A Unitarian Universalist Who Sees Beyond the "Science versus Religion" debate.

Gary Kowalski writes: "Which is More Dangerous; science or religion?"  I did a double take when a friend handed me a newspaper clipping with that headline.  It was an ad from an organization called the The Great American Think off, which posed the question as the subject for its annual Philosophy Competition.  Reading more, I learned the contestants were invited to submit opinions in the form of an essay of 750 words or less, with a monetary award and book contract promised to those with best answers.

Maybe my friend thought I might want to enter the contest.  But while the idea of a philosophy competition has a quaint appeal, this one seemed deliberately misleading.  Isn't it possible that science and religion are allies rather than antagonists?  Doesn't the real peril arise when the two are seen as stark alternatives rather tan as natural partners?  The timing of the contest, on the edge of the twenty-first century, was an alarming indication that the warfare between science and religion - a running skirmish for the past four hundred years - is still unresolved and spilling over now into a whole new millennium. 

Gary Kowalski serves our congregation in Burlington, Vermont as its minister and his most recent book Science and The Search For God argues that the antagonism between science and religion stems from an argument between bad science and bad religion,  and he writes convincingly the most recent scientific research and theory compels us "to move beyond materialism toward an understanding of the world that includes the realities of consciousness and spirit.  In the twenty-first century,  human beings have less reason than before to feel they hold a privileged or special position in the cosmos, but more cause than ever to feel connected and akin to all that is." 

Gary Kowalski provides his readers a wise and thoughtful guide to wrestling with one of religion's perennial problems, what do (we think) we know and how do we know what (we think) we know.  Don't do a book reports sermon on this book, but ponder it and it may give birth to a dozen reflections over the years.