Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not

Robert N. McCauley

Why I looked at this book

The title of this book raised some intruiging questions in my mind. Presumably it is arguing in favour of religion - but is everything as it seems? Firstly, not everyone agrees that there is oppostion between science and religion - what will the author say about that? But more importantly, the idea that religion is natural implies that we are predisposed towards it, even if it is wrong. That is the sort of thing Richard Dawkins would argue. So he is on the opposite side to Dawkins but arguing the same thing?

First impressions

This is clearly not a shallow pro-religion book. In fact it seems to be in no hurry to start dicussing religion, starting with a carefully considered look at what we consider to be natural. A lot of things seem to come naturally to us, but is that because they are innate, absorbed in the first few years of life, or taught to us later. A lot more philosophical than I was expecting, but looks interesting.