Has Science Displaced the Soul?
Debating Love and Happiness- Authors:
- |
- Publisher:
- 2005
Summary
Can science explain powerful human emotions such as love and happiness? Or, are these emotions something more than the action of biochemicals and electrical impulses? Science is constantly uncovering the mysteries of our nature, but we are uneasy about submitting our most intimate feelings to its scrutiny. Religion tells us that God is love but neuroscience counters with love as a well-timed trickle of transmitters and hormones. In the 21st century, is it necessary to discard our traditional beliefs of a loving God in favor of dopamine? With doctorates in both mathematics and theology, Kevin Sharpe explores these notions and asks the question, Has Science Displaced the Soul?
Unflinching in facing these issues, Sharpe provides a clear and current summary of the discoveries of science and what our spiritual traditions still have to offer in the ongoing effort to understand our deepest urges. He confronts serious unanswered questions. How can the Divine direct a random process like evolution? How can we reconcile the big bang with creation out of nothing? Does it make sense to claim that the non-biological Divine shares in human purposes and desires? Sharpe's solution is controversial since it requires that we demolish and reconstruct some of our most trusted conceptions. By examining the ways in which scientific and religious claims can be harmonized, he offers a radical and powerful interpretation of love and happiness in the divine context.
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Bibliographic data
- Copyright year
- 2005
- ISBN-Print
- 978-0-7425-4264-8
- ISBN-Online
- 978-1-4616-6539-7
- Publisher
- Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 186
- Product type
- Book Titles
Table of contents
- Preface No access
- Acknowledgments No access
- Chapter I: Happiness and Spiritual Traditions No access Pages 1 - 12
- Chapter 2: Happiness and Contemporary Science No access Pages 13 - 26
- Interlude I: An Unhappy Conflagration No access Pages 27 - 40
- Chapter 3: Love and Spiritual Traditions No access Pages 41 - 54
- Chapter 4: Love and Contemporary Science No access Pages 55 - 68
- Interlude 2: An Unloving Conflagration No access Pages 69 - 78
- Chapter 5: Evolutionary Psychology: A Science Background No access Pages 79 - 90
- Chapter 6: Evolutionary Psychology: A Spiritual Background No access Pages 91 - 102
- Interlude 3: Philip Hefner's Conflagration Band-Aid No access Pages 103 - 112
- Interlude 4: Ted Peters' Conflagration Band-Aid No access Pages 113 - 124
- Chapter 7: Divine Projections No access Pages 125 - 134
- Chapter 8: Scientific Hypotheses No access Pages 135 - 146
- Interlude 5: Happiness, Love, and the Divine No access Pages 147 - 154
- Notes No access Pages 155 - 162
- Bibliography No access Pages 163 - 172
- Index No access Pages 173 - 184
- About the Authors No access Pages 185 - 186





