The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

[christopher]

Started this yesterday, only 90 pages through or so, but so far it's been great. While it doesn't really do much to interpret Jesus teachings or stuff like that, it provides some great insight towards creationism and its compatibility with evolution. Just the info on evolution, genes, etc. in itself is quite awesome. Francis S. Collins is the founder of the Human Genome Project and the director of the National Institutes of Health. He gives a short summary of his atheism as a young scientist and the following process of him coming to believe in God through logic, and then talks about scientific stuff in a very clear, interesting way (I was expecting it to be boring, being written by a scientist and all, but it most certainly is not).
As someone who struggles with the traditional Creation story and experiences doubt towards a God every once in awhile, I would recommend this pretty short read.
-Christopher

[Rob A]

I like Collins- very smart man in a lot of respects.

[Pigmalia]

I enjoyed this book very much as well. The other I thought very groundbreaking was Michael Behe's 'The Edge of Evolution'.

Instead, I conclude that another possibility is more likely: The elegant, coherent, functional systems upon which life depends are the result of deliberate intelligent design. Now, I am keenly aware that in the past few years many people in the country have come to regard the phrase "Intelligent Design" as fighting words, because to them, the word "design" is synonymous with "creationism," and thus opens the door to treating the Bible as some sort of scientific textbook (which would be silly). That is an unfortunate misimpression. The idea of intelligent design, although congenial to some religious views of the universe, is independent of them. For example, the possibility of intelligent design is quite compatible with common descent, which some religious people disdain. What's more, although some religious thinkers envision active, continuing intervention in nature, intelligent design is quite compatible with the view that the universe operates by unbroken natural law, with the design of life perhaps packed into it's initial set-up.