Religion versus Science

The author is a geologist who is also practising Buddhist. He takes the view that religion and science represent complementary ways of knowing. While science studies the material world, religion is the study of transcendent consciousness, which in turn needs to inform our views on evolution. The first part of the book is an introduction to science and religion, while the second gives a comprehensive account of evolution. It is the third part that makes the book distinctive, discussing the metaphysical implications and the nature of consciousness in near death experiences and the anomaly of the 16th Karmapa's death in 1981 when the area around his heart remained warm for three days following, after which the normal rigor mortis set in. Frost draws on the thought of Teilhard de Chardin, which he sees as the future direction of interpretations of evolution as a third way between neo-Darwinists on the one hand and creationism on the other. This view is consistent with both the findings of science and the intuitions of religion.