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When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist
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Average Rating:  out of 70 Reviews
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Price: $22.95
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Sale: $15.07
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Manufacturer: Sorin Books
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EAN (European Article Number): 9781933495132
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Chet Raymo
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Publisher: Sorin Books
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Dewey Decimal Number: 211.7092
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Publication Date: 2008-09
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Reading Level: 148
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Description: Best-selling author of sixteen books and a long-time writer of the popular column "Science Musings" in the Boston Globe, Chet Raymo invites readers to explore "the beautiful and terrible mystery that soaks creation." In what he describes as a "late-life credo," renowned science writer Chet Raymo narrates his half-century journey from the traditional Catholicism of his youth to his present perspective as a "Catholic agnostic." As a scientist, Raymo holds to the skepticism that accepts only verifiable answers, but as a "religious naturalist," he never ceases his pursuit of "the beautiful and terrible mystery that soaks creation." Raymo assembles a stunning array of scientists, philosophers, mystics, and poets who help him discover "glimmers of the Absolute in every particular." Whether exploring the connection of the human body to the stars or the meaning of prayer of the heart, these challenging reflections will cause believers and agnostics alike to pause and pay attention.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: An agnostic asks the big questions, says the answers are everywhere |
Date: 2008-11-28 |
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Details: In some ways this book can been seen as an answer to Bill Maher's thesis of his documentary "Religulous". In it he asks the religious to ask more questions. Raymo asks these questions in a series of essays collected here. Like Maher, Raymo was raised Roman Catholic. Unlike Maher, he still revels in the majesty of the Catholic organization. His central thesis is that the specific views of God are attempts to define the undefinable. In many ways he offers a worldview similar to the Quaker tradition; God is in everyone and everything; but that God is always unknowable in any direct sense. Those seeking alternative viewpoints to the strong theist and atheist arguments may be intrigued. Those on the ends of that spectrum will find Raymo's conclusions weak and unpersuasive. |
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Review Summary: An Emotional Reverence for Science |
Date: 2008-11-24 |
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Details: When God is Gone, Everything is Holy by Chet Raymo is an essay by a formerly religious person that, through an understanding of the Scientific Method, abandons his belief in a personal deity. I identified somewhat with the author, although his Catholic upbringing and education went much deeper than mine. Where Raymo lost me was with his "religious naturalism" and his desire to dress his appreciation for the material world in some kind of sectarian costume.
My favorite parts of this book were in the early chapters, where Raymo reviewed the poetry and philosophy of others who had had their faith tested (and sometimes broken) by an awaking to the power of data and reason to explain the Universe. Chet Raymo obviously thinks like a scientist: he questions what it is he thinks he knows. And, apparently, even when his questions led him to doubt long-held beliefs, he felt it necessary to challenge his new conclusions by analyzing how those of the past have dealt with similar situations.
Much of the book, however, centers on making the case that belief in a personal god is no longer necessary because so much of what we now know can be explained without one -- a largely futile attempt to win believers over to the side of "religious naturalism." As though the problem with fundamentalists and others that interpret religious texts literally is that they simply haven't heard the new news.
I found When God is Gone, Everything is Holy to read like a long letter from a sensitive and well-read friend. Those readers better able to identify with the author might find strength in Raymo's contemplations and respect for tradition. For myself, the answers I am seeking do not require so much emotion. |
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Review Summary: Quirky but interesting book |
Date: 2008-11-21 |
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Details: When I read Chet Raymo's book I didn't know quite how to take it. His personal story is interesting but I don't exactly follow his arguments about either why everything is holy or why God is gone. But in his telling of his personal journey and the thoughts he does come up with, I found much to think on. That's pretty rare for me to disagree with an authors main premise but actually his telling of it and the thinking that his questioning triggered in me. The thinkers he quotes are thought provoking too.
I guess it's not so much about belief or conclusions as that following the author's personal journey has gotten me to reflect on my own, which is generally a good thing. And, even though I follow his thinking and the sources he draws from, I end up with different conclusions. But I think that would be okay with him.
So, if you're questioning religion but are not ready to throw out holiness with your rejection of a church's tenets you might find the personal journey outlined in this book will illuminate your own to some degree. |
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Review Summary: Not what I was hoping it would be |
Date: 2008-11-20 |
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Details: If I'd checked this book out from the library, I probably would have returned it after just a few chapters -- the book has a lot of potential, but the writing just isn't engaging as it could be.
While the subject matter itself is really interesting to me -- the ways in which someone has pulled together a personal spirituality drawing what he found the most valuable from Catholicism, nature, history, science, and atheism -- the author wanders off on tangents. More importantly, he seems to skip over the "meat" of what I was expecting here -- the real depth of his own experiences that brought him to this viewpoint. While he does describe his experiences, he does so in a way that seems more detached than when he is describing his role models from history. |
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Review Summary: Hearts and mind in the right place, but a slow read |
Date: 2008-11-15 |
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Details: If nothing else, Chet Raymo is an honest man. He values science, the scientific method and the enlightenment mindset that spawned them. He glories in the knowledge and power that it has given to human beings. He is in awe of the universe -- both in the grandness of its scale and in the elegant complexity of its workings. There is much in this book that shares ideas and values with the great atheistic reads of our time, notably Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Christopher Hitchens' "God is not Great." Ultimately, however, Raymo holds back, if only slightly in "throwing out the Baby Jesus" (or Gautama) with the bathwater. Though he is opposed to the idea of "God in the Gaps" -- the theist's seemingly irresistible desire to locate (and relocate) divinity in as-yet-unknown areas of knowledge, he is unwilling to suggest that once the gaps are filled with scientific knowledge, God will finally have been dethroned. Raymo argues for a sense of creation that springs from alternate Catholic writers like Meister Eckhart and Teilhard de Chardin, which sees God as expressed through Creation, rather than hidden behind it. This sense of sacramentality -- of essence expressed as matter -- is small "c" catholic, so Raymo feels, without being overtly theological. He remains agnostic on the great religious questions -- the divinity of Jesus, the reality of the Trinity, etc. But he refuses to let go of his sense of wonder, grounded in the human ability to be bowled over by contemplation of the secrets of the universe. It is in this sense that he is a "religious" naturalist. While this may be thin (or even heretical) gruel to those who adhere to traditional faiths, it is Raymo's Truth.
Don't look for a book that makes the case or Raymo's thesis. "When God is Gone" is more poetic and reflective than polemical. This makes the book a rather slow and sometimes tedious read. But as the testament of a man of science in the early twentieth century -- one who values the evidence of his mind as well as his heart -- it is a non-trivial (though not terribly illuminating) addition to the efforts of honest human beings to explore the boundary between religion and science. |
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