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    The Evolution of God
    The Evolution of God
    The Evolution of God
    Audiobook18 hours

    The Evolution of God

    Written by Robert Wright

    Narrated by Arthur Morey

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In this sweeping narrative, which takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism but to future harmony.

    Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking reexamination of the past and a visionary look forward.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 9, 2009
    ISBN9781400182817
    The Evolution of God
    Author

    Robert Wright

    Robert Wright is the New York Times bestselling author of The Evolution of God (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Nonzero, The Moral Animal, Three Scientists and their Gods (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Why Buddhism Is True. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the widely respected Bloggingheads.tv and MeaningofLife.tv. He has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Time, Slate, and The New Republic. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton University, where he also created the popular online course “Buddhism and Modern Psychology.” He is currently Visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. 

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    Reviews for The Evolution of God

    4/5

    32 ratings20 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is an excellent examination of the history of religion from a social perspective. The author is extremely thorough and detailed in his analysis of the evolution of the major religions (Jew, Christian and Islam). He also offers excellent insight as to the reasons for the evolutionary path of religion, and extends those insights to provide a glimmer of hope for the future.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I opened this book eagerly because I found Wright's earlier book, Non-Zero, fascinating and persuasive. The Evolution of God, not so much, mostly because he hangs his examination of the development of the Abrahamic religions on the concept of zero-sum and non-zero-sum games. It didn't convince me.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Wright is a fine writer and has an interesting thesis (that the "facts on the ground" determine how a religion's scriptures or traditions are interpreted--whether in a manner friendly or hostile to the "other"). He still tries to argue that there is progress in the way the human race conceives of God, when you'd think that the logical conclusion of his thesis is that we're better off trying to change the material conditions of human life, getting different peoples to take the risk of living and working with each other and developing "nonzero sum" relationships, than trying to change their religious beliefs. It's a variation on the "religion as epiphenomenon" thesis that moderate Marxists promoted in the early 20th century.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This latest book from Robert Wright extends and magnifies his continued use of non-zero sum games as a lens to view moral and social progress, with a focus on religion, specifically the 3 major Abrahamic religions of the West. Wright's writings have constantly placed him stuck between a rock and a hard place, being too irreligious for religious believers, and too accommodating towards religious ideas for the tastes of most modern secular and scientifically minded skeptics. I consider myself in the latter group, a secular scientist and skeptic by nature, but I've come to believe in the general thrust of Wright's ideas and have a lot of sympathy for his persistence in trying to make his views heard while acknowledging that proof of his explanations at the level which modern science requires is not yet available. Wright is not an apologetic, he is not arguing for the truth of revealed religious doctrine the way theologians do, what he is arguing for is a more subtle approach to try and actually understand the motivations behind religious thought, the socioeconomic forces that engender such thought, and how they have and may continue to evolve through history. He keeps his focus on the Western faiths, but the ideas are equally applicable to the Eastern religions as well. Attempts at this type of secular reconciliation of religious or spiritual thinking have been done in the past, one notable example that comes to mind is Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, but Wright stays away from any hypothesizing about mystical or spiritual conscious states, his main concern is moral and social psychology and comes across as more pragmatic, trying to find a direction that may offer practical solutions to the 'clash of civilizations' that globalization has thrust us into, and saves any speculations about greater purpose or divinity to a small section at the end. The problem with Wright's ideas in this book and in Non Zero is that they need more proof if more people are to be convinced, but if you grant him leeway with some of his assumptions, the overall perspective he argues for is, in my opinion, the more than sensible, and incredibly important.