After encountering this thread, I thought it was about time I read this book myself. And I now have a copy in front of me.
The book begins with Collins’ reflections on his childhood. While there is a few commonalities, the differences from myself were nevertheless considerable. With free love (no marriage or fidelity), peace marches, black panther headquarters, a commune and the familiar smell of marijuana, I was far more a child of the sixties than he was. It was also bit more leftist (father blacklisted as a communist) and with parents being two psychology majors going into teaching perhaps valuing education and intellectualism a bit more as well.
Also unlike Collins, I pretty thoroughly embraced science and existentialism from the get go. Though I do not consider that I was ever an atheist. My approach to the question of God was always a determination to figure out what this “God” stuff was all about. I suppose you could say that some of the ideas of Christianity were planted as seed rather early from reading the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis around the age of 12. That got me reading the Bible to see what I could make of it, and I liked the Sermon on the Mount. I also responded at high school age to a televangelist by desperately asking Christ into my life at age 16, though I did not follow that up by seeking any guidance and so I don’t think I was anything like a Christian for another 13-20 years (long gradual process). In those years I went through a consideration of the various pseudo-Christian groups which approached me: Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and Moonies.
Sterling scholar in science from my high school I went straight to the University of Utah physics program. Though I spent a considerable time in the math department particularly with Numerical Analysis and scientific computing. Around that time my sister attempted suicide and I think that helped more than anything to push me more solidly into the theist worldview with my equivalence between a faith in God and the existential faith that life was worth living. I was never going to swallow Christianity or anything for that matter as a whole package. My conversion to Christianity took so long because I had to consider each and every theological question separately. But I had my answer to what God was all about and it was just a matter of deciding what understanding of God best served this purpose of upholding a faith that life was worth living.
Well that is my reflections from reading the first chapter. I will post more as I continue reading.