Review of God: The Evidence, 1997, Prima Publishing, Patrick Glynn
There have been an incredible number of people who have drifted in and out of religion. Some take up atheism because of their disenchantment with religion while others take up religion because of their disgust with materialism. Many lie in between, neither claiming to be atheist or claiming to be religious - embracing anything from religious liberalism to strict asceticism to pragmatic paganism.
Patrick Glynn is the latest to leave behind atheism in favor of theism. Glynn grew up with the assumption that religion had been proven false. Little did he know that while he foolishly believed this, the world was changing. When he finally "woke up" in the 1990s, he saw that new developments in science were giving incredible credence to the theistic world view. Science, and his involvement with a true Christian named Gabriele - one who would become his wife - turned him into the believer he now is.
What Glynn presents in his book is not so much direct proof of God as evidence that demands a cause. His cosmological evidence seems rather direct; the universe had a beginning and order and therefore demands a cause to produce it. Yet, the other evidence is more what I would call indirect. Why is it that being religious has such a positive effect on believers? Why is it that so many people are having near-death experiences? Being religious might be healthy if man is naturally in need of some transcendent connection. What would such a needed connection mean but that some god made us to cleave to him? As far as near-death experiences, what would they mean unless we had a spirit or "soulish" part to us, something given by a spiritual being such as god?
For those already familiar with these issues, what Glynn says will be nothing new. Of special interest to such people will be his summary of the findings of researchers like Raymond Moody and Michael Sabom on the near-death experience and his summary of the interaction between health and faith. You might also like his summary of the anti-religious bias of Freud and just how wrong Freud was. Other than that, Glynn's work functions as another voice of one who has stepped out of the darkness of materialism (naturalism, skepticism, or whatever you call it) into the light.
Jeffrey Stueber