Discovering God is a monumental history of the origins of
the great religions from the Stone Age to the Modern Age.
Sociologist Rodney Stark surveys the birth and growth of religions
around the world—from the prehistoric era of primal beliefs; the
history of the pyramids found in Iraq, Egypt, Mexico, and
Cambodia; and the great "Axial Age" of Plato, Zoroaster,
Confucius, and the Buddha, to the modern Christian missions and
the global spread of Islam. He argues for a free-market theory of
religion and for the controversial thesis that under the best,
unimpeded conditions, the true, most authentic religions will
survive and thrive. Among his many conclusions:
- Despite decades of faulty reports that early religions were
crude muddles of superstition, it turns out that primitive
humans had surprisingly sophisticated notions about God and
Creation.
- The idea of "sin" appeared suddenly in the sixth century
BCE and quickly reshaped religious ideas from
Europe to China.
- Some major world religions seem to lack any plausible traces
of divine inspiration.
- Ironically, some famous figures who attempted to found
"Godless" religions ended up being worshiped as Gods.
Most people believe in the existence of God (or gods), and this
has apparently been so throughout human history. Many modern
biologists and psychologists reject these spiritual ideas,
especially those about the existence of God, as delusional. They
claim that religion is a primitive survival mechanism that should
have been discarded as humans evolved beyond the stage where
belief in God served any useful purpose—that in modern societies,
faith is a misleading crutch and an impediment to reason. In
Discovering God, award-winning sociologist Rodney Stark
responds to this position, arguing that it is our capacity to
understand God that has evolved—that humans now know much more
about God than they did in ancient times.
