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商品の説明
内容説明
After Cass Seltzer’s book becomes a surprise best seller, he’s dubbed “the atheist with a soul” and becomes a celebrity. He wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum, “the goddess of game theory,” and loses himself in a spiritually expansive infatuation. A former girlfriend appears: an anthropologist who invites him to join in her quest for immortality through biochemistry. And he is haunted by reminders of the two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his mentor and professora renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianismand an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius who is heir to the leadership of a Hasidic sect. Each encounter reinforces Cass’s theory that the religious impulse spills over into life at large.
36 Arguments for the Existence of God plunges into the great debate of our day: the clash between faith and reason. World events are being shaped by fervent believers at home and abroad, while a new atheism is asserting itself in the public sphere. On purely intellectual grounds the skeptics would seem to have everything on their side. Yet people refuse to accept their seemingly irrefutable arguments and continue to embrace faith in God as their source of meaning, purpose, and comfort.
Through the enchantment of fiction, award-winning novelist and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein shows that the tension between religion and doubt cannot be understood through rational argument alone. It also must be explored from the point of view of individual people caught in the raptures and torments of religious experience in all their variety.
Using her gifts in fiction and philosophy, Goldstein has produced a true crossover novel, complete with a nail-biting debate (“Resolved: God Exists”) and a stand-alone appendix with the thirty-six arguments (and responses) that propelled Seltzer to stardom.
36 Arguments for the Existence of God plunges into the great debate of our day: the clash between faith and reason. World events are being shaped by fervent believers at home and abroad, while a new atheism is asserting itself in the public sphere. On purely intellectual grounds the skeptics would seem to have everything on their side. Yet people refuse to accept their seemingly irrefutable arguments and continue to embrace faith in God as their source of meaning, purpose, and comfort.
Through the enchantment of fiction, award-winning novelist and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein shows that the tension between religion and doubt cannot be understood through rational argument alone. It also must be explored from the point of view of individual people caught in the raptures and torments of religious experience in all their variety.
Using her gifts in fiction and philosophy, Goldstein has produced a true crossover novel, complete with a nail-biting debate (“Resolved: God Exists”) and a stand-alone appendix with the thirty-six arguments (and responses) that propelled Seltzer to stardom.
著者について
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University. Her award-winning books include the novels The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light, and Mazel, and nonfiction studies of Kurt Gdel and Baruch Spinoza. She has received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. She lives in Massachusetts.
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Amazon.com で最も参考になったカスタマーレビュー (beta)
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86件のカスタマーレビュー
174 人中、152人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
crackling with humor and intelligence
2010/1/13
形式:ハードカバー
Goldstein is well known for writing heady fiction that doesn't sacrifice on heart (The Mind-Body Problem, Properties of Light), but this book does both so magnificently it almost seems she's created a genre all her own. Cass Seltzer, the atheist with a soul, guides us on a romp through the religion and science debates that manages to be both the subtlest treatment of the subject I've yet seen and also ridiculously funny. Along the way, she also introduces us to the heartbreaking Azarya, a little boy you will not be able to resist, and the rollicking Roz, a glamorous wild-woman you won't WANT to resist. Cass, too, is eminently likable, making this one the most enjoyable groups of characters with whom to spend an afternoon.
95 人中、84人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
almost persuaded by a marvelous read
2010/1/18
形式:ハードカバー
Having taught a boy genius the fundamentals of musical composition, I found the descriptions of Azarya both accurate and inspiring. Goldstein's latest is one of the most enjoyable books I've read on the recent faith and reason discussions. It is also a splendid satire on academe, a fun novel with engaging characters (who are defined as much by the complexity of their ideas as by their personality traits), and a passionate defense of secular humanism, with excursions into such areas as Hasidic culture and the seductions of number theory (why 36? read the book!) The appendix alone is worth the price of the book: the clear deductive presentation of the 36 arguments allows theists, agnostics, and atheists many opportunities to clarify and organize their thought. (It should stimulate believers, especially, to seek "flaws in the flaws," assuming there are ones). These arguments are in splendid counterpoint to the more tumultuous "arguments" that constitute the main body of the novel.