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      For everyone who cannot sign on to the concept of a personal, anthropomorphic God but still wants to believe there is some kind of deeper meaning at work in our lives, Robert Wright's book "The Evolution of God" is-- well, a godsend. Wright's basic thesis is that the concept of God -- of a single, monotheistic deity -- that is at the core of the three Abrahamic faiths -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- has evolved over the centuries in response to the political realities of specific historical contexts and, further, that this evolution has paralleled a rough direction in human history toward greater justice and humanity.Wright argues that human history is not blind or random, that it indeed has a direction, that it has been evolving in a discernible path: from ignorance and superstition to ever higher levels of scientific and technological understanding, from narrower to broader human connections, from tribalism to globalization. The concept that we all share a common humanity -- that we all live within the "human condition" -- is one that has grown and developed through history. Obviously, it's not a totally linear process, and progress has been far from steady or consistent to say the very least. Nevertheless, it can be said, as Martin Luther King, Jr., famously did (quoting the nineteenth century Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist Theodore Parker), "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."Basically, what Wright does in "The Evolution of God" is tie the Abrahamic faiths' evolving ideas of God to the evolutionary trend in history, and posits that God could be the force behind it. Wright is clear that God doesn't HAVE to be the explanation for the progressive direction of human history -- but he (she, it) CAN be. This is certainly not a new idea. The belief that God works through history, and that God and man are partners in perfecting the world, is a key concept in Judaism, for example. And obviously Wright is not the first thinker to notice that history seems to flow in a particular direction. But the way he ties it all together to develop a concept of God, or of divinity, or of a Higher Power, that is emphatically NOT a reworked back-door Intelligent Design or Creationism, and that works WITH scientific and technological discovery and advancement rather than being contradicted or disproved by it, is fresh and original. The quality of the author's writing is a match for the quality of his thinking and research. These are not always easy concepts to understand, and Wright conveys them lucidly and even entertainingly. He manages to convey intellectual authority in an engaging, conversational voice, and with a wonderful sense of humor. Some quick caveats: If you believe in a physical, personal, authoritarian God, this book is not for you. If you believe that the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Gospels are the literal Word of God, rather than a literary and historical record written by human beings long after the events described took place (if they did), then this book is not for you. If you believe that Judaism is good and Christianity even better and Islam not a proper religion at all, this book is not for you.BUT. If you believe, or suspect, or are willing to consider the possibility that the three great Abrahamic religions were created and developed by actual, living people at specific times and in specific places and in response to specific political and historical challenges; and that what we call, variously, God or the Father or Allah, is (or may be) the higher power behind human history, driving that history, and working with and through human agency to move history in a direction of goodness and wholeness and connection, then this may be a book you will enjoy reading.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Other than Wright's (over? -) selling his notion of non-zero-sum-ness as the discovery of the morally aware religion/culture, this book is as gentle a nudge as it can be in today's troubled waters. Not only do today's "people of the book" have much to learn from one another's religions, but each as much from within their own. He lists fundamental challenges to each of the common trio: Judaism will have to accept the Exodus story is not historical, and that Yahweh evolved from tribal gods of the region. Christians will have to accept Jesus' message of love wasn't particularly novel, nor as universal as we've come to believe. Islam will need to learn (not unlike the other two) that words ascribed to the Prophet were later additions. Each will have to give up an exclusivity standing in the way of the next level of moral inclusion.Wright threads the history with human nature and the evolutionary forces which put us on the path to recognize religious spirituality. He recognizes the "God gene" as an explanation, but as likely to face erosion as earlier naturalist dieties.
    • 4/5
      The book is well written, accurate, interesting, and takes a leveled handed approach to the subject. Robert provides a historical perspective as well as a look at religion in the present day. He provide insight into why some people can use the Koran to promote terrorism and why others use it to promote peace and cooperation. I highly recommend the book.
    • 5/5
      Now that I have a good e-book reader, I find that I've only purchased some 3 paper books in the last 4 months, compared to some 20+ ebooks. I thought I'd miss having a hard copy of books to display and to flip through and I was surprised to find I did not. Until now.The Evolution of God is simply brilliant. Robert Wright explores (and largely discredits) traditional conceptions of the shared God of the Jews, Christians and Muslims, but he does so with an almost astounding amount of respect and care for these religions and all they stand for. This sort of thoughtful, and careful, study of religion and its relationship to science, has been largely missing in the screaming, fever pitch "Eff them all!" world of Richard Dawkins and his opposition in the "Intelligent" Design crowd.This book is a breath of fresh air, is captivating and brilliantly written, and is so damn good, I have just ordered a second copy of it. A hard-back paper copy of it. Because I want to hold a book this good in my hands.
    • 4/5
