Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief
By Rodney Stark - (Harper One)
Reviewed by Chris Gardner
It read the second way to me.
It covers gods in primitive societies, temple religions of ancient civilisations, the ancient religious market-place of Rome, the rebirth of monotheism, Indian inspirations, Chinese gods and the godless faiths, the rise of Christianity and Islam. Stark, who is not a Christian, sounded almost like Alpha Course founder Nicky Gumble as he examined the arguments for and against Christianity. Responding to the popular claim that the New Testament is a fraud Stark writes: “No one competent now doubts that most of Paul’s letters are authentic.”
Tackling claims made about the suppression of other Gospels, made in The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, he writes: “The truth is that these scripts were properly dismissed as a last gasp attempt to incorporate Chris-tianity within traditional polytheism.”
Despite his defence of the Christian faith Stark asks: “Does God exist? That is have we discovered God? Or have we invented him?”
He concludes: “It seems to me that the most remarkable ‘retreat’ from reason is to cling to the belief that the principles that underlie the universe came out of nowhere, that everything is one big, meaningless, accident ... I find it far more rational to regard the universe itself as the ultimate revelation of God.” Discovering God, then, is a handy reference to the world’s major religions that is also theological in tone.
