Science and Religion

The New Answers Book

by Ken Ham

Average Rating:

"Howdy Folks, it's me agin. I read an' wrote a review for thuh previous eedition of this here book an figured I might as well do thuh same for this one. Fortunately for me, things don't change much in this eedition, so ah'll just copy an paste my previous review. Hope y'all enjoy it.

Folks, it don' git no better'n `iss. Yesiree, whut we have here is thuh ultimate in scientifical thinkin'. Them thar daggone eevolutionists should be scramblin' fer answers right about now. Mr. Ham, it's long over due a fine upstanding citizen an' obviously brilliant scientist lahk yo'self should once an fer awll put eevolution whar it right deserves to be, an' that shore ain't in no dang text book. I know you don't need no help Mr. Ham, but I would like to make a few suggestions on how you might improve your darn near perfect book in the next edition.

First of awll, it is a known scientifical fact that thar is a, whatchucall, time/space warp up thar in them thar hills next side of Mt Ararat. Mainstream scientists will try to deny thuh existence of this warp, but ahm sure a man of your scientifical knowledge can demonstrate that it exists. What obviously happened after the flood is that kiwis, kangaroos, plapytusses an awll them other `stralian amingals like marsupials an' such crawled into the warp an' got zapped to `stralia. Cave amingals got zapped to their respected caves an' the amingals outside each respected cave that look like the amingals inside the caves got zapped outside of each respected cave.

Awlso, thuh orderly progression of amingals in thuh fossil record from less complex to more complex over time in thuh geological strata is `cause that's how they wuz arranged by thuh dinosaur farmers back then.

Thars a whole bunch of other stuff I would like to suggest to you, but I think ahll just be wastin' mah time `cause you obviously know everything. Dag nabbit, them dang scientists aint got nuttin' on you when it comes to this scientifical stuff. An' to think, they been diligently studyin' this stuff awll their lives an' you aint never even studied it yet you know more'n they do. Dag you're smart. Now imagine if'n you did study this stuff. You would probably be as smart as god."

Publisher: Master Book; imprint | More reviews: amazon.com

A Case for the Existence of God

by Dean L. Overman

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" This is a very carefully written book that presents a coherent case, but does not attempt to impose the author's conclusions on the reader.The coherency flows from a drawing together of powerful evidence from a vast variety of disciplines so that one can see a unity in the truths already established in logic, metaphysics, physics, information theory, molecular biology, astronomy, mathematics, aesthetics, ethics, literature, psychology, theology, and philosophy. It is this unity that provides for a coherent case for theism. Atheism cannot present such a coherency, but appears to present its evidence in a piecemeal, disunited fashion. Read this book slowly to follow the detailed arguments. "

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. | More reviews: amazon.com

Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge (Columbia Series in Science and Religion)

by B. Alan Wallace

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"Unless you are involved in neuroscience, it is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of the seismic shifts that are occurring in our knowledge about the brain, and the extraordinary consequences for our understanding of what it means to be human. Or the important implications of the new brain sciences for such issues as education and legal responsibility.

There is a robust and growing literature on Buddhism, Western psychology and cognitive science, consciousness and the brain. And this book is a new installment that summarizes some of this work.

The author of this fine book is B. Alan Wallace who spent fourteen years as a Buddhist monk and was ordained by the Dalai Lama. He is also the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. He has also translated a number of Tibetan Buddhist texts and is the author of several other books.

His central thesis is that although objective science has long said that religion, faith, belief and other subjective experiences are no more than epiphenomena of physical processes, that can and should change. He proposes that Western science and contemplative practices of Buddhism, and for that matter Christianity and Taoism, can be integrated to create a single discipline that he calls "Contemplative science." Alan contends that the development of this science is already underway and promises to illuminate both objective Western science and contemplative practices. It will in all likelihood bear many other fruits as well.

I am persuaded by what he has to say. I have never felt that we could or should relegate important human experiences to epiphenomena. Not only does it belittle meaningful experiences, it diminishes science.

As Albert Einstein once said, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." This book presents us with a roadmap to abolish both of those handicaps.

