[SteveJolivette]

I would like to highly recommend HBL’er Frederick Seiler’s newly published book, God Versus Nature: The Conflict Between Religion and Science in History.  (Disclaimer and credentials: I have discussed the book with Fred and read drafts of it since 2006; I have a Ph.D. in history.)  

The conflict of science and religion has been seen by past historians as an issue of “reason vs. faith.”  That is not wrong.  But Seiler shows how the conflict is best understood in AR’s terms of the primacy of existence—the scientific approach—as opposed to the primacy of consciousness—the religious approach.  These premises are direct corollaries of philosophical axioms—one cannot get more fundamental than that. [Chapter four, passim]

Few non-Objectivists know these terms and their meaning.  But explained clearly and presented in a historical and philosophical context, as the author does, they should be understandable to any reader who is keenly interested in the subject.

The book is commendable for the author’s clarity, succinctness of expression, and careful scholarship.  Personally, I am impressed above all by his economy of words and concomitant power of expression.  This makes for an easy read, a mere 203 pages for a thorough coverage of this important and sweeping historical/philosophical issue.

Chapters 12 through 15 deal with our present Kantian era.  Readers here may know that Kant’s philosophy is openly primacy-of-consciousness.  While its modern adherents often sneer at traditional religion, Kantian philosophy is as fundamentally anti-scientific as religion was and is. This helps explain the quasi-religious and hysterically non-scientific phenomenon of modern environmentalism.   Is environmentalism a religion?  Seiler adduces an impressive number of ways in which it is.  Only by his dealing with the issue in Objectivist fundamentals can one see the essential similarity of our modern, post-Kantian, era with the religious tradition of the past: the forms of non-rational belief may change, but not their essence.

The book has many, many more highlights than I can mention here (my Amazon review mentions more of them).

God Versus Nature is one of a select few books that compellingly apply Objectivism to important historical/philosophical subject matter.  It shows the power of Objectivism, in proper hands, to get to the fundamentals of the matter, and to get it right, and very clearly.    

The book is excellent.  And the price is good. . . .

/sb

[FredSeiler]

Re: Steve Jolivette’s post 101809 of 5/19/20

I am happy to announce that I have created a Substack for my writings on issues pertaining to my book God Versus Nature as well as other issues in the history of science.  My most recent post addresses why some historians argue that the ancient Greeks were not the creators of science:

https://seileronscience.substack.com/

Fred Seiler

*sb

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