See first : How should we study religion?
A dishonest bestseller
What is Michel-Yves Bolloré and Franck Bonnassies’ bestseller published in 2021 worth? Its mediocrity is confounding. Clearly written to seduce people confused by the antagonism between religion and science, it does not bring any new idea, nor the slightest proof. Beliefs are backed by other beliefs, and then the fact that they are compatible is transformed into mutual demonstration. Worse, the authors are dishonest in their search for a scientific endorsement. They have the book prefaced by Robert Woodrow Wilson, nobel octogenarian and co-discoverer of the cosmic microwave background, after submitting ti him only the 1st part of the book, summary of astrophysical knowledge. Contacted by l’Express (news magazine) and informed of the rest of the text, Wilson states that he should have refused his contribution, that “science and religion must remain separate”.
Any scientific approach begins with a collection of data without prior idea of their interpretation. The investigator is just asking himself one question. Here: Does God Exist? Bolloré and Bonnassies already have their conviction. Both are heavily involved in the Foundation for Evangelization through the Media. Bolloré is part of Opus Dei, a Christian promotion organization. Bonnassies lectured to demonstrate the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. Whether their beliefs are respectable or not, they immediately disregard their objectivity to investigate God and science.
The greatest imposture of the authors is to seek to sell us a God imbued with morality by describing a universe that completely ignores this notion. Morality belongs to the finished product, humanity, not to the production chain. How does it arise? No clues. Painting added by the Creator to his creature. The explanations of divine morality are tautological. Everything leads us to think that the God of religions was created by humans rather than the opposite. Each culture has designed its own version, its own moral corpus. A corpus torn over the centuries between the need to remain faithful to the initial revelation and the evidence that social ethics have changed.
The most harmful effect of the book
is to prevent its readers from reflecting on what could really be the creative principle of our universe. Hinders what science can say about it. It has its own divine pantheon, which it calls “natural laws” or “fundamental forces”. It is even looking for its ‘Theory of Everything’ capable of unifying all these minor deities. Its one God.
To get a truly universal picture, we must begin by emptying our minds of our cultural heritages and these sterile fights about the people who have received the best revelation. To learn about God is to question the universe. Without dictating its answers as Bolloré and Bonnassies did.
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