In Natural Religion, acclaimed poet, critic and essayist Frederick Turner sets out to show the assumption of contradictions between religions is not necessarily founded, positing instead that the natural world offers grounds for stating all religions are, in some respect, true. This book explores syncretism, whereby all religions are seen as grasping the same strange and complex reality, but by very different means and handles. Turner approaches this theory in terms of scientific inquiry concluding though there may not be enough room in space itself to fit in all theologies, there may, however, be enough room in time if new scientific descriptions of times nature are to be believed
Frederick Turner is an American poet, polymath and academic. He was born in Northamptonshire, England, in 1943. After spending several years in central Africa, where his parents, the anthropologists Victor W. and Edith L. B. Turner, were conducting field research, Frederick Turner was educated at the University of Oxford (1962-67), where he obtained the degrees of B.A., M.A., and B.Litt. (a terminal degree equivalent to the Ph.D.) in English Language and Literature. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1977. His brother is Robert Turner.
Turner is presently Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, having held academic positions at the University of California at Santa Barbara (assistant professor 1967-72), Kenyon College (associate professor 1972-85), and the University of Exeter in England (visiting professor 1984-85). From 1978-82 he was editor of The Kenyon Review. He has been married since 1966 to Mei Lin Turner (née Chang, a social science periodical editor), and has two sons.
Turner is the author of ten books of poetry, a novel, and numerous books on literature, philosophy, and classicism, including the controversial The Culture of Hope: A New Birth of the Classical Spirit. He has authored a number of scholarly works on topics ranging from beauty and the biological basis of artistic production and appreciation to complexity and Julius Thomas Fraser's umwelt theory of time. Mr. Turner is also the author of two science fiction epic poems, The New World and Genesis.
