Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About is a book by Donald Knuth where he talks about the relationship between faith and science.

Actually, it's a transcript of 6 public lectures he did in 1999 at MIT, plus the transcript of a session in which Knuth joined a panel discussing creativity, spirituality, and computer science. His first five lectures dealt with his experiences in writing the book 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated which is about chapter 3 verse 16 of every book in the Bible.

The sixth lecture was about God and Computer Science, where Knuth talks about how computer science might help us gain better understanding of spirituality. This book is highly recommended.

When I first heard about Dr. Knuth giving a lecture about God and Computer Science one of the things that came to my mind was: "What, he's going to stand there and talk about himself?" :-). But also, it heartened me that Knuth, the god of Computer Science himself, was also a man of faith.

Dr. Knuth's talks about theology from a computer scientist's perspective. A perspective that Dr, Knuth acknowledges is lacking in the current literature. It was quite refreshing to me to sometimes hear a reflection of the way I think. At the same time, I see a glimpse of the thought process of an extraordinary man, someone I cannot come close to intellectually, but whose simplicity, humour, and faith I can hope to emulate.

The webcasts of Dr. Knuth's lectures can still be found at Dr. Dobb's Journal's technetcast website: http://technetcast.ddj.com/

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