God

A Human History

By: Reza Aslan

Narrated by: Reza Aslan

Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

The number one New York Times best-selling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity's quest to make sense of the divine and sounds a call to embrace a deeper, more expansive understanding of God.

In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the 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 more immense: God, writ large.

In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as one long and 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 if we are 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 more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will transform the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.

©2017 Reza Aslan (P)2017 Random House Audio

His best work yet

absolutely loved it! Reza just keeps getting better with each book this one is absolutely worth reading.

An interesting exploration - even for non-believer

Appreciated the narrative tone chronicling the author's own spiritual journey. Presents a thorough history of the major spiritual traditions without proselytizing.

Eloquent, continually fascinating, compelling.

This book is packed to the brim with evocative and fascinating scholarship surrounding the history of spirituality, religion, and the human connection to the Divine. Reza Aslan is a fountain of knowledge, displaying his eloquence, dexterity, and mastership of the topic, without ever coming across as insensitive or overly cynical. The final chapter, an advocacy for pantheism is compelling and the idea is something this book has convinced me to explore further. I cannot recommend this book to everyone, but to anyone who has doubted or questioned their faith tradition, this is an accessible piece of scholarship to consider.

God: a human history

One of the best books I have read explaining the history of God through the history of experiences of man; the changes, the different cultures. I was searching to understand God in religions but this book helped me understand more and make sense of it all.

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thought provoking human history of God. weaves fascinating history with spiritually into an interesting perspective for anyone, no matter beliefs.

Not very satisfying

Pales by comparison to his other (superb) books. No more than a long essay and, ultimately, an unsatisfying one.

written by a believer which transcents

struggled to finish because the argumentation and train of thought is led from a believing point of view. And often some of the conclusions aren't proven but merely presented.

one gap. good overall book.

a good history of human endeavor to understand nature which continues to this day. I, being a physicist by interest and education, found this book to be useful in connecting dots in my understanding of relationship of religion with science. Anyhow, the book leaves one question unaddressed: if the universe is one with God and we are all Him, then how do we explain the existence of evil in universe? there are acts of evil in world which can't be justified and therefore would indicate an imperfect God. does existence of evil necessitate dichotomy between the Creator and creation?

A must listen.

Absorve a new/old universal perspective of humanity and it's believes...

For all ears: agnostc, gnostic and sceptic.

Everybody should read this book

if this were tought before joining any organized religion, half the wars, conflicts, and genocides would be avoided