A formidable and original interdisciplinary work, likely to interest theologians as well as lay scientists.
An ambitious attempt to provide what the author calls “a unified theory of spirituality, conscience and belief.”
For Antal, spirituality and science aren’t two antagonistic forces; they’re sides of the same cosmic coin. Using research and theories from a cornucopia of fields—including neuroscience, biology, philosophy, psychology—he draws conclusions that are at once insightful and provocative. For instance, he says, the gazing behavior of human infants—by which they acquire their first bits of information about the world—links to the fundamental motivations for communal religious gatherings, a correlation that suggests deeply embedded biological reasons for our spiritual lives. One of the main claims here is that a justification for spirituality can be derived from these biological, physical, and neurological facts; what’s more, he says, we can give a sufficiently complete account of at least some of the phenomena referred to as spiritual experiences by referring to such facts. For those who may find this claim suspicious, Antal provides various examples of how neuroscience can shed light on the origin and practice of spirituality. All this is buttressed by an intense account—situated in the middle of the book and prefaced by warnings about its technicality—of the neurobiological underpinnings of brain processes that ostensibly provide explanations for our most primitive behaviors, our spirituality, and the dovetailing of the two. A thoughtful epilogue, one informed by Aristotle, Hume, and the author’s own careful consideration of causality, concludes the volume. Frequently, the project’s ambition outstrips its resources, but rarely so much as to render the suggestions incredible. The straightforward though dense prose reconciles a scientific concern for detail with a preoccupation with questions about the meaning of human existence, helping the book succeed in informing and challenging.
A formidable and original interdisciplinary work, likely to interest theologians as well as lay scientists.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1506166117
Page Count: 354
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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