If you're interested in exploring that question via a novel, I suggest you pick up Transcendent Kingdom (2020). Using the intersection of neuroscience, addiction, and depression, Yaa Gyasi tells a memoir-like family tale which gently prodded me to consider how faith and science are not as mutually exclusive as I've often made them.
I don't know about you, but this long-lapsed Catholic, sometimes Unitarian, aspiring Buddhist struggles to square a strong belief in science with the many unexplainable miracles of the natural world and the unending mystery of bad choices we all make on occasion. Gyasi's protagonist faces those challenges and others, pushing her to question her rejection of her mother's unswerving faith. As the reader tags along with this talented young author, it's clear the novel's central dilemma has no solution. And that tantalizing ambiguity - carried through to the final sentences - prompted me to re-examine my scientific lens even more intensely. I need more than science to help me deal with the randomness of life. How about you?
Any book that guides me away from being reflexively skeptical is a book I can endorse. Transcendent Kingdom is that kind of book.
So glad you liked it and found it challenging to your reflexive thinking. I also found it so though I can't say the I can recall exactly my thoughts at the time I finished it.
ReplyDeleteNot-so-anonymous; Thanks for the comment.
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