Reza Aslan - God, A Human History

In God, Reza Aslan sheds new light on mankind’s relationship with the divine and challenges our perspective on the history of faith and the birth of religion.
From the origins of spiritual thought to the concept of an active, engaged, divine presence that underlies all creation, Aslan examines how the idea of god arose in human evolution, was gradually personalized, endowed with human traits and emotions, and eventually transformed into a single Divine Personality: the God known today by such names as Yahweh, Father, and Allah.
Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, God challenges everything we thought we knew about the origins of religious belief, and with it our relationship with life and death, with the natural and spiritual worlds, and our understanding of the very essence of human existence.

Comment: I won't spend much time commenting this book but I think it's different enough to merit some lines.

This is a non-fiction sort of essay on how humankind has created and developed the idea of "God" until nowadays. The author is an academic and controversy aside, I think he did present an interesting and objective summary on the evolution of what is God and how the notion changed with time.

The main idea the author presents is that humans have always attempted to create a divinity that would resemble themselves rather than the other way around.

To do this, the author has divided this book into three parts and in each one he addressed the possible thinking of people through the ages, from the Paleolithic until the more modern creations of churches and organized religions.

I think this book fulfills its goal: it helps those who aren't very knowledgeable about religion to understand a little bit of the social, economical and some psychological reasons why humans have tried to create the notion of superior beings to the point of worshiping them.

I also think the most captivating idea discussed in the book is how this was done, not out of fear or lack of knowledge of the unknown but because it would be an expected mental device to justify behaviors and choices and steps. I'm summarizing, of course, since the author has many academic sources to explain all his ideas, but in general this could be it.

I'm not going to discuss the veracity of what the author claims. First I'm not that knowledgeable to be able to present my own thoughts on theories that took philosophers and historians to come up with and second, part of me feels the point of this novel isn't to let people think with their own heads but to step by step go towards the idea the author defends the most. Discussing this would be a little pointless.

Strictly from the POV of being an average reader, I think the book has a good structure in terms of portraying the information. One can go through time and learn a little bit bout ideas and possible explanations for human behavior through history.

I could say it is a little provocative but I didn't have the feeling that was the aim. The facts and information presented are all documented, there are notes and sources and like any goof academic, the author included a vast bibliography to support much of his text.

Of course, as with any supposition, it's all very difficult to prove without evidence or historical people's testimonies on why they did or believed things.

I'm catholic so I have a certain understanding of "my" church's credos and dogmas. At the same time, I can also be suspicious enough to distinguish between faith and historical facts and there are things people will always doubt or find weird/unexplainable.

But even for those who don't have religious beliefs this can be an informative work. Surely, it can also create even more doubts as any idea could be analyzed to the infinitesimal detail but the writing is accessible and helps to put things into perspective.

Grade: 7/10