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angelakay 's review for:
Because the author is so open about his atheism, I think it's easy to forget at times that the topic of this book is not the existence of God / a god / gods / deities, etc. Instead, the book reviews how the evolutionary psychology of humans has uniquely pre-disposed us to believe in the existence of an omniscient deity or deities that observe(s) and judge(s) our thoughts and actions and in of some form of afterlife. I actually feel like these are questions you can engage with and think about regardless of your spiritual / religious beliefs, as long as you are not in the habit of believing things just because you want to and refuting them because you don't. This is definitely a book based on scientific evidence.
That said, if you have a background in cognitive and/or social and/or evolutionary psychology, it's unlikely you'll encounter anything all that new, and you may feel like some of the more basic points are belabored. (Every time he started explaining how the theory of mind works again, I was all "Yes, I get it.". It was interesting to hear him put the literature together in slightly different ways, but by & large, my response was mostly, "Huh. That makes sense."
On the other hand, if you don't have much background in psychology, it may completely blow your mind.
In any case, it's a short, entertaining, not-too-technical, easy to read book, so not much to lose either way.
That said, if you have a background in cognitive and/or social and/or evolutionary psychology, it's unlikely you'll encounter anything all that new, and you may feel like some of the more basic points are belabored. (Every time he started explaining how the theory of mind works again, I was all "Yes, I get it.". It was interesting to hear him put the literature together in slightly different ways, but by & large, my response was mostly, "Huh. That makes sense."
On the other hand, if you don't have much background in psychology, it may completely blow your mind.
In any case, it's a short, entertaining, not-too-technical, easy to read book, so not much to lose either way.