Blasphemy
by Douglas Preston
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Book Summary Information
Author: Douglas PrestonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-08
ISBN: 0765311054
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Forge Books
Book Reviews of Blasphemy
Book Review: An uninformed, blathering tirade against Christianity
Summary: 1 Stars
Imagine my delight to hear that a new Preston book was out. Then imagine my disappointment.
This thin gruel of a plot serves only one aim: to promote a new "religion of science." Religion has served its purpose in giving purpose to man, and therefore giving him a drive to survive and progress. But its time is over, and science has to take over. In this respect, the book is much like Michael Crichton's "State of Fear." Those who deplored the enviro-alarmism so widespread today thought the book timely, although the plot was likewise thin; those who are disciples of Dawkins will react similarly to this book, although, strangely, they thought the plot was the bee's knees. Dawkinism tends to warp the mind.
There are two "Christian" characters so repulsive, they are practical atheists. By this I don't mean that all atheists are bad, only that atheism provides a freedom from morality, as admitted by many of its proponents (Dawkins has recently defended adultery; Pinker has defended infanticide). So, like most Christians Preston knows, one is a murderer, another is a hypocritical, money-grubbing televangelist. One scientist, the "harmless" Christian, is some kind of Catholic, an ex-monk.
The nutcases are railing against a supercolliding computer, Isabella, which starts claiming to be God. But God, it seems, doesn't know much about history or cosmology. He says that religion and science are mortal enemies, quite ignorant of the foundations of modern science - the Christian view that matter is OK (because of the Incarnation) and the efforts of the Catholic Church, as recently documented in such books as "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization," to discover the rational order of the universe because it was created by a rational God. Neither does God know the future, since he's basically a creation of the universe.
Preston also puts forward the theory that the Big Bang, happened not in "nothing", but in some kind of quantum vacuum, in Hawking's theory of imaginary time, which Hawking himself has admitted does not fit reality, but is just a mathematical fiction to avoid the beginning. Did Preston really not know this? He seems to be betting that most readers will not be informed enough to object.
Theists historically welcomed confirmation of the Big Bang, while nontheists openly expressed disgust and nausea at the implications of the Big Bang. In fact, the confirmation of the Big Bang caused many scientists to draw parallels with the book of Genesis. Here, Preston turns history on its head - the "bad Christians" think the Big Bang threatens their faith. Why this twist? Preston seems to be embarrassed at the irrational reaction atheists have had to the Big Bang, and is rewriting history.
As Jim Holt writes in Slate, "Churchmen rejoiced. Proof of the biblical account of creation had dropped into their laps. Pope Pius XII, opening a conference at the Vatican in 1951, declared that this scientific theory of cosmic origins bore witness "to that primordial 'Fiat lux' uttered at the moment when, along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation. ... Hence, creation took place in time, therefore there is a creator, therefore God exists!"
"Marxists, meanwhile, gnashed their teeth. Quite aside from its religious aura, the new theory contradicted their belief in the infinity and eternity of matter--one of the axioms of Lenin's dialectical materialism--and was accordingly dismissed as "idealistic." The Marxist physicist David Bohm rebuked the developers of the theory as "scientists who effectively turn traitor to science, and discard scientific facts to reach conclusions that are convenient to the Catholic Church." Atheists of a non-Marxist stripe were also recalcitrant. ... The dean of the profession, Sir Arthur Eddington, wrote, "The notion of a beginning is repugnant to me ... I simply do not believe that the present order of things started off with a bang. ... The expanding Universe is preposterous ... incredible ... it leaves me cold."
Did Preston just somehow fail to read *any* of thousands of relevant books on the main subjects, notably Dinesh D'Souza's recent "What's So Great About Christianity", or ex-atheist Antony Flew's "There Is a God"? D'Souza especially skewers Dawkins and Harris, the new crop of fundamentalist atheists, by turning their own reasoning against them. Was Preston entirely ignorant of these arguments? Perhaps. But ... perhaps not.
Perhaps God's inexplicable ignorance - or, in the book, Isabella's ignorance - is an intentional clue to the ending. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
As mentioned earlier, the plot is paper-thin, serving only as a vehicle for Preston to vent his wrath on his caricatures of Christians. I looked in vain for the promised "action" and "fast pace" the other reviews claimed. One must wonder why they felt the need to misrepresent the book in this manner. Fanaticism, I guess.
The missives from "God" are somewhat interesting, and make for most of the page-turning ... that is, if you are scientifically illiterate and can gobble up that stuff about the Big Bang arising from (almost) nothing. Otherwise, it's a frustrating window into how poorly-read Preston expects his readers to be. Strangely, I know atheists - and at least one ex-atheist - who would agree.
By the way, Preston's idea of accepting truths only verified by science is skewered in Berlinski's "The Devil's Delusion" and D'Souza's "What's So Great About Christianity". Some readers here will be aware of the severe limitations of the scientific method, and that even the basic premise - "only scientifically discovered facts are valid" - is self-defeating; and others will more thoughtfully crack open those books and discover how Kant and even Hume have shown the "pure scientific" path to be founded on irrationality, ignorance, and arrogance.
Summary of Blasphemy
The world's biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona mountain, was built to reveal the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself.
The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world?s most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of Heaven?
Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world?or save it.
The countdown begins?
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