About this title: In this sweeping narrative that spans the Stone Age to the Information Age, Wright's findings that overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sure to cause controversy.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780316734912ISBN:0316734918
Description: New in new dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 567 p. Audience: General/trade. Brand New Hardcover w/ Dust Sleeve-Just Arrived from Publisher-Ships w/ Tracking # read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780316734912ISBN:0316734918
Description: New in new dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 567 p. Audience: General/trade. Brand New Hardcover w/ Dust Sleeve-Just Arrived from Publisher-Ships w/ Tracking # read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Little Brown & Co
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780316734912ISBN:0316734918
Description: New. In this sweeping narrative that spans the Stone Age to the Information Age, Wright's findings that overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sure to cause controversy. read more
Description: New. A Brand New Copy. Never Read. Buy with confidence from an Independent Bookstore where the owners, a husband and wife team, have over 30 years of combined bookselling experience. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company, New York-Boston-London
Date Published: 2009
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Very little wear at all; light rubbing to the spine top. Quite clean. '[The author] takes us on a sweeping journey through history, unveiling a discovery of crucial importance to the present moment: there is a pattern in the evolution of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and a 'hidden code' in their scriptures. Reading these scriptures in light of the circumstances surrounding their creation, Wright reveals the forces that have repeatedly moved the ... read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: LITTLE, BROWN BOOK GROUP Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781408702048ISBN:1408702045
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 576 pages. A visionary look at spirituality through the ages from the writer whose books are 'a feast of great thinking and writing about the most profound issues. ' new york times (Hardback) read more
"Robert Wright is a terrific writer. This is a heady work -- starting with hunter/gatherer societies and taking us through the beginnings of Christianity and Islam. The premise is that God always has been made in the image and likeness and man. God has evolved over the centuries to reflect "conditions in the ground," which help makes sense of the various "Gods" seen in the Old Testament -- e.g. the warrior god and the protective god, in the Koran -- (pretty much the same) - the warrior god and the peace loving, tolerant god; and in the New Testament where we have the itinerant Jewish preacher of Mark (the first gospel, written about 30 years after Jesus's death), the miracle worker of Luke, the aesthetic, airy God/man of John, and the star wars god of Revelations. Paul is presented as the all time greatest franchiser as he sets up Christian franchises throughout Greece and Roman Empire, creatively shifting doctrine as needed to keep the developing flock together. It is a very scholarly but very readable and often humorous unpacking of the world's three great religious mythologies. He is hopeful in that he sees human nature moving -- albeit with fits and starts - towards greater tolerance and morality. He acknowledges a higher purpose and creative force but asserts, I think accurately, that all religions are approximations that do not even near the "real" divine force, which simply is unavailable to the human intellect. They are, therefore, socio/politico/economic/cultural mythologies. I loved it and have purchased Wright's two other books."
"I've read other books by Wright, and found his arguments interesting. Unfortunately, I am not sure of some his notions about evolution, since there is a difference between genes for blue eyes and genes for, let's say, picking a mate, which he makes an argument for. (For men it involves picking a woman with a certain hip to waist ratio that would make her a good candidate for child bearing.) Anyway, the purpose of this book is to explore the idea that since society is becoming more moral, our conception of God is becoming more moral as well, and the two are connected. First of all, he hasn't convinced me the world is becoming more moral, and if it was obvious society is more moral, that still wouldn't prove God. A person has to make a leap of faith somewhere.
Wright starts with primitive views of God and progresses through history to the establishment of Islam. He talks about shamanism and persons supposedly being possessed by god or gods. A prehistory Elmer Gantry of sorts. Then he moves from many gods, to Abraham and the Jews notion of one God. The Jews, Christians and Muslims get their God from the same revelation of God. From here on he covers territory previously covered by religion historians, such as Karen Armstrong. He says very little about Far Eastern Religions.
His arguments are good until he gets to St. Paul. He posits Paul was in spreading the gospel to make money. The church was his way of networking the Roman world so he would get customers for his tent tent making business. If this was true, why didn't he mention it in his letters. "I just made a wonderful tent for Silas. Now if he would only pay me."
His take on Paul made me wonder about his later take on Islam, of which I am pretty ignorant about. Wright never really answer his question about God and morality, in fact, I don't think he believes in God. himself."
"Robert Wright wrote another book I've read: Non-Zero, in which he employs game theoretic ideas to interpret evolution, claiming that evolution has a purpose. Maybe since human's have acquired self consciousness and arrived at the dawn of the history, but our biological roots may just be stochastic. He then extends the non-zero sum game theoretic concept to the cultural evolution of religion in the new book Evolution of God. His account of the Abrahamic religions is very interesting and from a secular distance, so the political and humanistic context is made prominent. He was very restrained and respectful in his treatment not only of Judiasim and Christianity but Islam as well. I liked his dispassionate discouse. It was refreshing, unlike the polemic of many fundamentalists and some rabid atheists."
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