Product Description A journalist investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God, says the blurb on the cover. The author, Lee Stroebel once was the legal editor at the Chicago Tribune, and a spiritual skeptic. Now he is a former teaching pastor at two of America's leading churches. In this book, Rev. Stroebel examines the theories that once led him away from God and refutes them.
Amazon.com Review Are Christianity and science incompatible? If there is a God, is he only an impersonal starter force? An introductory high school biology class first propelled Lee Strobel toward a life of atheism. God and science, he reasoned, were mutually exclusive. When the former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune converted to Christianity, he decided to investigate the science he had once accepted as truth. Did science point toward or away from God? As Strobel interviews a variety of scientists on everything from debunking evolutionary icons to the implications of the Big Bang to the existence of the human soul, he builds his case: scientific evidence points toward Intelligent Design.
Although the discussion often veers into the academic, Strobel works hard to make it accessible to those without scientific training. Throughout the book, he salts interview transcript information with interesting personal stories of his own spiritual and scientific quest for knowledge, as well as sometimes over-detailed descriptions of the actual interviews (right down to the type of beverages consumed). Each chapter contains suggestions for further reading on particular issues of science and faith.
Strobel concludes that, when correctly interpreted, science and biblical teaching support each other. He quotes physicist Paul Davies, "…science offers a surer path to God than religion." Open-minded readers will find that this book, and its questions for reflection and group study, invites conversation and investigation.--Cindy Crosby
The Bible and ScienceAugust 28, 2010 brokefoot 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
1. The Bible is not meant to be scientific. (No doubt one can have a point of view and play with numbers to get everything to line up, but seriously)
2. Science is not meant to be biblical. (Although it sure does require a lot of faith)
That being said, I have to ask myself over and over again - Do these authors even read the Bible?
I've now finished this book and actually feel guilty for not just turning to my Bible for answers.
In my opinion, The Case for Christ is a far better book. That book dealt with more realistic "evidence" or "facts" than The Case for a Creator (which is filled with theory's and idea's).
This book can be an interesting read, but one shouldn't take it seriously. For me, it has been a terrible distraction from my faith.
P.S. For those that take Lee Strobel's "skeptic" approach seriously, I think you missed the point. I took it as a theme or style for writing, not as his literal approach.
Fantastic Book!July 16, 2010 Charles A. Stewart I have an earned doctorate and have read The Case for A Creator three times and am going through it a fourth time. Strobel puts his training as a journalist (writing as simply as possible) and as an attorney (using critical thinking and following the evidence) together to produce an interesting, informative, and up-to-date evaluation of scientific research into the macro-universe (the universe) and the micro-universe (atoms and molecular structures). He interviews world-renown scholars who may have begun their scientific career as atheists, but have honestly followed the evidence to the most logical and sane conclusion: there must have been an Intelligent Designer. Strobel makes, I think, a powerful case that modern scientific research and cosmotology actually point mankind to the God of Creation, not to a blind evolutionary hypothesis. Get the book for reference and the CD to listen to over and over to take it ALL in! Enjoy!
1st time user very satisfiedJune 21, 2010 C. Gabel(Sacramento, CA, USA) 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was my 1st time ordering from Amazon. The book cost less than I expected,
and was in perfect condition. This was an excellent experience, and I would
certainly recommend it to my friends.
Great book for childrenMay 22, 2010 Novel Thoughts 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A really good book that helps children to think about the probabilities of design behind our very existence. Well done to Lee Strobel, this really is an excellent resource which will help children to think for themselves. Materialists should not fear children reading such books, as after all, shouldn't all views be heard?
Some other very good Christian books that are worth looking at are the fiction books 'Godstone' & 'Chosen Ones' and also the science book 'Who Made God?':
Godstone - The Kairos Boxes
Chosen Ones (Aedyn Chronicles, The)
Who Made God? Searching for a Theory of Everything
Makes Christians look ignorantMay 11, 2010 Tim Beazley(San Diego, CA United States) 6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Saint Augustine, a much wiser Christian than Lee Strobel will ever be, urged Christians not to spout scientific nonsense in conjunction with their Christian beliefs. Augustine worried that educated persons would recognize the stupidity of the scientific arguments and then hold Christianity itself to be equally stupid. Strobel should have heeded Augustine's advice.
