Book Reviewed: The Evolution of Gods: The Scientific Origin of Divinity and Religions, by Ajay Kansal

Essays on religion and related subjects

This book lacks focus. The author has no specific objective but runs amok through the ancient history of human beings, and dwells on subjects like anthropology, religion and human evolution. But he gets lost while defining the myth of human life. Civilization grew first and spirituality came long after humans learnt to survive in this world. The author has a spiritual awakening in his life but he cannot let his attention diffuse on numerous areas of human knowledge.

In the book, “Why I am not a Christian and other essays on religion.” Bertrand Russell says in his Preface that, “I am firmly convinced that religions do harm.” He questions about man’s place in the universe, and about morality, freedom, education, and sexual ethics in Abrahamic religions. He brings into discussion the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other philosophical work is famous for. There is no question that religions like Islam and Christianism distort of the origins of life in the cosmos. We think of God as merciful, just and compassionate. In fact, much of Old and New Testaments, Quran and Hadith lays out God’s qualities as: jealous, petty, unforgiving, bloodthirsty, and vindictive. There is no science and reason in religious arguments. We need to focus on metaphysical reasoning and understand quantum physical reality. We need to rejoice at the wonders of creation through the Hubble Telescope and particle accelerators like Large Hadron Colliders. And how consciousness fit in all this.

There are just too many books that discusses the human desire to connect with the God Almighty. And how established religions took hold of civilizations. The author would have done better job on focusing on just one topic.