viernes, 29 de diciembre de 2017
miércoles, 27 de diciembre de 2017
Book Review: God, A Human History By: Reza Aslan.
God, A Human History
By: Reza Aslan.
Why I Got This Book:
I've pretty much interested in this authors body of work for a while now and this is his latest book.
Central Thymes:
• Aslan explains that it has been a basic constant in the evolution of humanity the concept/idea of God/s from the very early man up until today. Another constant is the humanization of the Devine. Humanities first religions viewed the first deities as superhuman entities endowed with human traits and characteristics, and up until now people describe God with human attributes
• Reza defines religion as a language that tries to express and explain a fundamentally unexplainable experience of trying to commune with God/s. Religion creates a large number of symbols, metaphors and rituals that allow the believer to communicate with the divine.
• The institution of myths and rituals leads to the need of servants and attendees to the need of the God/s, spawn the birth of formal organized religion.
• The belief in the Soul is a Universal Human trait that can be traced to the first humans, and possibly to other humanoid species like the Neanderthals.
• One of the first signes of very early religous expresion was the fact that humans started to bury their dead, and they had seemed to follow certain rituals and many times the grave had a marking so it could be revisited.
• The concept of a soul was already understood by the early man much before any ideas relative towards the divine, but it has been lost in time how and exactly when man discovered the concept of the soul. Now when people passed on their soul went to another realm which could be accessed by the living through dreams, altered states and progressively through rituals.
• Aslan explains for early humans there was an invisible force a universal soul called Mana, it was impersonal, inmaterial and supernatural, a force that takes abode in all animate and inanimate things. The Mana evolved into the idea of a personal soul that once the persona is dead it becomes a spirit. As time progress the souls of the dead were believed to inhabit things, trees, mountains, the moon... for these people they all were pulsing with life, they were animated there for humanized. For the first humans, their soul were no different from those of animals and objects, this is the cornerstone of a ancients forms of animism. As time progressed more some of these spirits became individualized gods each serving a particular function in a final phase these individual deities fused together into one omnipotent and universal God. This is a very very brief summary of Aslan's evolution of God.
• Lord of the Beast or god of the Hunt is one of the first types of deities of great importance in the evolution of God/s, common to many cultures. It a diety that is the ruler and guardian of the forest. Believers must have its favor to have a good hunt, but there was solidarity between hunter and prey, overseen by this deity.
• Morality played no role in early religions, deities were considered beyond morality and at worst amoral.
• Religion is not an evolutionary adaptation, it's a byproduct of two other preexisting evolutionary adaptations. The first of these being Hypersensitivity Agency Detection Device (HADD), which is an adaptation to help human survival, but makes humans attribute agency human cause behind unxplained events. Basically, we as species have a cognitive bias towards agency. The second is called Theory of Mind humans perceive none humans that pose some type of similarity with us we project human traits and characteristics, we anthropomorphize things, animals and events. HADD+ Theory of the Mind+ Concept of the Soul+ Right Circumstances / Context = God and Religion. If I have a soul other people and things must too, there must be a connection.
• Myths are not elaborated story that are basically lies, they are meant to convey a particular perception of the world trying to explain why things are the way they are. Folk Memory is basically a universal myth that crosses most or all cultures, like the great flood or the Garden of Eden.
• The transition from nomad life to agriculture lead man to change their focus on the gods from humanized god sky fathers to earth female deities like Gaia that centered the worship around the fertility of the land tied to the fecundate woman.
• The evolution of early deities was cult to ancestor to deified nature to humanized gods. Now as timed progress the humanized gods became too human, like in the case of the Greeks which lead to some to seek non-anthropomorphic God.
• Akenaton and Zarathustra were the first cases in history to establish Monotheism, but in both cases, they both failed to take hold, people had a hard time in accepting a single deity. Now in the case of Zarathustra's teachings changed and evolved over time to become Zoroastrianism.
• Aslan explains that Monotheism has only existed for around 3000 years, and defines it as the sole worship of on God and negation of all other deities, they are false. He also explains the concept of monolatry is the worship of one god over other, that would be the case of early Judaism, we'll get into this in a bit.
• Evolution Lord of the Beast to Mother Earth to Pantheon of Material Deities to Higharqui of Deities.
• The transition politeism to monolatry to monotheism is part of phenomena called political morphism which is the divinisation of earthly politics, basically, in the societies where this happened, there was a concentration of political power y their faith reflected this situation.