This is a must read for anyone interested in consciousness and human potential.

Highly recommended.


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life"

Publisher: Columbia University Press | More reviews: amazon.com

Measuring the Immeasurable: The Scientific Case for Spirituality

by Daniel Goleman

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Can your thoughts heal another person, even from across the globe? Can meditation create "superhuman" levels of perception? Do prayer and intention actually affect reality? A few decades ago, scientists would have dismissed such ideas as superstition. Today, a growing body of persuasive research has turned many scientific thinkers into believers in the power of spiritual practice. Measuring the Immeasurable brings together some of the most prominent and informed authorities on the new frontier where science and spirituality intersect, including: * Dr. Gary Small's (The Longevity Bible, Hyperion, 2007) new evidence on lifestyle changes that improve our brain function * Daniel Goleman (Social Intelligence, Bantam, 2007) on "the brain's melody" and our moment-to-moment perceptions * Gregg Braden (The Divine Matrix, Hay House, 2006) on how prayer and intention can affect events on a global scale * Bruce H. Lipton (The Biology of Belief, Mountain of Love, 2005) on the science of epigenetics, and how consciousness shapes our health, genetics, and evolution * Lynne McTaggart (The Field, Harper, 2008) with the latest results from her ongoing "Intention Experiment".

Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated | More reviews: amazon.com

Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds

by Phillip E. Johnson

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"As a defender of creation science, Phillip Johnson is a breath of fresh air. Nowhere are there indefensible scientific arguments for a young earth, or a worldwide flood that accounts for the fossil record, or any of the other endlessly recycled Henry Morris/Duane Gish nonsense that makes up so much of the creationist "young earth" camp. Johnson frames the question more on a philosophical level, pitting the presuppositions of both camps against one another (materialistic naturalism vs. theistic supernaturalism), and attempting to show that adherents of the first camp make just as many untestable and unsupportable assumptions as the adherents of the second. Johnson is a talented writer, and presents a positive argument for "opening" the debate by forcing the evolutionists to relax their dogmatic hold on the thinking in academia, and allow for a more open and free discussion of the actual issues, including evidence for supernatural intervention in the creation and evolution of life.Unfortunately, the only positive evidence Johnson suggests is Michael Behe's irreducible complexity argument, which is just a repackaged intelligent design model, and the conventional attack on biology's admitted problem with the incompleteness of the fossil record. Throughout the book, Johnson emphasizes the dominance of the materialistic philosophy that pervades every aspect of modern public education and academia. This predisposition, he argues, hopelessly biases any approach to scientific facts and prevents scientists from appreciating the fuller truth that's out there if only they would open their eyes (minds). Johnson repeatedly mischaracterizes the practice of science and the state of affairs in biological circles.Johnson's representation of the state of open mindedness in contemporary education is questionable. He seems to assume that the dominate role of a college education is to force memorization of a list of "materialistic" facts upon impressionable minds. As an educator, I see the situation as exactly the opposite. Thoughtful reflection and open minded investigation are far more common than Johnson seems to think.A few specific examples where I think Johnson misses the boat just as badly: page 113 "Evolutionary biology is a field whose cultural importance far outstrips its modest intellectual and scientific content." I think most biologists would take issue with the characterization of the content of their science as "modest."Page 114 "Biologists are at each others throats in private, fighting over every detail in the Darwinist scientific program. The versions of 'evolution' promulgated by Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould , for example, have hardly anything in common except their common adherence to philosophical materialism and their mutual dislike for supernatural creation." He goes on to strongly imply that this ongoing debate is somehow being hidden. Anything but. I assume Johnson has read Dawkins' and Gould's books and should know better. As for their versions of evolution being so different, I'd venture to say that their agreements are far more substantial than their disagreements, and maybe Johnson should examine the actual differences between the scientific views of Michael Behe and Duane Gish, for example. Other creationists have similarly sought to highlight and utilize the differences between various cosmologists and, for instance, the issue of the age of the universe. While there might be legitimate and sometimes bitter disputes between astrophysicists over the size of the Hubble Constant, this dispute hardly gives any hope to the young- earther who is holding out for a 6000 year old universe.Johnson's use of the example of evangelist Billy Graham deciding against studying the natural sciences and liberal theologies of his contemporaries strikes me as odd. If the naturalistic position is so untenable due to its weak foundation, what does Christianity and creation science have to fear by its presence in academia? How would Billy Graham's witness and testimony for Christianity have been weakened by studying the opposing philosophies? Is Johnson suggesting that attrition from traditional evangelical and fundamentalist circles can be stemmed by preventing the study of modern science?Johnson's book is admittedly aimed at young readers, students who are going off to college to be faced with the inevitable "indoctrination" of materialism. But I'm not sure what his bottom line advice is for them. Does he wish them to shun the life sciences (as well as astronomy, archeology, geology, and other sciences) where the creation science theories will receive little sympathy? Or does he expect their professors to actually engage in the debate over the relative merits of their respective presuppositions? Does he believe that Christianity (or any religion) actually has anything to fear from the discoveries of science?I wish Johnson well. His logic and rhetoric are powerful and he's a good arguer. However, I fear that his tactics will not advance the cause of creation science very much. Until scientists who believe in supernatural creation are willing to go toe to toe in the scientific journals, arguments of materialistic bias will yield few advances in the understanding of the origin of life.And even if they do, this approach is destined to fail. Science is the study of phenomena that can be observed, tested, and replicated. Science relies on the construction of logical arguments that can be supported or falsified by such observation and testing. By definition, science will seek explanations for the apparently unexplainable. This is implicit in the process of scientific discovery. Religious belief systems ask that we accept as true that which cannot be seen or tested (Hebrews 11:1). Religion seeks certainty and welcomes the appeal to authority (e.g., thus saith the Lord). It is at this point that the two belief systems must part ways and agree to pursue their independent goals. Forcing one upon the other results in untenable scientific positions (such as most of creation science) or watered down and compromised religious traditions bereft of their spiritual meaning."

