones : The New Vocation
None s’ Arguments against God’s Existence
The God “Proof”
Chapter 2: Religion Is Not the Enemy (and Neither Is Science)
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Tallying the Truth
Hawking and the Four Popes
Faith Is Not Afraid of Truth
Chapter 3: Great Scientists and Religious
1200s–1600s
1700s–1800s
1900s–Present
Science and Faith: Two Sides of the Cosmic Coin
Chapter 4: In Search of Design
The Arrogance of Intellect
It’s Only Miraculous If You’re Not God
The Intelligence of Intelligent Design
Chapter 5: The Origin of Life Evidence
Necessary but Not Sufficient
The Code of Life
Don’t Bet on It
The Most Beautiful Molecule
The DNA Blackboard
Brother Chimp and Sister Pig
The Spontaneity Problem
Aliens Did It!
LUCA, Where are You?
The Protein Challenge
How to Fill the Emergence of Life Gap?
Chapter 6: The Origin of the Universe Evidence
The Beginning of the Beginning
The Universe in a Few Easy Steps
Big Bang Proof
Big Bang Predictions and Confirmations
Universe Self-Creation Cosmological Models
Chapter 7: We Should Not Be Here: The Fine-Tuning Problem
Initial Big Bang Conditions
Expansion Rate of the Universe (Cosmological Constant)
The Carbon Creation Problem
Is Such Randomness Reasonable?
Chapter 8: Can We Get Something from Nothing?
It’s Complicated
So Big and Yet So Small
The God Equation
Spooky but True: Is God Hiding in Plain Sight?
Does God Leave Quantum Fingerprints?
We Are All Nothing and Something
Without Energy, That Bang’s a Bust
If You Can’t Explain It, Complexify It
The Hybrid God
Chapter 9: Philosophical Objections to God
The Notion of God Is Childish Nonsense
God Is Nothing More Than a Psychological Crutch
Life’s Better without God
If God, Then Why Suffering?
The Christian God, the Bible, and Suffering
God Is Not the Creator of Evil and Suffering
Pain Is Not God’s Plan
Good from Bad
The Purpose of Pain
With God, Suffering Has an End
Chapter 10: Philosophers’ “Proofs” for God’s Existence
First Cause First
The Essence of Being
Deism Equals Theism in Progress
Why Does God Create?
If I Can Understand It, It’s Not God
God as God from the Biblical Perspective
Christ as God? Some Logical Considerations
Chapter 11: Historical Jesus: The Evidential Case
The Historical Jesus
Digging for Truth
Jesus Adds Up–Early Non-Gospel References to Jesus
Chapter 12: The Authenticity of the Gospels
Emergence of the Written Gospels
Early Confusion, Fear, and Awe
Early Oral Tradition: Eyewitness Accounts
Persecution Drove Preservation
Today’s Gospels: Not First Drafts
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
Conspiracy to Conspire
Chapter 13: God Evidence from Within
Right and Wrong
What Christians Believe
Christian Behavior
Beyond Personality
Summary
Author’s Answers
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Selected Bibliography
Survey Data References
Images
Reference Notes by Chapter
Preface
The goal of this book is first to generate sufficient curiosity in the reader about the complementary nature of science and religion that they will read on, increasingly surprised with each chapter to learn why belief in a Supreme Being, a God, is the smart choice.
While as author, the flow as presented represents my thought process, the order followed by the reader is not particularly important. I challenge the reader to begin this book on any page, to then read just five pages, and not be surprised by something new that entices them to know more. I hope that is true.
Once the case for both science and religion has been made in the introduction and chapter 1 (“The Problem of Nones ”), the remaining chapters stand largely on their own. Each chapter provides some logical argument for truth in both science and religion and the clarity that only the combination of the two can provide. If you like science, start somewhere in the middle with chapters 5–8. If you like history, read chapters 2 and 3 first. If philosophy and theology are favorites, pick chapters 4, 9, and 10. And if you’re already a believer and want to address some areas of doubt, I recommend chapters 11–13. And if what I believe as the author is of interest, you could start with the summary and “Author’s Answers” at the back.
I wish to engage you, the reader, in any way I can and then encourage you to consider all the extensive arguments on both the science and the religion, the physics and the metaphysics, which may be less familiar, but no less compelling. For when it comes to belief, knowledge really is truth. There is nothing in science or in scripture that must be set aside here. It comes as a surprise to many, but the full truth fully relies on both.
It doesn’t matter if you are not strong in science. The material presented is clearly stated as proven fact where appropriate and unproven theory where appropriate. The reader does not need to fully understand biology or physics to understand the factual arguments being made. However, the arguments are important because not understanding them is one of the main reasons the “ Nones ,” the religiously nonaffiliated, struggle with considerations of faith and how to defend their beliefs.
Ignorance is the worst basis for or against faith. As such, the arguments for belief in this book are intellectual and evidential. The path to the truth can be complicated, but once truth is revealed, it turns out to be surprisingly simple.
Introduction
I bel ieve in all proven scientific discoveries, and I believe in science as a path to truth; I also see no conflict between science and belief in God.
However, I believe there is a growing intellectual bigotry in America today, an aggressive prejudice against any form of knowledge or belief that does not derive from a strictly material and scientific basis. Anyone who holds such beliefs is increasingly ridiculed as ignorant and primitive, lacking the sophistication needed to recognize the nature of their own delusion. Some have come to derisively label this the “God delusion.”
What has emerged over the past few decades goes beyond the classic humanistic naturalism, the belief that natural causes are sufficient to justify and explain everything from morality to the cosmos. Even more dominant today is a new aggressive form of scientism that seeks to reduce all knowledge and all truth to just what can be known through strict application of the scientific method, relegating any means of knowing that is not empirically observable to the realm of myth and fantasy.
Numerous surveys and studies have shown that young adults are increasingly convinced religious faith and modern science are battling each other in a war where science always wins—and where the losers are deemed intellectually challenged and inferior.
Is a belief in God simply a demonstration of human weakness and intellectual laziness? What then of the tremendous scientific discoveries made by those who saw divine beauty and simplicity in the mathematics and natural laws describing the world around them? Are these geniuses, people of tremendous insight, at the same time just naive experts at self-delusion?
The answers to these questions and the evidence that science and faith are not just compatible, but complementary, are the central theme of this book. There are far more believers among scientists than popular culture portrays; when the full truth is what matters, it is only found through the applicati