• The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem at the hands of King Nobuconezer in 586 BCE generate a real crises of faith and identity for the Israelites, which ended up with them redifing their tribal God Yahweh. Aslan explains that tribal societies their Gods actually fought with them when in conflict with other tribes, so if they lost in their God had failed them. In the case of the Israelites, they rationalized this situation was a punishment from Yahweh and it was all part of his divine plan. For Aslan this identity crisis is the true birth of monotheistic Judaism, because previously the Jewish people practiced monolatry. Now their God was singular, personal and eternal.
• Reza explains that the old testament there are actually two distinct Gods El / Elohim and Yahweh and that the early Israelites practiced monolatry, with El being the older deity. In the Old Testament El is referred as God and Yahweh is mentioned as the LORD, and El used to be represented with a Bull, an Oxin or a Caff.
• For Reza, the monotheism of early Christianity was used to validate the position of the Pope, as the absolute head of the Church.
• Reza explains how the society that Mohammed was born into a polytheist society, and that Allah was a sky god much like Zeus for the Arabes and with time became a high god. The Polytheism in Arab society was highly evolved absorbing the gods and prophets of other faiths, including from Judaism and Christianity, feed off many of these religious traditions especially Judaism summarized them, fixed what he considered wrong ( like idol worship) and established that Allah was Yahweh, and there for the one and only God, going up against the Meccan establishment.
• Now Mohammed tried to rid Islam of a humanized God by prohibiting its representation but the Coran is plagued with anthropomorphic characterizations of Allah and it qualities and attributes.
• Islamic scholars shay away from addressing theological issues focusing on legal issues. Aslan explains how Sufism tries to overcome the limitations of early Islam and set out to try to answer: What is God?
• Aslan end the book with Pantheism, which is something ver similar to the Force.
What I liked :
• Why does Man need to humanize the Devine? Why do fashion God/s in our own image? Is the compilation to humanize the divine hardwired in our brains? Do the belief in God and Religion give Humans any evolutionary advantage? Good opening questions for this books Introduction.
• In this book like in others that Aslan has written on religious issues, Reza always gets into personal aspects on how the subject has affected him as a person or was part of his past in his personal spiritual journey. In this case we get his own complete evolution of how his religious views and how he defines God, how they have changed and matured from his perspective ( he doesn't use this word but it is implicit in the book) from being Muslim to a Christian back to being a Muslim, to a Sufi Muslim and finally becoming a Pantheist.
• Even though the book is pretty long it is very focused and organized with the information, it follows a natural progression of ideas using historical evolutions of the idea of God/s.
• Aslan explains that this book does not try to prove if God/s actually exist, it just focuses on how man define the divine and its evolution.
• I liked how Aslan uses the concept of Adam and Eve to explain the early evolution of religion, and how he uses their expulsion from Eden to explain the transition to a sedentary life for humans which meant a big shift in man's faith and beliefs.
• Aslan seems to struggle with the biological origins of faith in God, because it does undermine belief in God in general.
• Myths about talking tree seem to have been a big deal.
• I found fascinating Reza account how man actually suffered becoming sedentary and forming the first small cities, it was almost an act of faith for man to establish them selves they actually lost a lot from there nomad life, for example, their diet was severely reduced and agricultural work was backbreaking. This also ties into what I read on the history of book by Fernando Baez, which explained man wrote the first epic myths because the longed to see the world as nostalgia towards a nomadic life.
• It is interesting how Aslan links the transition of human society from being nomads to establishing themselves in sedentary community dedicating themselves to agriculture, with the stratification of society and the formalization of religion.
• Aslan affirms that hunting made man master over space farming made man a master over time.
• Political Morphism mentioned earlier is one of the most interesting concepts in the book.
• I discovered what the Demigorge was.
• Aslan does a good job explaining how the tinitary conception of God and the true nature of Jesus of the early Christian Church provokes a colossal rift in it first community of believers.
• Aslan explains how Mohammed was very much a product of his times, and humanizes his origins trying to cutting through myths and traditions.
• When Aslan talks about Islam and how to interpret the Coran his Shia upbringing does shine through.
What I didn't like or Debatable Stuff:
• What Aslan presents about Gobecly Tepe and how old it possibly is, does open many debates, around when and why did man created writing and on the impact of this temple structure on pushing the builders to become sedentary. Basically one of the first forms of organized religion made man sedentary not Agriculture, it was a byproduct of this situation or had a convergent evolution.
• Aslan sort of skims over and oversimplifies the worship of ancestors that is characteristic of early human societies, and is still present in some faith. I guess it possible that this would muddy up his linear cut and dry analysis.
• I was let down because Aslan centers his analysis on western faiths mostly, with little mention of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism..., it feels like it would have complicated his linear narrative.
• When talking about the trinitary conception of God of the early Christian, Aslan does omit talking about the Holy Spirit. The chapter about Christianity in general is one of the weaker chapters of the book.
