A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion [Hardcover]

Pamela R. Winnick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005

The age-old war between religion and science has taken a new twist. Once the dedicated scientist-martyr fought heroically against rigid religionists. But now the tables have turned, and it is established science crusading against religion, pushing atheistic agendas in the classroom, in textbooks, and in the media. This book shows how science has now become a religion of its own-an often fanatical one at that-furiously preaching atheism, punishing dissenters, dictating how and what we should think, and subtly inserting its worldviews in everything from education to entertainment. And, with stunning clarity, it proves that, with billions of dollars up for grabs in the race for stem cell research, intellectual integrity has been replaced with good old-fashioned greed. With sharp insight and completely original reporting, this book defiantly shows the extent to which science is beating down religion and how this systematic tyranny is unmistakably weakening culture and society.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; 1ST edition (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595550194
• ISBN-13: 978-1595550194
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,883,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fallacious Reasoning at its Worst, November 23, 2006

By 

M. Ollila (CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion (Hardcover)

What this book demonstrates to its readers is that Pamela Winnick has several strawmen she has erected about science and evolution, and she enjoys beating them regularly. One wonders if she was not subject to abuse with a science textbook at some point in her life, so obvious is her vitriol toward anything scientific.

She has made no effort to check her sources or to even document them; I've Googled several of her unattributed quotes and have found no record of who might have said the things she quotes. For all I can figure out, Ms. Winnick might have made up those quotes herself to support her cause. The editing and proofreading of the book are atrocious enough that I've had to read several sentences more than once to try to ascertain her meaning. As another reader has noted, she never attempts to address to whom she might actually be speaking. Is she upset at science as a method, at scientists in general, or only at those she considers "leftist"? The reader is left to wonder for himself what her motive might be.

It's obvious that she understands very little about evolution, a subject about which she seems very upset. She refers to neo-Darwinism as "the only acceptable scientific explanation for the origin and evolution of life" and neglects to note that evolution says absolutely nothing about the origin of life. She implies that such ongoing social problems as racism are the fault of science. I wondered while I read this book if Ms. Winnick had ever cracked open a science book or if she was capable of using a non-pejorative word to describe a scientist. She makes rather unprofessional and silly remarks about people with whom she disagrees, commenting on their appearances and on their personal lives with the obvious glee of a Kitty Kelley tell-all.

if you'd enjoy reading a book that is an honest discussion of either politics or science, _A Jealous God_ is not for you. If, however, you enjoy being preached to in unprofessional and underhanded ways about the distaste all religious people should have for scientists, then by all means, pick up this book. If you enjoy poorly edited and non-annotated books written by laymen about the problems with science, then this book's for you. It's certainly not an honest portrayal of anything within the real world or outside of Ms. Winnick's worldview in which scientists are a terrible evil.

120 of 172 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightenment, November 5, 2005

By 

Steven Chernus "M.D., J.D." (Pittsburgh PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion (Hardcover)

Once upon a time, we learned that the scientific method was dispassionate; that scientific observations were independent of the observer. By its very nature science affected belief about the world and the cosmos by persuasion without preconception. Science required no revelation. It was not doctrinal. It did not promise miracle cures, instantly. This book makes it clear that none of this is any longer the case, at least for celebrity-science hyped by today's fatuous mainstream media outlets.

Undoubtedly, much unbiased and unpretentious scientific research is still conducted beneath the media radar. As most of it is not supportive of progressive politics, however, it is deemed mostly unworthy of dissemination by media elites. Another "science," however, provides a target-rich environment, and "A Jealous God" strips away its stealthy patina, exposing it for what it is: a power grab by a self-appointed elite with a "progressive" social agenda. Shockingly, this book exposes the eugenics roots of the stem cell research movement, and those roots are steeped in racism, as the author makes painfully clear. These benevolent folks would reengineer our very substance, and, as the author shows, are arrogant enough to believe that they are actually entitled to force all of us to fund their efforts! The tale of California's Prop 71- where taxpayers own only the risk, with no chance of return - alone makes this book worthwhile.

