The Incompatibility of Science and Religion

Victor J. Stenger

Foreword by Dan Barker

Must reading for anyone interested in the interaction between religion and science

It has become the prevalent view among sociologists, historians, and some theistic scientists that religion and science have never been in serious conflict. Some even claim that Christianity was responsible for the development of science. In God and the Folly of Faith, physicist Victor Stenger shows that this conclusion flies in the face of the historical facts.

In a sweeping historical survey that begins with ancient Greek science and proceeds through the Renaissance and Enlightenment to contemporary advances in physics and cosmology, Stenger makes a convincing case that Christianity held back the progress of science for 1,000 years. It is significant, he notes, that the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century occurred only after the revolts against established ecclesiastic authorities in the Renaissance and Reformation opened up new avenues of thought.

The author goes on to detail how religion and science are fundamentally incompatible in several areas: the origin of the universe and its physical parameters, the origin of complexity, holism versus reductionism, the nature of mind and consciousness, and the source of morality.

In the end Stenger is most troubled by the negative influence that organized religion often exerts on politics and society. He points out antiscientific attitudes embedded in popular religion that are being used to suppress scientific results on issues of global importance, such as overpopulation and environmental degradation. When religion fosters a disrespect for science, it threatens the generations of humanity that will follow ours.

This thorough and hard-hitting critique is must reading for anyone interested in the interaction between religion and science.

Victor J. Stenger (Lafayette, CO) is adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller God: The Failed Hypothesis, and many other books, including The Fallacy of Fine Tuning, The New Atheism, Quantum Gods, The Unconscious Quantum, Has Science Found God?, The Comprehensible Cosmos, Timeless Reality, and Physics and Psychics.


375 pages   ·  ISBN 978-1-61614-XXX-X  · Paperback: $20 (6” x 9”) ·  Ebook: $11.99