Cass Seltzer's moving discussion of moral progress and the View from Nowhere almost persuades me. But in this pleasure-dome of the Golden Rule, I still hear "ancestral voices prophesying war." Beethoven wrote to someone: "I don't want to know anything about your system of ethics. Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine." Could those terrifying words overwhelm Cass? Should he have debated Beethoven rather than the trendy neoconservative Findley?
Also, I am "almost persuaded" about the potential depth and vitality of a "third culture." As the humanities become increasingly absorbed into the necessary world of science, can they retain their traditional richness and vitality? This novel and other work of Goldstein encourage this hope.
Cass Seltzer's moving discussion of moral progress and the View from Nowhere almost persuades me. But in this pleasure-dome of the Golden Rule, I still hear "ancestral voices prophesying war." Beethoven wrote to someone: "I don't want to know anything about your system of ethics. Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine." Could those terrifying words overwhelm Cass? Should he have debated Beethoven rather than the trendy neoconservative Findley?
Also, I am "almost persuaded" about the potential depth and vitality of a "third culture." As the humanities become increasingly absorbed into the necessary world of science, can they retain their traditional richness and vitality? This novel and other work of Goldstein encourage this hope.
106 人中、93人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
As is suggested of Cass's book, Couldn't the book be the appendix?
2010/2/5
形式:ハードカバー
First the good news: The appendix, which includes the actual arguments for the existence of a god, is everything that the rest of the book is not: pithy, direct, accessible, amusing. I would love for that section of the book to stand alone. Alone and far away from the laborious, pretentious mess that comprises the body of the work.
As an atheist--a New Atheist, even--I went in to this work of fiction with the highest of hopes. After battering my head against pages of vapid, indulgent narrative, practically unbroken by anything like dialog, plot, or characterization, I gave up. How, you ask, can I judge a book that I did not finish? That is my judgment--it is unreadable (again, except for the excellent appendix).
I feel like a traitor writing this, but if you to want to read a book set in similar environs, centering on a similar topic, try John Updike's "Roger's Version." With its vivid characters, lush descriptions and lively dialog, it is a far more interesting and entertaining read (even though I profoundly disagree with Updike's theistic leanings).
And if you want to read great atheist writers, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan are among our finest contemporary novelists, and both are outspoken atheists. But their fiction does not often address atheist themes directly (nor should it--propaganda makes shoddy art).
What I await is a work of popular fiction with atheist themes that sparks and moves. So far the closest thing I know of to a contemporary example is Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials." Surely now that the best-seller lists have been conquered by atheist nonfiction writers, atheistic fiction page-turners cannot be far behind?
I give Ms. Newberger Goldstein a great deal of credit for the work she put into this novel, for the courage it took to write it, and for her obvious intelligence and ability. But what ultimately results, for an average reader like me, are sentences so pregnant with apparent meaning that each must be tediously midwived. Without attractive characters to invite me in, a compelling plot to push me ahead, or intriguing dialog to pull me along, I just can't be bothered.
As an atheist--a New Atheist, even--I went in to this work of fiction with the highest of hopes. After battering my head against pages of vapid, indulgent narrative, practically unbroken by anything like dialog, plot, or characterization, I gave up. How, you ask, can I judge a book that I did not finish? That is my judgment--it is unreadable (again, except for the excellent appendix).
I feel like a traitor writing this, but if you to want to read a book set in similar environs, centering on a similar topic, try John Updike's "Roger's Version." With its vivid characters, lush descriptions and lively dialog, it is a far more interesting and entertaining read (even though I profoundly disagree with Updike's theistic leanings).
And if you want to read great atheist writers, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan are among our finest contemporary novelists, and both are outspoken atheists. But their fiction does not often address atheist themes directly (nor should it--propaganda makes shoddy art).
What I await is a work of popular fiction with atheist themes that sparks and moves. So far the closest thing I know of to a contemporary example is Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy "His Dark Materials." Surely now that the best-seller lists have been conquered by atheist nonfiction writers, atheistic fiction page-turners cannot be far behind?
I give Ms. Newberger Goldstein a great deal of credit for the work she put into this novel, for the courage it took to write it, and for her obvious intelligence and ability. But what ultimately results, for an average reader like me, are sentences so pregnant with apparent meaning that each must be tediously midwived. Without attractive characters to invite me in, a compelling plot to push me ahead, or intriguing dialog to pull me along, I just can't be bothered.
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