Like the author, I am not a religious person. I am skeptical of revealed truth. I remain no less skeptical of some supposed "truths" reported widely and enthusiastically (dare I say zealously) under the rubric of "science," particularly when, most improbably, these truths all seem to converge at a locus inhabited by elites which would exercise political power over every aspect of every human life, right down to our genes - for our own good, of course.

This book calmly and dispassionately shows with meticulous facts that it is not enough that science long ago routed religion as the source of knowledge of the cosmos. The author cites Professor Peter Singer of Princeton, who says that the Ten Commandments must be replaced with ten new ones. For instance, "Thou shalt not kill," will be redacted to say that humans should be killed under certain circumstances. "A Jealous God" makes it clear that, should the political/celebrity/progressive "science" prevail, when all the new commandments are written, there is likely to be one holdover: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." The author makes that conclusion inescapable, based upon much evidence.

After reading this book, I infer that this current brand of popular "science" overreaches. Citing only utility, its ethicists promise us bodily health, denying that any countervailing values are operant. Those values - as advanced by religion - according to the crusading new science, are merely the shadows of ignorance and superstition conjured by our distant ancestors, as they huddled together in caves and around fires, divining omens from the heavens. Hopefully, there will be no catastrophic unanticipated result stemming from manipulation of the biochemical foundations of humankind, lest our progeny revisit those caves and embers, only to rediscover in reconstituted penumbras, the ancient question: are we mere biological mechanisms, or part of some greater, even divine, plan? One need not be religious to pose that question, and even modern science, rightly understood, may never provide the answer.

63 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Slam Dunk!, November 2, 2005

By 

Robert Richards "Rob" (San Antonio, TX, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Jealous God: Science's Crusade Against Religion (Hardcover)

Heard her on the radio here last week and had to buy the book, even though it's not the kind of thing I usually read. But I read it in one sitting. It' impossible to put down. I just loaned it to a friend who says the same thing.

Finally, a book filled with fact and measured analysis, not empty rhetoric. Winnick, an attorney and journalist, uses both skill-sets to adroitly slam the pretentious world of elite scientists and "ethicists" and expose their truly disturbing, sometimes racist agenda. Best of all, she does so using real people and situations, so complicated issues are presented in dramatic, readable form.

What's particularly great is how she's able to explain complicated science in very simple terms. For the first time, I understood embryonic stem-cell research and cloning and what all the fuss is about. While she clearly doesn't have a pro-life agendum against this work, she brilliantly demonstrates the puffery beneath it - and the economic interests. She's not a scientist but obviously she's done a huge amount of research, reading medical journals and so forth.

Her exposure of racism is amazing and based, again, on facts. She's taken the time to review hundreds of biology textbooks from the 1960s to the present, showing their subtle racist and anti-religious messages. Amazingly, these textbooks were written by those who pretended on the outside to be progresstive, but, as she shows, were scandalously racist.

She shows also how medical research has been so commercialized that it cares less and less about human safety. Her chapters on failed gene-transfer and fetal-tissue therapies are amazing. Medical researchers rush their products into human trial so they can make a killing in the marketplace, caring virtually nothing about people.

She also does a great job exposing California's Proposition 71, which raised billions for stem cell research. Unbelievable scientific fraud and Hollywood pretension.

Also great work describing "celebrity scientists" like Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan, who clearly think they are so much better than the rest of us. These guys are actually quite pathetic. Also great work on Paul Ehrlich, the population guy, whose racism is absolutely amazing. I remember him from way back, when I thought he was a cool guy. She shows what a fraud he was and how he used "science" to push his racist agenda.

Winnick has a great sense of humor. There are little touches that made me laugh out loud, like the rat that had been treated with humam stem cells, and Goober, the baboon, whose heart was implanted in a newborn child - in furtherance of "science."

This is not the work of some religious fanatic, but a brilliant woman who has decided to challenge conventional thinking about religion and science. Winnick is a really great writer who combines understatement, wit and fact. We need more books like this.

One of the best books I've read in a long time.