Author – Robert Wright
Little, Brown and Company 567 p.
Author Robert Wright is an articulate writer and very insightful. In this well balanced book, he does a very scholarly, in-depth job of tracing the concept of a supreme being from early shamanism to the world religions of today. He ably demonstrates how religions evolve over time, as does their concept of God. In the process, he shows how God becomes a reflection of particular groups of people at any given time in history.
Wright continues to pull no punches by also showing how powerful and sometimes good-intentioned forces have manipulated religious writings to advance a particular concept of God. Even so he stresses the value of religion as an important moral force in world history. God, he suggests, may well exist, but not the God as defined by any one religious group.
True to his scholarly approach, Wright provides excellent documentation of his work at the book’s end with an appendix, a note on translations, a solid bibliography, and a detailed index.
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