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A review by mapodofu
The God Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God by Matthew Alper
3.0
While the scientific justification used to explain God is generally sound in the book, the author's writing style falls somewhere between pedantic and insulting. Alper insists on continually reiterating his points, and making tiring lists of examples far beyond what is called for. Even worse, he sometimes repeats his lists, which seems like a method of meeting some imaginary word count.
I also had a hard time digesting one of his central pillars: Alper claims that when humanity became smart enough to realize that we all eventually die this induced a species-wide paralyzing anxiety on par with that felt by a mouse cornered by a lion. He then reasons that religiosity arose to combat this anxiety that, left unchecked, would have made our species extinct. The leap of faith required to buy this argument is simply too big to make, which is a shame because his thesis is sound otherwise.
I also had a hard time digesting one of his central pillars: Alper claims that when humanity became smart enough to realize that we all eventually die this induced a species-wide paralyzing anxiety on par with that felt by a mouse cornered by a lion. He then reasons that religiosity arose to combat this anxiety that, left unchecked, would have made our species extinct. The leap of faith required to buy this argument is simply too big to make, which is a shame because his thesis is sound otherwise.