Publisher: InterVarsity Press | More reviews: amazon.com

Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (Buddhism and Modernity)

by Donald S. Lopez

Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day, both Buddhists and admirers of Buddhism have proclaimed the compatibility of Buddhism and science. Their assertions have ranged from modest claims about the efficacy of meditation for mental health to grander declarations that the Buddha himself anticipated the theories of relativity, quantum physics and the big bang more than two millennia ago.
In Buddhism and Science, Donald S. Lopez Jr. is less interested in evaluating the accuracy of such claims than in exploring how and why these two seemingly disparate modes of understanding the inner and outer universe have been so persistently linked. Lopez opens with an account of the rise and fall of Mount Meru, the great peak that stands at the center of the flat earth of Buddhist cosmography—and which was interpreted anew once it proved incompatible with modern geography. From there, he analyzes the way in which Buddhist concepts of spiritual nobility were enlisted to support the notorious science of race in the nineteenth century. Bringing the story to the present, Lopez explores the Dalai Lama’s interest in scientific discoveries, as well as the implications of research on meditation for neuroscience. Lopez argues that by presenting an ancient Asian tradition as compatible with—and even anticipating—scientific discoveries, European enthusiasts and Asian elites have sidestepped the debates on the relevance of religion in the modern world that began in the nineteenth century and still flare today. As new discoveries continue to reshape our understanding of mind and matter, Buddhism and Science will be indispensable reading for those fascinated by religion, science, and their often vexed relation.

