|
Pilate asked Jesus "What is Truth?"1.2 The best answer I have
found is "And truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come;
and whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from
the beginning."1.3 Christian law teaches us we find truth when we love the Lord our God
with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and when we love our neighbors as ourselves.1.4
In evaluating anything, including science and religion, it is appropriate to start with what
we personally have and can experience, to expand this to the knowledge and experience of others
we trust, and to repeat this into the past (historians and archaeologists) and into the future
(scriptures and prophets).
My personal hypothesis, and the belief of many others with faith,
is that there are eternal truths. I have tested, and continue to test, this hypothesis through
the experiences of my life. I find facts always support those principles based on eternal
truths, as taught by the prophets and as found in the vicinity of a scientific or personal
paradox. Searching for and testing these principles has become the intellectual and spiritual
essence of my life. It requires an open mind to embark upon the exploration of this convoluted
matrix of science and religion.
There have been many books written on science and religion. A
renowned chemist in my church, Henry Eyring , wrote one that impressed me
when I read it in my college years. The book is titled "The Faith of a Scientist." Books
still in my personal library, which loosely fit this category include:
- A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
- An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon - John L. Sorenson
- Autobiography Mohandas K. Gandhi
- Christianity & The Age of the Earth - Davis A. Young
- Earth, In the Beginning - Eric N. Skousen
- Eastern Religions and Western Thought - S. Radhakrishnan
- Ecotopia a novel - Ernest Callenbach
- God and the New Physics - Paul Davies
- God, Man, and the Universe - Hyrum L. Andrus
- Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas R. Hofstadter
- Of Heaven and Earth - David L. Clark
- Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan
- The Creation Scriptures - William Lee Stokes
- The Holographic Universe - Michael Talbot
- The Holy Bible - several translations
- The Holy Science - Swami Sri Yukteswar
- The Mind of God - Paul Davies
- The Power of God - Mark A. Smith
- The Universe in a Nutshell - Stephen Hawking
- Understanding the Bible Through History & Archaeology - Harry M. Orlinsky
|