      The beginning of the book was amazing. There was so much information about how the concept of God has changed. There was a lot of information about the Bible and how God is portrayed in the Bible. However, the second half of the book was hard to get through. It was more philosophical and opinionated and less informational.
    • 4/5
      Wright's The Evolution of God sets out to trace the academic concept of a supreme deity from its origination in Stone Age societies to modern implementation. Wright does not merely collect and present evidence in a clinical fashion, however -- in the course of the book, he expounds theoretical models on how and why religions developed as they did, and extrapolated this to the present and future. In this respect, he goes a little beyond what is normally expected from a history book. And while I generally agreed with his conclusion based on the evidence he provided, his own evangelizing near the end seemed a little outside of his authority. On the other hand, he said what needed to be said, and nobody is else is stepping to the plate to say it, so I'll give him a pass on this.Wright's theory is that religion (and the nature of gods at a given moment) is an extension of "facts on the ground." Governments and peoples do not bow in the winds of unalterable religious doctrine, but instead conform their notions of the supernatural to fit the needs of the day. One such example is the development of monotheism. The notion of one and only one supreme being was not struck overnight and delivered with inexorable force in a pagan world. As peoples were conquered, astute leaders discovered that embracing their gods was a good way to maintain order in their new holdings. Sometimes they allowed the pantheons to co-exist, other times, priests allowed the form and function of foreign gods to combine with their own. Wright traces the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god to a very diverse polytheistic beginning in ancient Babylonia and before. Yahweh moves up the chain from a rather minor deity to big chief almost by accident -- it could have easily have been the god El (thought to be embodied in the name Israel). Two leaders cast their lots with a god and do battle. One wins, another loses. The winner goes on, lauded as the cause of victory. The loser is vanquished to the mists of history, discredited or its followers dead. Fitting the "facts on the ground," monotheism eventually coalesces to mirror the administrative needs of large, widespread empires with a centralized government. One all-powerful head of state, one all-powerful god.Wright calls upon a number of translations of the Hebrew and Christian bibles and the Koran, as well as other historical evidence. I was a little disappointed that the book didn't focus on the evolution of all gods -- just the Abrahamic ones (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Sure, there was some Buddhist anecdotes, but it was mostly discussing how the phenomenon of Jesus had it's counterpart with the Indian Asoka. After discussing the rise of Islam, Wright shifts focus from the evolution of religion to focus on his thesis of interpretations fitting the "facts on the ground" and what it means in the modern world. Specifically, he discusses contradictory themes in all religion, and how they might support a wide range dogma ranging from the benign to the chaotic. He then speaks directly to a Judeo-Christian readership (freely admitting that he did not imagine too many readers in Indonesia or Saudi Arabia among his audience). Treating Islam like an unruly stepchild, he admits that the radicals are too far gone to be salvaged in a global community, but those of us in the Western world should endeavor to better integrate Islam into our culture if we wish to prevent to moderates from becoming extremists. He argues this is how the religions came to being in the first place, and that evolution has necessarily trended towards peaceful coexistence as populations increased. The penalty for bucking this trend could be something along the lines from the ancient influences that begot these religions -- the notion of a world-ending battle (Armageddon, if you will). It's not so much the ancient scripture writers were prophets in any sense of the word, those ancient religions that survived to this day did so by adapting to an often-hostile world around them, and their continued survival was a legacy of what works, what does not. Lessons learned in the demise of others illuminates paths that lead to danger.
    • 4/5
      Takes seriously the view that religion evolves much like a living organism steered by forces in external "habitat". Uses historical nonzero sum-ness as the crux of otherwise malleable circumstances of scripture-justified action.
    • 4/5
      The Evolution of God defies simple categorization. It's a history text, sociology text, theory of religion, and sometimes theology. Robert Wright traces how the Abrahamic religions adjusted how they conceptualized God according to their own sitz im leben. What the book finds is a consistent tension between synthesis and inclusion of new cultures (ie the Jewish Diaspora or Christians in Hellenized Rome) and the steadfast sense of identity markers as separation rather than cultural compromise.His historical analysis of God through shifting times and experiences was insightful and fascinating. But the last few chapters of the book took a different approach: now that we had been through the evolution of religion historically, what should be the impact and implications for the present day? If every religion developed as a minority culture with clear external threats, clearly that needs to be adjusted for our present day globalized culture. Wright argues for ecumenism, cross-culture discourse, and simple tolerance as the necessary "evolution" of religion for the twenty-first century. Furthermore, he argues in favor of an understanding of God as an anthropomorphized manifestation of humanity's innate desire for social contact as well as meaning. Wright's God isn't the "Thunderer" he sees the Abrahamic faiths as worshiping, but may exist to express a societal need for morality and a guideline for how to interact with the world. That is really how his history plays itself out anyway: believers believe in a God who leads them to live an exemplary life amidst societal upheaval or even just personal difficulties. With such an understanding, then, Wright's encouragement towards toleration becomes easier to realize, in a world where God should not be a cause for division but rather a communal longing for a better world.