Publisher: University Of Chicago Press | More reviews: amazon.com

The Phenomenon of Man

by Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

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"Simply astounding. These are about the only words that I think best describe The Phenomenon of Man. Certainly, this has to be one of the most wildly interesting books that I have ever read. Most of us know and at least vaguely understand evolution, and also theists usually respond defensively that there is no conflict between God and evolution. But rare is the person who seeks to intergrate evolution into God's large-scale, dynamic plan refusing even just to argue for some "Design" in the universe. Teilhard argues that with the onset of animals capable of internal reflection, human beings, evolution takes a turn "inward". The consciousnesss is now what evolves, evolving toward an Omega Point with Teilhard sees as Christ. Certainly in our lives we can see the appeal of this view. Shouldn't our lives be a constant growth, an evolution toward complete oneness with God? Teilhard is a genius and the best modern example of the intellectual firepower that can come from the Catholic Church and the Jesuits in particular. Although he and the Church didn't always get along (most of his stuff was censored in some way) I think this is due to the fact that Teilhard was so far ahead of his time that the hierarchy really didn't know what to do with him. Surely, 50 or even 20 years from now Teilhard de Chardin will be regarded as one of the most prolific Catholic minds in the last few centuries."

Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics | More reviews: amazon.com

Finding God in the Questions: A Personal Journey

by G. Timothy Johnson

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"Timothy Johnson is a physician-he the staff ABC News doctor of the moment-and an ordained minister. In Finding God in the Questions he has, essentially, written two books in tandem-a deeply thorough and thoughtful theological inquiry and his personal history and faith journey. The two books-in-tandem format works very well as Johnson provides us with both intensely framed questions of faith as well as the clues and basis for understanding his own answers to those questions.What I especially like about this book is that it is in fact an inquiry, not a demagoguery in wolfs clothing as so many "spiritual examination" books are these days. I'm tired of the slew of books purporting to be examinations on faith that are in fact merely thinly disguised polemics that in fact dictate what one "has" to believe to be Christian. Johnson here is truly in examination mode, providing a challenging list of questions and presenting his own assessment of possible answers without ever becoming dictatorial in the process.Not all will agree with Dr. Johnson's conclusions. He is obviously deeply skeptical of much of what passes as "acceptable" Christian dogma in these intolerant times. In fact, his skepticism reaches the point where he concludes he cannot even really call himself a Christian given the prevailing ethos but rather refers to himself as a "follower of Jesus". Obviously, those that hold the utterly dogmatic and intolerant viewpoints that so sadden Dr. Johnson will reject his conclusions out of hand-tragic given that they are the ones most in need of a truly thoughtful self examination such as the one Dr. Johnson undertakes here.In the end one is left with a moving and though provoking book that inspires one to think seriously about many of the questions Dr. Johnson raises. That, obviously, was clearly his intent. That leaves us with a book that is a success from everyone's viewpoint. This is a truly great book."

Publisher: InterVarsity Press | More reviews: amazon.com

Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World

by Ken Wilber

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"The book mostly presents a theory of how to theorize about spirituality, rather than simply delivering a direct theory of spirituality. By this late stage, we must set high standards for Wilber to meet, for the content of his theory and his presentation of it. This presentation is not as condensed, polished, and finished as one would expect from the expert on integral spirituality; it's a hashing-out of a rebuttal to one aspect of postmodernism, and a repeated urging to take that one aspect into consideration. It has an unbalanced emphasis on "the myth of the given", as though the only aspect of postmodernism to think about is how mystic experiencing is shaped largely by cultural factors. The presentation gives the sense Wilber is still in the midst of working-out these ideas; we'll have to wait for someone else to boil down his top-heavy use of jargon into plain-spoken English in a balanced, polished presentation with straightforward subheadings.

Instead of providing a clear and useful explanation of mystic-state phenomenology, he fills page after page with discussion of "the myth of the given". The "integral theory" part of the book threatens to obscure and eliminate the "spirituality" topic proper; the title word 'Integral' gets more emphasis than 'Spirituality'. The result is surprisingly heavy in hashing-out general theory of how to be integral, and light in specifically religious-transformation theory.

Wilber points out that for a coherent discussion of spirituality, we must specify whether by 'spiritual' we mean the highest levels in any developmental line, a separate special line of development, a peak altered state, or a particular attitude. Lower stages unconsciously do a downward translation of great spiritual treatises to lower developmental levels.

