Education
Varghese completed a graduate degree in Liberal Arts at the University of Madras in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. He then followed that with a graduate degree in Journalism from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
Conferences
In 1985 he organized a conference in Dallas that brought together a number of Atheist and Theists to debate.Varghese organized a conference at Yale on March 1-3, 1986 titled
Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind. The conference was sponsored by TRUTH: A Journal of Modern Thought and The International Institute for Mankind Participants for the conference included "four Nobel Laureates and six Gifford Lecturers, a few of the foremost researchers in Artificial Intelligence and noted physicists, brain scientists, psychologists and philosophers."Additionally he attended The 1993 Parliament of World's Religions, in Chicago, and was a panelist for the Science and Religion forum.He also attended and participated in the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders held August 28, 2000 at the United Nations.
Interviews
He has done interviews on different radio programs including:
- Coast to Coast AM show with George Noory
- Gia Scott's Dawn of Shades on Exogeny Network Internet Radio on January 26th, 2010. During this interview Varghese discussed "the many reasons that no one can truly doubt the existence of both heaven and hell, and the evidence used to support their existence."http://dawnofshades.com/2010/01/27/gia-scotts-dawn-of-shades-with-guest-roy-abraham-varghese.aspx?results=1#SurveyResultsChart a copy of the show is available at Gia Scott's Dawn of Shades website.
- Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold, on February 9, 2010, titled There Is Life After Death with Roy Varghese. Audio available on Jim Harold's website.
Organizations
Varghese is the Founder of the Institute for Metascientific Research.
Books
Varghese published
Cosmos, bios, theos : scientists reflect on science, God, and the origins of the universe, life, and homo sapiens in 1992, according to the website dedicated to his 2003 book
The Wonder of the World;
Cosmos, bios, theos "included contributions from 24 Nobel Prize winners and was described as "the year's most intriguing book about God" by Time magazine." and "was the best-selling book from the publishing house Open Court."
Varghese's book
Cosmic Beginnings and Human Ends won a Templeton Book Prize in 1995.
Book with Anthony Flew
In 2007, Anthony Flew published a book titled
There is a God, which was listed as having Roy Abraham Varghese as its co-author. Shortly after the book was released, the New York Times published an article by religious historian Mark Oppenheimer, who stated that Varghese had been almost entirely responsible for writing the book, and that Flew was in a serious state of mental decline, having great difficulty remembering key figures, ideas, and events relating to the debate covered in the book. His book praises several philosophers (like Brian Leftow, John Leslie and Paul Davies), but Flew failed to remember their work during Oppenheimer's interview. The article provoked a public outcry, in which atheist PZ Myers called Varghese "a contemptible manipulator."
A further article by Anthony Gottlieb noted a strong difference in style between the passages giving Flew's biography, and those laying out the case for a god, with the latter including Americanisms such as "beverages", "vacation" and "candy". He came to the same conclusion as Oppenheimer, and stated that "Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, [the book] rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew". Varghese replied with a letter disputing this view. Flew released a statement through his publisher stating that although Varghese did the actual writing, the book belonged to him and represented his thinking. An audio commentary by William Lane Craig Dr. Craig's Current Events Audio Blog - RFMedia.org concurs with this position, but Richard Carrier disputes this view. In June 2008, Flew stated his position once again, in a letter to a fellow of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship.
Christian writer Regis Nicoll claims that "Moreover, in a signed, handwritten letter (a copy of which I now have) sent to Roy Varghese, the legendary philosopher reaffirmed his conversion while criticising Oppenheimer for drawing attention away from the book’s central argument: the collapse of rationalism." From UnChristian to Christian He argues that "Even Mark Oppenheimer described the ex-atheist “flaunt[ing] his allegiance to deism” in May 2006 to a Christian audience at Biola University."
