God

The Case for God
$27.95
Why does the title explicitly state that a case will be made for god? Why does the back cover claim this book is some sort of rebuttal to the 'new atheist' books when it most certainly is not? The simple fact is, there is no actual case made for gods in this book. At least, not a serious case worth hundreds of pages. Sure, she yammers on about how nice it is to believe in god, but offers no real evidence for that god thingy. And that's because this book is really a history lesson of what people believe in. I imagine the publisher realized this was just a poor to mediocre religious history book, so they slapped on a provocative title (and had her rewrite the intro and the epilogue) to draw in the masses. That sort of false advertising is 1)pathetic and 2) really annoying.

But let's get back to the issue of evidence for a god since I bet some of you still think Armstrong offered some. Imagine if I wrote a book called "The Case for Dionysus." Now imagine my 'case' consisted of hundreds of pages of history of people's belief in the Big D, and then... a page or so stating that drinking lots of booze feels good, that the world would suck if there was no booze, therefore Dionysus exists. Really, really, REALLY unconvincing right? That in a nutshell is the 'case' this book.

There is no case here. Just a mediocre history lesson of belief. There are FAR better books out there if religious history is your thing.

God: A Biography
$16.00
This book is a treasure.

It takes a refreshing point of view on material many of us are so familiar with from our youth that we have never really evaluated it from a sophisticated psychological standpoint.

I see there are 80 reviews up already, so I won't rehash the details of his specific literary approach to the character of God (as a character) but the beauty of it is simple: he uses only the text of the Jewish bible to draw his picture of God's personal development. He takes the biblical words literally, and bases everything on what God himself says and does, and later says through his prophets.

He makes this process a very interesting one, even for someone who ordinarily has trouble sitting still for fine points of theology.

What this book does for me is help me shed some childhood baggage, introduce me to parts of the bible I had forgotten all about or never actually read, and lets me think about the overall meaning of the bible in an exciting new way.

God, the old rascal, has had his ups and downs.

So, if you believe in him, by the end of this book, you've got to be asking yourself -- do you forgive him?

Even if you don't (if you're like me) somehow you'll feel closer to his conflicted, bumbling, fumbling, strangely asexual, ancient and creaky ways.

The Evolution of God
$25.99
From Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero, comes a controversial book that is sure to set off the ire of most if not all religious groups. In The Evolution of God Wright gives readers a complete history of religion from our ancient prehistory when fire was something novel and new and ancestral people saw spirits within every rock and tree, to the modern day clash of faiths throughout the world.

Divided into five sections, Wright begins at the very beginning, exploring why people looked to create spirits and gods in objects and the ether to help give a reason behind phenomena like natural disasters, cataclysms, and what happens when a family member dies. He explores these ideas both at the scientific level and the psychological, reducing faith to its component parts. Wright then moves onto the advent of monotheism, Christianity, and Islam, providing a history lesson and analyzing these world-dominant faiths under the same parameters. In the last section, "God Goes Global," he addresses the state of today's religions and what it means to us on a global scale.

The Evolution of God doesn't look to refute religion, or decide which is better or truer than the other; Wright is just telling a history of the evolution of religion and faith through our ancestry to our present. Whether you're an atheist or are deeply religious, you will nevertheless find The Evolution of God an interesting read, whether you agree with it or not.

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The God Delusion
$15.95
I enjoyed this book very much. It is well-written, and treats many topics in a broad (but not deep) manner, with good summaries on many points bearing on religion. Of course, one could fault the author for his polarizing positions, when he is not going into depth. On the other hand, recognizing how one can build the principle of natural selection into a broad base to support an atheistic position (even if one does not agree with every point made), and do this in a way that communicates his arguments powerfully, is an outstanding achievement. Naturally, one can critique his work, because as a philosophical work it is somewhat shallow and opinionated, but he is addressing himself to ordinary people, not professional philosophers. There is much here to think about and ponder.