    • 4/5
      We're not in the Middle Ages anymore. These days, there are a significant number of people who believe both that the Bible is the word of God and admit that it had a number of human authors and that Biblical scholarship must contend with modern archeological findings. Even so, Wright's book is a surprisingly blunt reminder that the Bible is, in many ways, the work of numerous imperfect human hands. He attacks the contention that monotheism was a great idea – or revelation, if you will – that changed the world, arguing instead that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths were slow-developing products of their environments whose contents and interpretation changed as politics and interests demanded. Wright is, in many ways, convincing. He's obviously researched his subject thoroughly and is an excellent close reader, adept at ferreting out the different ways a single word or concept can be used to mean different things at different points in the text and pointing out how much information the Bible implies or leaves out. I am not sure how many people of faith will want to read a book with a title like "The Evolution of God," but those that do will may have their assumptions challenged in a number of different ways. Wright is somewhat less successful when he tries to use his careful reading of Biblical history to suggest that this slow evolution of Abrahamic religion suggests the work of a grand designer-style deity. In many ways, he runs into the same problem that many writers on evolution itself face: how do you discuss the concept of evolutionary design without admitting to the existence of a conscious designer? Wright's focus here is clearly spiritual, but the arguments he presents here could also be used to prove that the steady expansion of global trade has helped us see our trading partners as fellow humans, or that we are conditioned by evolutionary design to seek peaceful mutually beneficial solutions to intercultural disagreements. Of course, I'm not exactly convinced that the author set out to provide an ontological proof for God when he began this book. In a sense, Wright is imagining what sort of God a person who is fully aware of the Bible's turbulent history and the questions posed by modern science and game theory could potentially believe in. The actual believing is, as always, up to the individual.
    • 5/5
      A truly insightful important book. A guide to reconciling belief with wisdom.
    • 4/5
      Social history of religion, how it affects society for better or worse, from being a necessary component of tribal societies to more inclusive (and sometimes exclusive) monotheistic religions. Very interesting stuff!
    • 4/5
      Some interesting moments but mostly dense and tedious.
    • 1/5
      There’s a glitch in the audio that causes a constant, repeating “clicking” sound. Doesn’t appear on other audiobooks so i know it’s exclusive to this particular audiobook.
    • 5/5
      In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony.Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking re-examination of the past, and a visionary look forward.
    • 5/5
      This book was very well-done. There was a good flow, good research, and reasoned discussion. I know that our tendency is to rate these sorts of books in ways that reflect how much the author's theology or point of view reflects our own, and my 5-stars for Wright's book certainly suffers from that bias. He builds a very coherent and unemotional case for the existence of "something" we call G-d. He describes how our description of that "something" is far more a reflection of the culture at the time the description was made than it is any sort of true reflection of this "something". How could it be otherwise? We're just people - how could we truly understand and describe this "something" if it's truly a force impacting the entire universe?

      If a reader is tied neatly and closely to a particular orthodoxy, a literalist of one brand of scripture or interpretation of scripture, that reader might not enjoy this book. For anyone who finds persistent and nagging questions that they'd like to see discussed openly and honestly, this is a book you'll enjoy. The beauty of Wright's perspective is that he's not a flaming atheist with an agenda to disrespect religion and convert everyone he can to his brand of atheism. He appears to be someone who's spent a great deal of his life pondering and exploring 'the divine", and has presented here an excellent description of what he finds at this point in those ponderings.
    • 4/5
      This book would have gotten a five-star rating if the author had not shifted from history to politics. The was a lot to learn and so much detail on this topic but I would have appreciated discussion of more than the Abrahamic religions. The author did discuss ancient tribal religions and briefly mentioned Egyptian, Norse, Chinese, etc. religions. But those were just footnotes to the greater narrative of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.