Sunday, November 30, 2014

Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? by Consolmagno, SJ and Mueller, SJ


I was delighted to get to review this book. While I never have been, and never will be, Catholic, I'm always appreciative of books that show the compatibility of religion and science.  Both authors are Jesuits who work for the Vatican Observatory and they are presenting 6 of the most commonly asked questions they get and they discuss the different answers and ways to answer them. More importantly, to me, they also discuss WHY people ask these questions.*

The entire book is written as a dialogue between Consolmagno and Mueller. I haven't read a non-fiction book like this since getting my BA in Philosophy. It was definitely a nice change of pace and I greatly appreciated the humor the two shared and their interactions. This made the discussion of the big questions seem a lot more manageable. It also makes this a less reference heavy read. It's just a discussion. There really aren't any footnotes to distract you or make you feel like you're reading a textbook.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is having their own struggles with religion/science. I also recommend that you recommend this book to anyone who claims the two can't work together. And I happily give this book 4 hoots!


Hoot!Hoot!
Hoot!Hoot!



*This feeds into the whole science-religion-compatibility thing I was thankful for.
**I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

2 comments:

  1. I wandered in here from a JLAS post. Jori is the only person I miss from my now defunct twitter account. Anything purple is a good thing IMHO.

    There are liberal versions of this book all over: thinking of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan's work(s) such as Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. They publish under Fortress Press. Do think the title of your book is better though......

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    1. Thanks for letting me know. I'll have to add those to my TBR list. ^^

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