Per Wilber, spiritual paths need to be supplemented with an Integral Life Practice including understanding the Integral model (View, Framework) of states and stages, so that you succeed at reaching and stabilizing more developed stages, not merely accessing transient higher states. Put your existing path into the Integral framework, producing Integral Buddhism, integral Christianity (Keating), Integral Kabbalah (Zalman, Moshe Idel). Affirm your faith and path as it is, and make it Integral. Include pre-modern (traditional religious themes), modern (rational, worldcentric) and postmodern (awareness of social constructivism and implicit/covert power-relations). Integral religion opens up in breadth instead of narrowing into fundamentalism or absolutism.

We must find, face, and re-own the most feared and resisted aspects of ourselves. Meditation fails to get rid of the shadow elements.

Full Self-Realization or Enlightenment is, becoming one with all states and stages, transcending and including them all, including all aspects and structures of the Kosmos. Meditation enables you to move up two stages per four years.

The religious traditions have no explicit concept or understanding of Vertical structure-stages, so such a framework is needed. Wilber's assertion "no explicit concept" is debatable in light of astral ascent mysticism or Ptolemaic framework of mystic ascent through the levels of the heavens, a master theme of Western religious history; Wilber's collective-evolution master hypothesis tends to overly downplay any equivalent stage-system in antiquity - instead, he should recover, identify, and leverage more of the Integral aspects that were present in traditional religion.

Wilber asserts that religion, such as American Buddhism, needs to appreciate the I/Thou relationship: worship, devotion, prayer, submission, and surrender to the divine.

Spirituality was omitted from the modern revolution because religion had become violently harmful; as a result, spirituality was infantilized and frozen at the mere childhood mythic-membership stage. Religion became a repressed shadow and science became the modern religion (scientism), though science was incapable of providing for "ultimate concern". Secular humanists repressed the spiritual developmental line, and religious defenders froze the spiritual developmental line at the mythic stage, neither faction allowing modern spirituality to emerge. The entire spirituality developmental line was mistakenly identified by all as spirituality in its merely mythic-stage version.

Wilber's evolutionism tends to belittle former eras in order to prop up the model of cultural evolution. His evolutionism requires that he negatively portray ancient religion as barely understood by all but a few practitioners. He portrays ancient religion as archaic magic/mythic gullibility, but writes of selected individuals: "Already Clement and Origen and Maimonides were [using deeper and higher meanings] with their allegorical method. The religious myths simply *are not empirically real*, and they knew it, and so while honoring the myths, one must move from myth to reason to trans-reason in order to plumb the depths of spiritual realities. ... allow the line of spiritual intelligence to continue its growth ... into the higher levels, and, conversely, forcing the myths to be [literally] real is the surest way to remain frozen at that level and slip into a pernicious ... Fallacy." p. 193, his emphasis. Wilber's cultural-evolution driven model implies that all but a few of the earliest Christians misunderstand their religion and took it gullibly, and these few later, unusually advanced commentators managed to "move to" a "deeper" understanding that wasn't present among earliest Christians.

He portrays ancient religion as mostly archaic belief in magical myth, excepting Neoplatonism. Wilber's model of integral scholarship equates the East with religious enlightenment while equating the West exclusively with modern science, totally ignoring the topic of ancient Western religion as though it doesn't exist except in the form of Neoplatonism and the mysteriously enlightened individuals ahead of their time such as Jesus and Origen.


Despite the added-on bubble labeled "also: altered states" on his quadrant diagram, he doesn't provide a treatment of entheogens (visionary plants). He mentions Ayahuasca and shamanism - an important topic - but tends to oppose "trained" mysticism to "exogenous" (ingesting external, visionary plants), as though Ayahuasca and shamanistic use of plants, or religious use of entheogens, historically involves no training. He is moderately positive about drugs in raves, compared to the lack of authentic spirituality in current institutionalized religious practice, but he refrains from seriously entering into the topic. Wilber defines 3 or 4 states, starting with waking, dreaming, and unconsciousness, equated with Gross, Subtle, and Causal; there's also Nondual. Wilber may be presenting a simplified model here; for example, he mentions psychoactive drugs accessing peak states, but psychoactive drugs produce neither waking, dreaming, nor deep sleep unconsciousness.


