God

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even immense God, writ large In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition As Aslan writes, Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves But this projection is not without consequences We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature our compassion, our thirst for justice but all that is bad in it our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a universal spirituality Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.Praise for God Breathtaking in its scope and controversial in its claims, God A Human History shows how humans from time immemorial have made God in their own image, and argues that they should now stop Writing with all the verve and brilliance we have come to expect from his pen, Reza Aslan has once produced a book that will prompt reflection and shatter assumptions Bart D Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God Reza Aslan offers so much to relish in his excellent human history of God In tracing the commonalities that unite religions, Aslan makes truly challenging arguments that believers in many traditions will want to mull over, and to explore further This rewarding book is very ambitious in its scope, and it is thoroughly grounded in an impressive body of reading and research Philip Jenkins, author of Crucible of Faith Best Download God by Reza Aslan For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr In July, I read a book called Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods Early Humans and the Origins of Religion by E Fuller Torrey It presents the evolutionary theory of the creation of gods by examining the cognitive development of man and I found it truly fascinating.In this short work, Reza Aslan similarly explores the creation of gods by man It s not a scientific approach and I found little if nothing new in the first two thirds of the book I appreciate this is largely because I d already read To In July, I read a book called Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods Early Humans and the Origins of Religion by E Fuller Torrey It presents the evolutionary theory of the creation of gods by examining the cognitive development of man and I found it truly fascinating.In this short work, Reza Aslan similarly explores the creation of gods by man It s not a scientific approach and I found little if nothing new in the first two thirds of the book I appr...Although comparable in scope to Karen Armstrong s A History of God, this isof an anthropological and sociological approach to how religion arose We created God in our image, Aslan argues Using Adam and Eve as representatives of primitive humans, he explores what seems to have been intuitive the idea that the soul survives after death the notion of a three tiered universe heaven, Earth, and an underworld and animism, or the conviction that all things have a spirit Cave paintings Although comparable in scope to Karen Armstrong s A History of God, this isof an anthropological and sociological approach to how religion arose We created God in our image, Aslan argues Using Adam and Eve as representatives of primitive humans, he explores what seems to have been intuitive the idea that the soul survives after death the no...5 stuff Many thanks to NetGalley, publisher and author for sharing the ARC Honestly, my experience with ARCs so far was very disappointing Also, I haven t encountered Reza Aslan before So my expectations were pretty low to start with.But then I started reading and was blown away This is such a strong book It is succinct, very balanced, logical and delightful to follow The author is a fantastic storyteller This is a non fiction story that will steal you away from your fiction TBR Th 5 stuff Many thanks to NetGalley, publisher and author for sharing the ARC Honestly, my experience with ARCs so far was very disappointing Also, I haven t encountered Reza Aslan before So my expectations were pretty low to start with.But then I started reading and was blown away This is such a strong book It is succinct, very balanced, logical and delightful to follow The author is a fantastic storyteller This is a non fiction story that will steal you away from your fiction TBR The language is gripping and immersive I...This book is well written and fascinating As an Iranian, I especially love that he includes the vital history of God and religion that began in Iran The content however is very similar to Robert Wright s Evolution is God and Karen Armstrong s history of God But I suppose the outcome is different Reza ends up in Sufism and Wright in secular Buddhism and Armstrong in Christian mysticism But as Azlan seems to say, it s the same thing The other books are muchthorough Harari also takes u ... This review and others can be found on BW Book Reviews.Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy All opinions here are my own and are not influenced by them.Admittedly, I do love Reza Aslan, though I ve read two of his books and one of them completely changed my viewpoint on things My religious studies professors sometimes talk about him to bring up various issues since he s a well known guy who studies religions and talks about them Not only that, but I ve often wondered how This review and others can be found on BW Book Reviews.Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy All opinions here are my own and are not influenced by them.Admittedly, I do love Reza Aslan, though I ve read two of his books and one of them completely changed my viewpoint on things My religious studies professors sometimes talk about him to bring up various issues since he s a well known guy who studies religions and talks about them Not only that, b...I am, in my essential reality, God made manifest We all are So then, worship God not through fear and trembling but through awe and wonder at the workings of the universe for the universe is God Pray to God not to ask for things but to become one with God Recognize that the knowledge of good and evil that the God of Genesis so feared humans might attain begins with the knowledge that good and evil are not metaphysical things but moral choices Root your moral choices neither in fear of etI am, in my essential reality, God made manifest We all are So then, worship God not through fear and trembling but through awe and wonder at the workings of the universe for the universe is God Pray to God not to ask for things but to become one with God Recognize that the knowledge of good and evil that the God of Genesis so feared humans might attain begins with the knowledge that good and evil are not metaphysical things but moral choices Root your moral choices neither in fear of eternal punishment nor in hope of eternal reward Instead, recognize the divinity of the world and every being in it and respond to everyone and everything as though they were God because they are What I found most interesting abou...Not bad for looking at theories on how humanity creates its gods I was interested to note that as Aslan comes out as a pantheist at the end his extreme pantheism isn t all that different from atheism one is everything, every momen...Each of Reza Aslan s previous books made a lasting impression on me God A Human History is no different It is an empowering study that relies on impeccable scholarship and yet reads with the lyricism and emotion of great literature All the while, Aslan maintains a page turning narrative that shows how we have made sense of God throughout history by assigning human attributes to our divine beliefs Aslan starts with the first humans of Adam and Eve He explains how they performed burial rit Each of Reza Aslan s previous books made a lasting impression on me God A Human History is no different It is an empowering study that relies on impeccable scholarship and yet reads with the lyricism and emotion of great literature All the while, Aslan maintains a page turning narrative that shows how we have made sense of God throughout history by assigning human attributes to our divine beliefs Aslan starts with the first humans of Adam and Eve He explains how they performed burial rituals that sought to embrace an afterworld where the deceased took on spiritual forms He shows how this idea of a transcendent soul in the afterlife has been part of every culture throughout human evolution Then, with the birth of agriculture, the humanization of gods intensified as it was fitting to transfer the powers of the gods from heaven to earth so that humans could fulfill the harv...81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump67% of color evangelicals voted for HillaryReza sees race in the numbers Do you I am not the first person to point this out There s been a cultish quality to President Trump s most ardent supporters Throughout the campaign, and in personal appearances since then, Trump has harnessed the kind of emotional intensity from his base that istypical of a religious revival meeting than...Read this once and then immediately read it again Aslan is such a thoughtful, gifted scholar, and I appreciate that he makes scholarly writing so accessible That said, this book isn t quite what I expected It is primarily a history of how monotheism and the humanization of God came to be What Aslan does focus on is compelling, but I was disappointed in the uneven treatment of world religions I would have likeddiscussion of Hinduism briefly discussed within the main body of the text a Read this once and then immediately read it again Aslan is such a thoughtful, gifted scholar, and I appreciate that he makes scholarly writing so accessible That said, this book isn t quite what I expected It is primarily a history of how monotheism and the humanization of God came to be What Aslan does focus on is compelling, but I was disappointed in the uneven treatment of world religions I would have likeddiscussion of Hinduism briefly discussed wit...

God
  • 01 August 2017
  • Kindle Edition
  • 321 pages
  • Reza Aslan
  • God