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The GOD PROBLEM

 


The GOD PROBLEM

How a Godless Cosmos Creates

By Howard Bloom

Reviewed by

     Geoffrey W. Sutton


In the beginning…that is about 13.787 billion years ago our universe began.

Bloom invites us to return to the beginning so we might observe how the universe created itself without recourse to supernatural explanations. Time is a stairway. On each post-big-bang step we pause to observe what’s new. What’s unfolding. Eventually, humans emerge on earth and begin to use models to represent their world to modify their environment.

Soon humans are standing on the steps of time and looking at the stars. Bloom captures various moments when our forebears began to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos. At first, the progress is small. Primitive ideas slowly become more complex. At times, Bloom meanders and repeats phrases like a parent reminding child of life’s truisms. 

Then, a few centuries ago, Bloom is off and running from one scientist to another scooping up bits of knowledge that, when organized into mathematical formulas and multidimensional models, suggest how a naturalist might account for the emergence of all the marvelous things we now observe thanks to powerful aids to our limited senses.

Short Story of Bloom’s God Problem

What Bloom offers is a systematic review of the myriad ways scientists have increasingly explained the existence of natural phenomena and the origins of life without including God or gods in their explanatory models. I suppose if he were so inclined, he could have referred to “theological models” as metaphors for ways humans tried to explain the majestic appearance of the heavens or the incredible diversity of life. Nevertheless, Bloom demonstrates how metaphors guide new discoveries until new observations require a new explanation. Bloom reviews new models and new metaphors that moved us ahead one more step on the staircase of time toward the holy grail of science, an explanation of everything.

As we near the end of the multibillion year journey, we see that even the tremendous advances made possible by ever increasingly complex mathematical and data processing models may still need to be revised to fully explain how our universe can create what we perceive as an orderly cosmos teeming with intelligent life capable of an eternal existence or perhaps a death and rebirth.

History is replete with evidence that religious leaders fought against scientific explanations for phenomena theologians once attributed to God. Bloom wisely ignores these faith-science battle episodes, although he briefly mentions intelligent design. His enthusiasm reveals that he has been seduced by the quest for the meaning of life. He has been recruited by the grandest recruiting strategy of all time to be a member of the team that solves the god problem. Exactly how does the universe create all that is? 

Have scientists solved the god problem? Have they explained the origins of the universe and life to your satisfaction? However you answer the question of origins, Bloom offers a cornucopia of amazing discoveries that explain in considerable detail so much more about the cosmos than our ancestors could have imagined.

 Book Reference

Bloom, H. (2012). The God problem: How a godless cosmos creates. NY: Prometheus.

  Book Author

Howard Bloom is an American philosopher of science and former visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU. He has published numerous articles and books on scientific subjects.

 




Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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