The most important role for the traditional religions is to act as a sacred conveyor belt to move people through all the stages of psychospiritual development. The religions must provide a version of the religion suited to each developmental stage. Science cannot provide this; only religion or the religions are capable of providing this - providing for the early stages of a person's religious growth and the later, more advanced stages. Christianity used to only provide for the early, mythic, magic, barely developed stages - even if Clement and Origen saw its higher potentials - and Christianity now needs to add something it didn't have before, which is versions suited for more advanced stages of integral psychospiritual development. Only religion can provide higher levels of religion in order to stop religious violence.

Religions should now add nonordinary states of consciousness to their practices, to act as this developmental conveyor belt. The more you experience various states of consciousness, the faster you progress into advanced psychospiritual developmental stages. Meditation or contemplation is the only practice that accesses these states and causes this developmental advancement. Vatican II was a step in the right direction, toward an accommodating plurality-accepting, entire worldcentric version of the religion.

Higher levels of consciousness have developed since antiquity when the religions were created. These religions were originally present in their child-phase versions that were magico-mythic, ethnocentric, and relevant only to early-stage development of the individual. These religions now need to add to their original versions, for the first time, new, higher-level versions. People are falsely forced to choose between infantile, mentally undeveloped archaic religion (developmentally frozen and arrested) versus mentally developed modern scientific culture. Modern liberal education represses spiritual development beyond the fundamentalist, tribal, literalist stage; only religion can solve this by providing a new version suited for more advanced spiritual development.

Future religion should omit metaphysics, which is guilty of monological blindness. That is, religion needs to avoid reifying postulated or subjectively experienced religious constructs taken as directly perceived referents, to instead become aware of how subjective experiencing unconsciously employs perspectives that are given by one's culture.


Do objects, such as ecosystems, exist regardless of our thinking, or outside our minds? Wilber's answer is, partially, and maybe. He sometimes equates our *maps* of reality with a naive *mirror* of reality and lumps "map" and "mirror" together to affirm that only when something enters consciousness, does the thing exist; the mind creates or modifies reality. Yet on the same page, he says that the things (such as ecosystems) do exist apart from our map or mental mirror of them. Then he emphasizes in all-caps that we can't know whether they exist aside from the mind. He could tone down the overstated, sensationalist "minds in culture create reality" component, while keeping the straightforward, valuable point that we need to be conscious of what worldview we adopt and how it affects our perception. We should mind our maps and not mistake them for a perfect mirror of reality. Religion must reject culturally given metaphysics sky-castles while retaining spirituality. Wilber's loose language sometimes denies that metaphysics or ecosystems has an existence of-itself, outside particular minds. Per intersubjective constructivism, groups of minds create reality in-itself; that view disparages the mental-representation model because it is naive about the fact that intersubjective culture constructs the individual's subjective experience.

Transpersonal spiritual realities are partly constructed by networks of implicit cultural backgrounds - meditation can't show you that. Unawareness of that falls into the error of "the myth of the [simply] given" or "the philosophy of [straightforward] consciousness". Personal mystic-state perception, when divorced from alertness to intersubjective cultural construction and awareness of societal power-relations, is rife with unperceived distortions. Ecological systems-theory is not spirituality, or not the bulk of it. Metaphysics is covert manipulative power. Postmodernism is wrong in claiming that there are no extra-linguistic realities, per lower-left, social quadrant absolutism.


Per Wilber, sound knowledge requires an injunction (to know x, do y), an experience, and communal confirmation with others who do the same, regarding what was done and thereby seen. Spiritual assertions aren't meaningless, when they're properly framed as "to observe x, meditate". In contrast, metaphysics is to be discarded (while retaining spirituality), because metaphysics is assertion without injunction and evidence. Wilber assumes that metaphysics was put forward without injunction or practice, but it's not clear that metaphysics systems lacked injunctions and practice.

The experiences behind metaphysics were authentic, but the interpretations outmoded. Metaphysics is false because it claims to be beyond physics, when in fact spiritual experiencing still involves physics.


