by Phillip Shirvington ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A thought-provoking, if ultimately unconvincing, analysis of the human impulse toward religion.
A short but densely packed attempt to construct a sort of unified theory of God.
“A number of biologists and psychologists have proposed that we have a God module in our brains,” writes Shirvington (God in the Time of the Internet, 2014) in his latest nonfiction work, which seeks to lay out the cases for and against this idea. More specifically, he seeks to arrive at a universal understanding of the emotional and psychological commonalities of the world’s major religions. He cites recent statistics that indicate that an overwhelming majority of people believe in some kind of God, and he wonders about the meaning of such numbers—is it because young people are indoctrinated into religion early or because humans are “hard-wired” for religious belief in a way that no other animal is? In a literate, multifaceted overview, Shirvington takes readers through the basic psychological allure of religion and the ways that humans have responded to it over millennia. But his goal is ultimately investigative, not historical: he wishes to uncover the root cause of religiosity—why so many humans throughout history have been interested in “blurring the boundaries of the limited self” in order to seek a higher power. He locates this urge in human DNA and in the human brain. The book contends that subjective experiences of God must be real because they provoke people to go out and change the world and because they provoke electrochemical responses in the brains of the people experiencing them. This is an unconvincing argument, however, which doesn’t adequately explain away the fact that violent delusions can do the very same thing. Also, the author’s biological explanation for the religious impulse fails to take atheists into account; indeed, the book’s chapter about atheists is its weakest, by far. This is unfortunate, as they will likely object most strongly to any theory that hard-wires God into biology.
A thought-provoking, if ultimately unconvincing, analysis of the human impulse toward religion.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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