By: Reza Aslan.
Why I Got This Book:
I've pretty much interested in this authors body of work for a while now and this is his latest book. Central Thymes:
• Aslan explains that it has been a basic constant in the evolution of humanity the concept/idea of God/s from the very early man up until today. Another constant is the humanization of the Devine. Humanities first religions viewed the first deities as superhuman entities endowed with human traits and characteristics, and up until now people describe God with human attributes
• Reza defines religion as a language that tries to express and explain a fundamentally unexplainable experience of trying to commune with God/s. Religion creates a large number of symbols, metaphors and rituals that allow the believer to communicate with the divine.
• The institution of myths and rituals leads to the need of servants and attendees to the need of the God/s, spawn the birth of formal organized religion.
• The belief in the Soul is a Universal Human trait that can be traced to the first humans, and possibly to other humanoid species like the Neanderthals.
• One of the first signes of very early religous expresion was the fact that humans started to bury their dead, and they had seemed to follow certain rituals and many times the grave had a marking so it could be revisited.
• The concept of a soul was already understood by the early man much before any ideas relative towards the divine, but it has been lost in time how and exactly when man discovered the concept of the soul. Now when people passed on their soul went to another realm which could be accessed by the living through dreams, altered states and progressively through rituals.
• Aslan explains for early humans there was an invisible force a universal soul called Mana, it was impersonal, inmaterial and supernatural, a force that takes abode in all animate and inanimate things. The Mana evolved into the idea of a personal soul that once the persona is dead it becomes a spirit. As time progress the souls of the dead were believed to inhabit things, trees, mountains, the moon... for these people they all were pulsing with life, they were animated there for humanized. For the first humans, their soul were no different from those of animals and objects, this is the cornerstone of a ancients forms of animism. As time progressed more some of these spirits became individualized gods each serving a particular function in a final phase these individual deities fused together into one omnipotent and universal God. This is a very very brief summary of Aslan's evolution of God.
• Lord of the Beast or god of the Hunt is one of the first types of deities of great importance in the evolution of God/s, common to many cultures. It a diety that is the ruler and guardian of the forest. Believers must have its favor to have a good hunt, but there was solidarity between hunter and prey, overseen by this deity.
• Morality played no role in early religions, deities were considered beyond morality and at worst amoral.
• Religion is not an evolutionary adaptation, it's a byproduct of two other preexisting evolutionary adaptations. The first of these being Hypersensitivity Agency Detection Device (HADD), which is an adaptation to help human survival, but makes humans attribute agency human cause behind unxplained events. Basically, we as species have a cognitive bias towards agency. The second is called Theory of Mind humans perceive none humans that pose some type of similarity with us we project human traits and characteristics, we anthropomorphize things, animals and events. HADD+ Theory of the Mind+ Concept of the Soul+ Right Circumstances / Context = God and Religion. If I have a soul other people and things must too, there must be a connection.
• Myths are not elaborated story that are basically lies, they are meant to convey a particular perception of the world trying to explain why things are the way they are. Folk Memory is basically a universal myth that crosses most or all cultures, like the great flood or the Garden of Eden.
• The transition from nomad life to agriculture lead man to change their focus on the gods from humanized god sky fathers to earth female deities like Gaia that centered the worship around the fertility of the land tied to the fecundate woman.
• The evolution of early deities was cult to ancestor to deified nature to humanized gods. Now as timed progress the humanized gods became too human, like in the case of the Greeks which lead to some to seek non-anthropomorphic God.
• Akenaton and Zarathustra were the first cases in history to establish Monotheism, but in both cases, they both failed to take hold, people had a hard time in accepting a single deity. Now in the case of Zarathustra's teachings changed and evolved over time to become Zoroastrianism.
• Aslan explains that Monotheism has only existed for around 3000 years, and defines it as the sole worship of on God and negation of all other deities, they are false. He also explains the concept of monolatry is the worship of one god over other, that would be the case of early Judaism, we'll get into this in a bit.
• Evolution Lord of the Beast to Mother Earth to Pantheon of Material Deities to Higharqui of Deities.
• The transition politeism to monolatry to monotheism is part of phenomena called political morphism which is the divinisation of earthly politics, basically, in the societies where this happened, there was a concentration of political power y their faith reflected this situation.
• The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem at the hands of King Nobuconezer in 586 BCE generate a real crises of faith and identity for the Israelites, which ended up with them redifing their tribal God Yahweh. Aslan explains that tribal societies their Gods actually fought with them when in conflict with other tribes, so if they lost in their God had failed them. In the case of the Israelites, they rationalized this situation was a punishment from Yahweh and it was all part of his divine plan. For Aslan this identity crisis is the true birth of monotheistic Judaism, because previously the Jewish people practiced monolatry. Now their God was singular, personal and eternal.
