05.14.09

Booknotes: the evolution of god

Posted in Booknotes, Evolution, Science & Religion at 7:55 pm by nemo

I just received my review copy of Wright’s The Evolution Of God.
It is strange: we are getting a parody of a reformation through these books written by journalists on the subject of religion, from Wright, to Karen Armstrong, to the New Atheists. They are unable to perform this work.
At least Wright has attempted the history of something. But that history is very thin stuff.
It feels strange, and quite funny, that someone, not knowing my destatation of Wright, would send me a copy of his book in the innocent hope of a PR employee in the offices of a publisher that it might generate a good review.

Relevant links to the history here, etec,…:
http://darwiniana.com/2009/05/07/darwin-propaganda-machine-and-whee/ &

http://darwiniana.com/2009/05/12/hegel-vs-wright-on-the-evolution-of-g-d/

http://darwiniana.com/2009/05/12/booknotes-solomon-book-hegel-was-hegel-an-atheist/

The book is hardly worth reviewing, and self-destructs immediately. The Introduction states it will produce a ‘materialist’ approach to the origin of religion.
Wait, is the book about the evolution of God, or the origin of religion?? There’s a difference.
The appendix does the usual number on ‘human nature’ and religion, skulking past the malarkey about the god gene.
My earlier post, as a guess, was right, and I threw a monkey’s banana at Wright on the question of ‘idealism’.
Any discussion of the ‘evolution of god’ ought to mention the case of Hegel. But, oh well.
I am not an idealist, but I see little prospect of an explanation of religion in ‘materialist’ terms, Wright’s materialist terms.
The ‘materialism’ now current (has noone heard of quantum mechanics?) is simply not going to produce the right methodology

As I have said before, many times, a use of classical Indian Samkhya to produce a material perspective is and remains a curious possibility, one that could grapple with the real subject matter of religion. Samkhya materialism, or naturalism arose in the just the kind of vexed religious culture we live in now, and proposed a comprehensive approach to religion in a way that modern scientism can’t seem to manage.
In any case, the term ‘materialist’ obviously echoes Marx, whose ‘materialist’ explanations were all problematical. How much more so applied to the question of the evolution of, god or religion?
The galley has no index yet, so I couldn’t be sure, but I find no reference to the Axial Age. We cannot come to an understanding of the Old Testament without considering that phenomenon.

Enough for the moment.
But I am puzzled: why would Andrew Sullivan give this a good review?

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