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5 oeuvres 270 utilisateurs 9 critiques

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Mike McHargue, also known as "Science Mike," is a Christian turned atheist turned follower of Jesus who uses his story to help people know God in an age of science. Mike is the host and cohost of two podcasts-Ask Science Mike and The Liturgists Podcast. He lives in Southern California.

Œuvres de Mike McHargue

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I'm always interested in reading of an intelligent person's one-off mystical experience, where in using the best terms available to put such an essentially indescribable experience, the experiencer generally talks of a veil lifting and a whole new reality suddenly being made apparent, with a loving consciousness behind it, in which in the words of Julian of Norwich, all shall be well. These aren't continuing visions or near death experiences, but unexpected and unrepeated events that happen to a person of sound mind. It may be impossible to write a whole book about such an experience, but people such as the French journalist Andre Frossard and the American novelist and Duke University professor Reynolds Price have written well regarded books incorporating theirs.

So that's the hook that really got me interested in Mike McHargue, whose encounter occurred in a time of emotional inner religious turbulence (it doesn't always - Frossard was blithely blindsided by his). His book here briefly goes over it, but rather than the focus it's just a pebble on the path of the story - which, again, is about all you can expect it to be in a book. That story path goes over McHargue's evangelical youth, his loss of faith, and his gaining of a wiser, more universalist sort of belief, deeply informed by the Christian tradition but also significantly by his reading of the current science explaining the universe and the human mind.

It's a memoir, and also a solid rejoinder to the books of the New Atheists arguing that religion is harmful. It can be in a certain form, sure, but then so can weather, food, drink, cell division, etc. McHargue's aim is to share with the reader how he found his way back to religion, and the benefits that can be derived from having a religious practice. He's clearly an engaging, deeply caring individual, and I'm happy to have stumbled across him.
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Signalé
lelandleslie | 5 autres critiques | Feb 24, 2024 |
Clear, concise and very relatable although I don't feel like I learned anything new, being well-read on neurology and behavioural psychology already. Honestly, I think its lovely that someone who is kind of a hot mess wrote a self-help book and is so honest about himself.
 
Signalé
fionaanne | 2 autres critiques | Nov 11, 2021 |
Few people can synthesize information and communicate it as well as Mike McHargue (aka Science Mike). And, I don't know anyone who writes more vulnerably than Science Mike does in this book. He combines the mind and heart like no other. Recommended!
 
Signalé
nrt43 | 2 autres critiques | Dec 29, 2020 |
About the first half of Finding God in the Waves is an autobiographical faith story - his testimony, more or less. The second half is an exploration of returning to God and the process he took, primarily of writing definitions (or axioms) for God, then prayer, then Jesus and sin, the church, and finally the Bible. These axioms are kind of like a trellis for rebuilding your faith or providing some intellectual structures you can stand on when everything feels like it's crumbling around you.

Also - if you were raised in a conservative church environment and haven’t been exposed to many of the critiques on faith/God/the Bible, this may be a particularly troubling read. Mike honestly goes through many of these critiques, detailing the struggle it caused him, so be ready.

Science Mike takes a systematic, rationale approach to faith that he self-identifies as founded on empiricism (ie. what we can gather scientifically/ through our senses). Science Mike will concede that his conclusions fall a good ways from orthodox belief, which many have found troubling, and it seems like the subtitle to the book is a little misleading. Rather than returning to faith (as defined by orthodoxy) Mike has built a sturdy platform to view Christian faith. We still must make the “leap of faith” as Kierkegaard famously described. Empiricism can only take us so far.

Further Science Mike did not address the idea (at least that I remember) that there's a "leap" regardless of our beliefs, where we believe things that cannot be proved whether they are religious or not - one example is human rights. Tim Keller’s Making Sense of God and Reason for God perhaps complete the argument for making such a leap.

Finally, without a doubt, Science Mike works from the desire or motivation of "I want to have faith" and felt a profound loss when he "lost God." So those who have no desire for faith, probably won't read the book, Ha!, and I wonder if they would relate to it very well. Anyone coming to the argument with the desire “I don’t want faith” will have no trouble coming up for reasons to continue down that road. Science attempts to approach life and observations without bias. Yet McHargue doesn't pretend such objectivity, which I appreciated.

Before reading this book, I was fully acquainted with Science Mike, having listened to dozens of his podcasts, notably the Lost and Found 2 part-er on the Liturgists. So, there was little I had not encountered before reading it. Nevertheless, I loved the book. Here are some of my favorite ideas:

1. Understanding God cosmologically as the Singularity (or theologically as the Prime Mover) before the Big Bang, and from astrophysics, the energy that sustains the universe (the "ground of Being"). God is at least the set of forces that created and sustains the universe.
2. Alien hand syndrome, the severing of the corpus callosum, and split brain theory. Loved this part! The basic idea is that the two halves of our brain function with some degree of independence, which creates different and sometimes opposing ideas - which is how we might struggle to believe in God but still feel connected. We can be a logical atheist and experiential Christian at the same time. I think this also helps explain our co-occurring desires for adventure and stability, sadness and joy, or fear and excitement.
3. Learning from neuroscience about the literal power and benefits of prayer/meditation - it lowers blood pressure, helps reduce stress, makes you more focused, more compassionate, and less likely to be angry or frightened. Woohoo! What's not to like about those things?!
Four types of prayer suggested: basic prayer - talk to God; meditation - focus on compassion; centering prayer; and Lectio Divina. - All scientifically backed to be good for you.
4. Lastly, I thought his chapter on the Bible was beautiful - honest, poignant, insightful and so helpful. He compares the Bible to Vincent van Gogh, telling his tragic and beautiful story, and the creation of The Starry Night. "Is The Starry Night infallible?" "Is it true?" Those are the wrong questions to be asking of the Bible too, a grand example of missing the point.

I wanted:
- more on his chapter for Jesus. If you've studied the historical Jesus much, it's pretty introductory.
- a fuller explanation on his axiom for sin, specifically a description of the "lower and higher brain functions."

Toward the end of the book McHargue tells the story of "coming out of the closet" as an ex-atheist and being more honest with his home church on controversial topics. It was so sad. It doesn't sound like he had any option, and he made the best decision he could. And yet, my question is: how do we keep churches from morphing completely into spiritual/religious consumerism? Churches shouldn't be filled with simply others we agree with. We need diversity. And the ever-continuous fracturing in new denominations seems a clear contradiction of the unity Jesus assumed in John 17.

Nevertheless, there is plenty to discuss, such as how we reconcile the "Angry God" verses "Loving God" that we experience in scripture with the negative consequences of the angry god discovered through neuroscience.

Of note, Science Mike (along with so many others) preach the profound mysterious benefits of contemplation in faith, something Richard Rohr noted in his endorsement: "An essential, unprecedented read on the role contemplation plays in how we can know God, even in an age of skepticism."

This is a great book in particular for "recovering evangelicals," the science-inclined Christian, or really anyone who wants faith but lacks the "scaffolding" for where to begin. Highly recommended.
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Signalé
nrt43 | 5 autres critiques | Dec 29, 2020 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
5
Membres
270
Popularité
#85,638
Évaluation
4.0
Critiques
9
ISBN
14

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