Barr, Stephen M., 2003- Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

Acknowledgments

Part I. The Conflict between Religion and Materialism

1. The Materialist Creed
2. Materialism as an Anti-Religious Mythology
3. Scientific Materialism and Nature
   • The Scientific Materialist’s View of Nature
   • Five Plot Twists
   • A New Story and a New Moral

Part II. In the Beginning

4. The Expectations
5. How Things Looked One Hundred Years Ago
6. The Big Bang
   • The Discovery of the Big Bang
   • Attempts to Avoid the Big Bang
   • The Big Bang Confirmed
7. Was the Big Bang Really the Beginning?
   • The Universe in the Standard Big Bang Model
   • The Bouncing Universe Scenario
   • The Baby Universes Scenario
   • The Eternal Inflation Scenario
8. What If the Big Bang Was Not the Beginning?

Part III. Is the Universe Designed?

9. The Argument from Design
   • The Cosmic Design
   • Two Kinds of Design
10. The Attack on the Argument from Design
    • Pure Chance
    • The Laws of Nature
    • Natural Selection
11. The Design Argument and the Laws of Nature
    • Two Ways to Think about Laws of Nature
    • In Science, Order Comes from Order
    • In Science, Order Comes from Greater Order
    • An Example Taken from Nature: The Growth of Crystals
    • The Order in the Heavens
12. Symmetry and Beauty in the Laws of Nature
13. “What Immortal Hand or Eye?”
    • The Issue
    • Can Chance Explain It?
    • Is Natural Selection Enough?
    • Does Darwin Give “Design without Design”?

Part IV. Man’s Place in the Cosmos

14. The Expectations
15. The Anthropic Coincidences
16. Objections to the Idea of Anthropic Coincidences
    • The Objections
    • Answers to the Objections
17. Alternative Explanations of the Anthropic Coincidences
    • The Weak Anthropic Principle: Many Domains
    • The Weak Anthropic Principle: Many Universes
    • The Weakness of the Weak Anthropic Principle
    • The Problem with Too Many Universes
18. Why Is the Universe So Big?
    • How Old Must a Universe Be?
    • How Big Must a Universe Be?
    • Are We Really So Small?

Part V. What Is Man?

19. The Issue
    • The Religious View
    • The Materialist View
    • Clearing Up Some Confusions
20. Determinism and Free Will
    • The Overthrow of Determinism
    • Quantum Theory and Free Will
    • Is Free Will Real?
21. Can Matter “Understand”?
    • Abstract Understanding
    • What Are Abstract Ideas?
    • Truth
    • If Not the Brain, Then What and How?
22. Is the Human Mind Just a Computer?
    • What a Computer Does
    • What Gödel Showed
    • The Arguments of Lucas and Penrose
    • Avenues of Escape
23. What Does the Human Mind Have That Computers Lack?
    • Can One Have a Simple Idea?
    • Is the Materialist View of the Mind Scientific?
24. Quantum Theory and the Mind
    • The London-Bauer Argument in Brief
    • Going into More Depth
    • Is the Traditional Interpretation Absurd?
25. Alternatives to Traditional Quantum Theory
    • Modifying Quantum Theory
    • Reinterpreting Quantum Theory: The “Many-Worlds” View
26. Is a Pattern Emerging?

Appendices

1. List of Illustrations
2. Attempts to Explain the Origins Scientifically
3. Gödel’s Theorem