Boyle on Atheism

Boyle on Atheism

Author: Robert Boyle

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 0802090184

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With Boyle on Atheism, J.J. MacIntosh has culled the Boyle manuscripts held at the Royal Society Library in London and transcribed the portions that relate to atheism, arranging them in the order Boyle appears to have intended.


Science and Religion in the Twenty-First Century

Science and Religion in the Twenty-First Century

Author: Russell Re Manning

Publisher: SCM Press

Published: 2013-01-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780334052951

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A stellar cast of leading theologians and scientists debating science and religion in the public arena. The Boyle lectures are a prestigious lecture series held annually in the City of London. Engaging themes at the cutting-edge of contemporary science and religion debates, from evolution and emergence to the psychology of religious beliefs.


Inspiration in Science and Religion

Inspiration in Science and Religion

Author: Michael Fuller

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2012-12-04

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1443843830

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All sorts of things may be described as ‘inspired’: a mathematical theorem, a work of art, a goal at football, a short-cut home from the shops. What lies behind all these? Where does ‘inspiration’ come from? Does it derive from a source external to the person inspired, or is it the end result of sheer hard work – or is it purely serendipitous? Within the fields of science and religion, the word ‘inspiration’ might be thought to carry very different connotations. But is there a degree of overlap? If scientists and religious thinkers alike may acknowledge the power of inspiration, do we have here an important area of convergence between two important areas of human discourse which are all too often believed to be opposed to one another? These were some of the issues considered at the 2011 conference of the Science and Religion Forum, held at Cumberland Lodge near Windsor. This book presents papers from that conference, including contributions from such major thinkers as Lord Winston, Linda Woodhead and John Hedley Brooke, among other leading scientific and theological practitioners. Their wide-ranging studies – and very diverse conclusions – will be of interest to a wide readership.


The Aspiring Adept

The Aspiring Adept

Author: Lawrence Principe

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-06-05

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0691186286

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The Aspiring Adept presents a provocative new view of Robert Boyle (1627-1691), one of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution, by revealing for the first time his avid and lifelong pursuit of alchemy. Boyle has traditionally been considered, along with Newton, a founder of modern science because of his mechanical philosophy and his experimentation with the air-pump and other early scientific apparatus. However, Lawrence Principe shows that his alchemical quest--hidden first by Boyle's own codes and secrecy, and later suppressed or ignored--positions him more accurately in the intellectual and cultural crossroads of the seventeenth century. Principe radically reinterprets Boyle's most famous work, The Sceptical Chymist, to show that it criticizes not alchemists, as has been thought, but "unphilosophical" pharmacists and textbook writers. He then shows Boyle's unambiguous enthusiasm for alchemy in his "lost" Dialogue on the Transmutation and Melioration of Metals, now reconstructed from scattered fragments and presented here in full for the first time. Intriguingly, Boyle believed that the goal of his quest, the Philosopher's Stone, could not only transmute base metals into gold, but could also attract angels. Alchemy could thus act both as a source of knowledge and as a defense against the growing tide of atheism that tormented him. In seeking to integrate the seemingly contradictory facets of Boyle's work, Principe also illuminates how alchemy and other "unscientific" pursuits had a far greater impact on early modern science than has previously been thought.


Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England 1640-1700

Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England 1640-1700

Author: Richard W. F. Kroll

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992-01-31

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780521410953

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This collection of essays looks at the distinctively English intellectual, social and political phenomenon of Latitudinarianism, which emerged during the Civil War and Interregnum and came into its own after the Restoration, becoming a virtual orthodoxy after 1688. Dividing into two parts, it first examines the importance of the Cambridge Platonists, who sought to embrace the newest philosophical and scientific movements within Church of England orthodoxy, and then moves into the later seventeenth century, from the Restoration onwards, culminating in essays on the philosopher John Locke. These contributions establish a firmly interdisciplinary basis for the subject, while collectively gravitating towards the importance of discourse and language as the medium for cultural exchange. The variety of approaches serves to illuminate the cultural indeterminacy of the period, in which inherited models and vocabularies were forced to undergo revisions, coinciding with the formation of many cultural institutions still governing English society.


Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe

Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe

Author: R. Crocker

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-14

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9401597774

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From a variety of perspectives, the essays presented here explore the profound interdependence of natural philosophy and rational religion in the `long seventeenth century' that begins with the burning of Bruno in 1600 and ends with the Enlightenment in the early Eighteenth century. From the writings of Grotius on natural law and natural religion, and the speculative, libertin novels of Cyrano de Bergerac, to the better-known works of Descartes, Malebranche, Cudworth, Leibniz, Boyle, Spinoza, Newton, and Locke, an increasing emphasis was placed on the rational relationship between religious doctrine, natural law, and a personal divine providence. While evidence for this intrinsic relationship was to be located in different places - in the ideas already present in the mind, in the observations and experiments of the natural philosophers, and even in the history, present experience, and prophesied future of mankind - the result enabled and shaped the broader intellectual and scientific discourses of the Enlightenment.


Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases

Gender and Boyle's Law of Gases

Author: Elizabeth Potter

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2001-04-22

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780253214553

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Boyle's Law, which describes the relation between the pressure and volume of a gas, was worked out by Robert Boyle in the mid-1600s. His experiments are still considered examples of good scientific work and continue to be studied along with their historical and intellectual contexts by philosophers, historians, and sociologists. Now there is controversy over whether Boyle's work was based only on experimental evidence or whether it was influenced by the politics and religious controversies of the time, including especially class and gender politics. Elizabeth Potter argues that even good science is sometimes influenced by such issues, and she shows that the work leading to the Gas Law, while certainly based on physical evidence, was also shaped by class and gendered considerations. At issue were two descriptions of nature, each supporting radically different visions of class and gender arrangements. Boyle's Law rested on mechanistic principles, but Potter shows us an alternative law based on hylozooic principles (the belief that all matter is animated), whose adherents challenged social stability and the status quo in 17th-century England.


The New Atheism, Myth, and History

The New Atheism, Myth, and History

Author: Nathan Johnstone

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-11

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 3319894560

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This book examines the misuse of history in New Atheism and militant anti-religion. It looks at how episodes such as the Witch-hunt, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust are mythologized to present religion as inescapably prone to violence and discrimination, whilst the darker side of atheist history, such as its involvement in Stalinism, is denied. At the same time, another constructed history—that of a perpetual and one-sided conflict between religion and science/rationalism—is commonly used by militant atheists to suggest the innate superiority of the non-religious mind. In a number of detailed case studies, the book traces how these myths have long been overturned by historians, and argues that the New Atheism’s cavalier use of history is indicative of a troubling approach to the humanities in general. Nathan Johnstone engages directly with the God debate at an academic level and contributes to the emerging study of non-religion as a culture and an identity.


Religion without God

Religion without God

Author: Ronald Dworkin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 0674728041

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In his last book, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions that men and women have asked through the ages: What is religion and what is God’s place in it? What is death and what is immortality? Based on the 2011 Einstein Lectures, Religion without God is inspired by remarks Einstein made that if religion consists of awe toward mysteries which “manifest themselves in the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, and which our dull faculties can comprehend only in the most primitive forms,” then, he, Einstein, was a religious person. Dworkin joins Einstein’s sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism—that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value—a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. Freedom of religion should flow not from a respect for belief in God but from the right to ethical independence. Dworkin hoped that this short book would contribute to rational conversation and the softening of religious fear and hatred. Religion without God is the work of a humanist who recognized both the possibilities and limitations of humanity.