Not too too interested in reading 'pop quantum Buddhism'-- but I read the Tao of Physics when I was younger and that book was quite influential for me-- which is why I'm in this thread now extolling the virtues of it. The key points that I'd want to make in this thread are:
1. Materialism is a dead paradigm. Which is to say that the belief in the primacy of matter doesn't have any sort of leg to stand on. This is why I always tout that Adam Frank article,
Minding Matter, as it does an excellent job of explaining why materialism is dead. The best theory of those who want to hold on to to materialism and remain consistent with quantum mechanics is the
many-worlds interpretation, and it's as crazy as anything.
2. With materialism dead that should cause people to think long and hard about what that means and what the implications of it all are. I.e.,
are we living in the matrix and this is all a simulation, is God actually real?, are we being lied to by the ruling class about the true nature of reality?, and if so then for what purpose? Those are all valid questions that flow from the understanding that materialism no longer holds water, as the sort of hard-nosed atheism that we see here can only exist within a materialistic worldview.
This is what me (and others like me) are getting at when we say that science is just as much a belief system as anything religion offers: people have this belief in the primacy of matter and think that's scientific, but it is not and it's been dead for approaching 100 years now. Ultimately science isn't in conflict with religion; it points to it.