• Reza explains that the old testament there are actually two distinct Gods El / Elohim and Yahweh and that the early Israelites practiced monolatry, with El being the older deity. In the Old Testament El is referred as God and Yahweh is mentioned as the LORD, and El used to be represented with a Bull, an Oxin or a Caff.
• For Reza, the monotheism of early Christianity was used to validate the position of the Pope, as the absolute head of the Church.
• Reza explains how the society that Mohammed was born into a polytheist society, and that Allah was a sky god much like Zeus for the Arabes and with time became a high god. The Polytheism in Arab society was highly evolved absorbing the gods and prophets of other faiths, including from Judaism and Christianity, feed off many of these religious traditions especially Judaism summarized them, fixed what he considered wrong ( like idol worship) and established that Allah was Yahweh, and there for the one and only God, going up against the Meccan establishment.
• Now Mohammed tried to rid Islam of a humanized God by prohibiting its representation but the Coran is plagued with anthropomorphic characterizations of Allah and it qualities and attributes.
• Islamic scholars shay away from addressing theological issues focusing on legal issues. Aslan explains how Sufism tries to overcome the limitations of early Islam and set out to try to answer: What is God?
• Aslan end the book with Pantheism, which is something ver similar to the Force.
What I liked :
• Why does Man need to humanize the Devine? Why do fashion God/s in our own image? Is the compilation to humanize the divine hardwired in our brains? Do the belief in God and Religion give Humans any evolutionary advantage? Good opening questions for this books Introduction.
• In this book like in others that Aslan has written on religious issues, Reza always gets into personal aspects on how the subject has affected him as a person or was part of his past in his personal spiritual journey. In this case we get his own complete evolution of how his religious views and how he defines God, how they have changed and matured from his perspective ( he doesn't use this word but it is implicit in the book) from being Muslim to a Christian back to being a Muslim, to a Sufi Muslim and finally becoming a Pantheist.
• Even though the book is pretty long it is very focused and organized with the information, it follows a natural progression of ideas using historical evolutions of the idea of God/s.
• Aslan explains that this book does not try to prove if God/s actually exist, it just focuses on how man define the divine and its evolution.
• I liked how Aslan uses the concept of Adam and Eve to explain the early evolution of religion, and how he uses their expulsion from Eden to explain the transition to a sedentary life for humans which meant a big shift in man's faith and beliefs.
• Aslan seems to struggle with the biological origins of faith in God, because it does undermine belief in God in general.
• Myths about talking tree seem to have been a big deal.
• I found fascinating Reza account how man actually suffered becoming sedentary and forming the first small cities, it was almost an act of faith for man to establish them selves they actually lost a lot from there nomad life, for example, their diet was severely reduced and agricultural work was backbreaking. This also ties into what I read on the history of book by Fernando Baez, which explained man wrote the first epic myths because the longed to see the world as nostalgia towards a nomadic life.
• It is interesting how Aslan links the transition of human society from being nomads to establishing themselves in sedentary community dedicating themselves to agriculture, with the stratification of society and the formalization of religion.
• Aslan affirms that hunting made man master over space farming made man a master over time.
• Political Morphism mentioned earlier is one of the most interesting concepts in the book.
• I discovered what the Demigorge was.
• Aslan does a good job explaining how the tinitary conception of God and the true nature of Jesus of the early Christian Church provokes a colossal rift in it first community of believers.
• Aslan explains how Mohammed was very much a product of his times, and humanizes his origins trying to cutting through myths and traditions.
• When Aslan talks about Islam and how to interpret the Coran his Shia upbringing does shine through.
What I didn't like or Debatable Stuff:
• What Aslan presents about Gobecly Tepe and how old it possibly is, does open many debates, around when and why did man created writing and on the impact of this temple structure on pushing the builders to become sedentary. Basically one of the first forms of organized religion made man sedentary not Agriculture, it was a byproduct of this situation or had a convergent evolution.
• Aslan sort of skims over and oversimplifies the worship of ancestors that is characteristic of early human societies, and is still present in some faith. I guess it possible that this would muddy up his linear cut and dry analysis.
• I was let down because Aslan centers his analysis on western faiths mostly, with little mention of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism..., it feels like it would have complicated his linear narrative.
• When talking about the trinitary conception of God of the early Christian, Aslan does omit talking about the Holy Spirit. The chapter about Christianity in general is one of the weaker chapters of the book.
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