Physics and religion: what would Newton do?

by Marcia Z. Nelson, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 8/13/2008

While atheists have lately been busy loudly dismissing religion as irrational, perfectly rational scientists who are also believers have been steadily coming out of the religion closet to make scientific cases for God or to explore the physical basis of the religious experience. 

Physics is one discipline that lends itself to big questions. In Creative Evolution: A Physicist's Resolution between Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Quest Books, Oct.), physicist Amit Goswami continues plumbing quantum physics to argue that consciousness, not matter, is the ultimate basis of the universe. That fundamental law resolves current scientific paradoxes and makes science and religion compatible rather than antagonistic. "The fundamental hypothesis of all religions is that consciousness is the ground of being," he said at a recent appearance at The Theosophical Society of America in Wheaton, Ill. Reared a Hindu, Goswami came to America in the 1960s and taught physics at the University of Oregon for 35 years. Those who saw the 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know?, a sleeper hit about cosmology starring Marlee Matlin, will recognize the soft-spoken retired professor as one of that film's talking heads. 

Goswami says the current interest by scientists in religion is simply explained. At least some scientists are also people of faith who want to take a scientific look at spirituality and understand how it fits in the universe that science explains. "The motivation is to find a reason for spirituality," he said. "There must be room in science itself to explain spirituality." 

Another physicist, Frank J. Tipler, works on a scientific explanation for the central miracles of Christianity—the incarnation, virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus—in The Physics of Christianity (Doubleday, Aug. 19), releasing in paper. The Tulane University professor of mathematical physics says the book is his contribution to spreading the word. Marc J. Seifer, who teaches psychology at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I., also uses physics to study consciousness in Transcending the Speed of Light: Consciousness, Quantum Physics, and the Fifth Dimension (Inner Traditions, Aug.) PW will explore in more depth the science and religion intersection in its Religion Supplement in the October 27 magazine.