num_pages: 280
description: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanitys quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot Reza Aslan replaced the staid well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book Aslan takes on a subject even more God writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful accessible scholarship Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes Whether we are aware of it or not and regardless of whether were believers or not what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves. But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human natureour compassion our thirst for justicebut all that is bad in our greed our bigotry our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions cultures and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God many gods or no god at all A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.Praise for GodTimely riveting enlightening and necessary.  HuffPostTantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslans grace and curiosity God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life. The Seattle TimesA fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette[Aslans] slim yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G and its thoroughly mind-blowing. Los Angeles Review of BooksAslan is a born storyteller and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.  San Francisco Chronicle
language: English
title: God: A Human History
publisher: Random House