Like most creationist books, the drivel in Strobel's CFAC is too extensive to be described in detail, but here are some highlights.
1. There's nothing wrong with authors having agendas. In fact, it's hard to imagine why an author would write anything at all if the author did not have an agenda. But it is objectionable when someone with a completely obvious agenda tries to pretend he's unbiased. Does Strobel really think we're stupid enough to believe he's an unbiased journalist here? Most, if not all, of Strobel's "expert" witnesses are associated with the same right-wing "think tank," the Dishonesty Institute. Stacking the deck like that makes Strobel's bias painfully obvious.
2. That Strobel is also an intellectual lightweight is also clear right from the very beginning, when he indicates that Darwinism played a key role in making him an atheist. That's just laughable. Darwinian evolution is taught at virtually every major Christian university in this country, and thousands upon thousands of Christian clergy -- including a number of Popes for God's sake! -- have publicly endorsed evolution as a scientifically valid explanation of the history of life on Earth. For God's sake, Darwinism didn't even make Darwin an atheist! Strobel offers no rational justification for his idiotic claim, nor does he provide any rational justification for his equally idiotic claims about the alleged conflict between Darwinism and his current religious beliefs. What a dunce.
3. Strobel's "experts" wander through various areas of science: the fossil record, comparative anatomy, abiogenesis, embryology, astronomy, biochemistry, information theory, and neurology. There's just one small problem: few if any of Strobel's "experts" appear to be particularly knowledgeable about the specific areas they address. Behe has a doctorate, but as far as I know has not published even a single peer-reviewed research article explicitly supporting ID in any mainstream science journal. Ditto for astronomer Gonzalez, whose scientific achievements are so meager that the university he taught at denied him tenure. Ditto for most if not all of the others. Strobel's buffoonery about his "experts" is especially obvious when he gushes over Meyer, calling him "one of the country's leading experts on origin-of-life issues." That's just stupid. To my knowledge Meyer has never published even a single, peer-reviewed article specifically on those issues in any recognized science journal. Not even one! What a dunce.
4. Darwin called his greatest book "one long argument." Strobel's CFAC could be called "One Long Argument from Ignorance." Over and over and over again, Strobel argues -- with the apparent approval of his "experts" -- that if modern science doesn`t currently have the answer to a particular question, then the correct answer must be "Goddidit." No wonder conservative Christians are so eager to sabotage high school science courses. Keeping students ignorant will provide more opportunities for Strobel's "experts" to argue that "Ignorance = God."
5. Some of the arguments Strobel presents are so stupid, they make one suspect deliberate dishonesty. For example, attacking Miller's origin-of-life experiments, Strobel's "expert" Wells dismisses the formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide produced during the experiment as mere "embalming fluid," but even beginning biochemistry students know that those are important parts of the process of synthesizing some of the basic amino acids needed for life. Wells apparently hopes that Christians are too ignorant to know that. What a sleaze.
6. And Behe is no better. Behe implies that Darwinism is virtually impervious to testing, but if that's true, how come there are so many creationist cranks -- including Behe himself!!! -- who claim to have found evidence "disproving" Darwinism? Behe also implies that intelligent design is very open to testing, but if that's true, how come Behe was publicly embarrassed by having to backtrack repeatedly on that very point under cross-examination during the Kitzmiller trial? Being forced against his will to tell the truth in open court made Behe appear to be as big a sleaze as Wells.
7. Both Wells and Behe are associated with the Dishonesty Institute. Not surprisingly, Strobel`s softball interrogation was completely inadequate to the task of keeping them or most of the other alleged "experts" honest. (The fact that Strobel was completely oblivious to the obvious inconsistency in Behe's argument -- Darwinism is not only untestable, it also fails numerous tests -- is another indication of Strobel's obvious bias.)
8. There were other apparent inconsistencies too. For example, Strobel uses the anthropic principle to argue that the universe was finely tuned to promote the appearance not only of life in general but of human life in particular; but Strobel's frequent, anti-evolution arguments imply that the universe was NOT that finely tuned after all, since God needed to intervene repeatedly in the history of life. Not only do the two arguments seem inconsistent, it also makes it appear that Strobel thinks that God wasn't smart enough to get it right the first time.
Being a Christian myself, I think it's sad that Christians like Strobel, Wells, Behe, Meyer, etc., publish such drivel. They do atheists a great favor by making Christians look so dumb.
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