The review copy I would have welcomed
Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 2:53AM QUESTIONS FOR: "Robert Wright: Evolutionary Theology," by Deborah Solomon, New York Times Magazine, 31 May 2009.
THE TAKE: "Let's Talk About God: A new book redefines the faith debate," by Lisa Miller, Newsweek, 8 June 2009.
The only thing I want for Christmas is Robert Wright's "The Evolution of God."
My God! I just had the Discovery Channel send me 25 hours of their historical coverage of American warfare on the hope I'd write something on it. If DVDs are being passed around like so much candy, why hasn't anyone sent me an advance copy of Wright's book?
I whine.
I actually had the distinct pleasure, not long after Blueprint for Action came out, to sit down with Wright in Princeton (I believe my manager Jennifer set it up) and we had coffee and chatted for about an hour. I was deeply impressed with the guy, but then again, he had me at Nonzero, which I used in BFA.
Now he's got a book coming out that is sort of a response to attacks he received (from the religious and non-religious wings) regarding that book (that he was either going out of his way to ignore God or that he was working out a non-religious logic for intelligent design).
Some bits from the interview:
I don't think it's a coincidence that the new atheists really got traction in the years after 9/11. The rise of fundamentalism in Islam, but also in Christianity in America, has so highlighted the dark side of religion that people denouncing religion as a whole have a receptive audience . . .
Do you have to make Christianity sound like a pre-electronic Facebook? Institutions thrive when they can serve the interest of a bunch of people, and there's no reason to think the church is different. None of this is to say Paul didn't feel divinely inspired . . .
Well, I wind up arguing that the drift of history, however materially driven, has enough moral direction to suggest that there's some larger purpose at work, and I guess you can call that transcendence . . .
Southern Baptists don't fool around. At age 8 or 9, I chose to go to the front of the church in response to the altar call and accepted Jesus as my savior . . .
When did you begin to doubt? I think it was roughly sophomore year in high school. I encountered the theory of evolution, and my parents were creationists . . .
Do you have any insight into President Obama's spiritual life? No, except that he seems to have the self-assurance of someone who believes that God is on his side.
That can be dangerous. Thinking you're doing God's work is fine if you actually are serving humankind. And I think Obama has a better chance of doing that than most ....
From the review in Newsweek:
[Wright] argues that the scriptures of the three Abrahamic faiths were written in history by real people who aimed to improve things--economic, social, geographical--for their constituencies. But he never argues that what he calls a materialist view of scripture disproves God. Instead, he takes another approach: as our societies have grown more complex and more global, our conceptions of God have grown more demanding and more moral. This is a good thing, for religion "can help us orient our daily lives, recognize good and bad, and make sense of joy and suffering alike."
The best compliments I ever got on my books are, "You've written exactly what I've been thinking and arguing for years--just better organized than I could!" I love the compliment because it means I kept it accessible and real and tapped into logic already there.
I read this description of Wright's logic and I think anyone who's read Great Powers will sense the similarity in approach.
I really like Wright's combination of youth-born belief and adult skepticism and his desire to find some logic that connects the two in an acceptable manner.
I know some--hell, a lot of--people consider such philosophical attempts to be so much nonsense in this day and age, but I consider it a quintessential quest for any thinking person.
Reader Comments (4)
"Tonight, also as part of Skeptic's Distinguished Lecture Series at Caltech, award-winning author Robert Wright will be delivering a talk on his new book, The Evolution of God. Connie and I greatly look forward to this as we've known Bob for years and find his thinking to be closely aligned with our own. Indeed, more than perhaps anyone else, Bob has helped keep us in gas and food money since the launch of our itinerant evo-evangelistic ministry in April 2002. Back in 2002 he donated (gave us!) 75 hardcover copies of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (which I consider one of the 10 best books I've ever read), which we sold at our speaking events. We went on to sell more than 2,000 paperback copies of Nonzero, as well as nearly 400 copies of his book, The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are—The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology."
Amen to that!! Will be buying Wright's book.
I wrote to them months ago to get you as a guest blogger with Robert Wright. I think that would be a great discussion.