We have to define what enlightenment should mean in all eras, given the premise that the cultures were at different developmental evolutionary stages. Someone 2000 years ago can't have gone through all the developmental stages that are available today, because some stages, such as systemic GlobalView, had not yet been developed. Here Wilber should discuss the Roman imperial universality claim (its claim to redeem individual, society, and nature throughout the entire world) and the New Testament Christian universalist counter-claim reaction. Wilber discusses when worldcentric structures first arose for a few people. He doesn't mention the claims that Augustus Caesar brought peace to and was savior of the entire world, meaning the entire Roman empire, consisting of many peoples, and how the "only Jesus is savior" claim (which Wilber considers ethnocentric) stood against that specific claim.

Wilber should practice integral scholarship on the subject of the New Testament version of Christianity, including sacred meals, mystic-state initiation, and the deliberate construction of alternative social-political structures. Integral Christianity should include historical awareness of early Christian social-political structuring. Wilber writes that the religions should begin adding altered states, as though Christianity didn't start with the Eucharistic access to the Holy Spirit. He leaves out the group mystic-state experiencing present in the mystery-religions. Wilber discusses integral religion without discussing the essential, most-important topic of New Testament Christianity in its original religious and social-political context; Wilber could learn much from Richard Horsley. He doesn't cover how myth functioned in New Testament Christianity and the Eucharist in the Roman imperial context; the myth-suffused mystery-religions and their sacred meals; or ancient Western religion and Western Esotericism.


The book relies on jargon unnecessarily, with too few definitional cues and no glossary. The publisher needs to do a better job for readability. 'Postmodernism' means the postmodern revolution - awareness of cultural intersubjectivity. 'Monological' means the obliviousness to cultural intersubjectivity, obliviousness to cultural constructivism (how reality is largely constructed by social collections of people); lack of awareness of how subjective experiencing unconsciously employs perspectives that are given by one's culture. 'Modern' largely means the prohibition of subjectivity and denial of subjective experiencing.

'Zone #2' is the scientific, external study of individuals' subjective interior experience; Wilber considers consciousness of Zone #2 highly valuable - he means Zone #2 in connection with Zone #4, becoming highly aware of how intersubjective culture largely creates the individual's filter through which religious mystic-state perceptions seem to give a direct view into divine reality.

Religion is currently dysfunctional and developmentally arrested; Wilber calls for each traditional religion to add (and reclaim and resurrect, I'd say) higher versions of the religion, in an Integral context; this is the role he defines for religion in the late modern and post-modern eras."

Publisher: Shambhala | More reviews: amazon.com

Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview

by Albert M. Wolters

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"Wolters has done a terrific job of explaining how Christians are to relate to all of the created world in this brief treatise. In a time in which Christians in America lack a clear vision of their place in and with society, many have succumbed to the belief that that some areas are less important and less holy than others. Having forced life into a dichotomy of "secular" and "sacred" activities, Christendom has lost its sense of the inherent value and goodness of life outside the walls of their Sunday School classroom. With more and more Christians abandoning their posts and ceasing to believe in the inherent goodness of culture and society, it is no wonder that the machinery of soceity has come to a grinding and nauseating halt. The air is ripe for believers to rediscover the truth about God's love and plans for the redemption of all of life and to realize that the myth of the sacred/secular dichotomy is nothing more than the ancient, but everpresent, heresy of Gnosticism which has always plaugud the church (and no doubt always will til Christ comes back). Creation is intrinsically a good thing. Sin entered the world and like a parasite attached itself to all things. But God, in His everlasting and everreaching mercy, has brought about a plan of redemption, not only to individual persons, but also to the world as a whole, through the death and resurrection of His Son. This short, yet masterfully written book (98 pages), will impart to Christians an intoxicating vision and direction about the world at large that is much needed in the Church today. _Creation Regained_ offers a comforting and encouraging word, reassuring the troubled Christian with the implications of redemption and how they must drive our interaction with culture. God desires the restoration of all of life, and Christians are his salt and light to accomplish that purpose. A must read for all who seriously struggle to understand their place in the world."

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company | More reviews: amazon.com