{"id":10465,"date":"2023-11-12T02:08:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T02:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=10465"},"modified":"2023-11-12T02:08:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-12T02:08:25","slug":"book-review-god-alexander-waugh-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=10465","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REViEW: God, Alexander Waugh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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NB – This is a very lightly revised version of a review I wrote many years ago. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really<\/em> loved reading this book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waugh’s colourful and irreverent romp through huge swathes of material – mostly Biblical, but casting his net a bit wider, in terms of sources (albeit concentrating on the Judaeo-Christian deity) – much of which is either arcane, pure gibberish, or mixture of both, is both very educational and highly enjoyable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s decidedly not<\/em> a book likely to be admired by the devout. Indeed, I was made aware of it – and actually given my copy of it – by a believing friend, who refused to read it, for fear it will undermine their faith (exactly why he should read it, in my view).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From certain perspectives Waugh is, I\u2019ll admit, more than a little disingenuous in his intro (to find out what I mean by this, I suggest reading it). Long before the end of the book one gets a strong sense that he finds the highly irrational, deeply contradictory, and frequently plain nasty image of The Almighty, which one glimpses through his multifarious sources, a very ill-defined (through over<\/em>-description – or, in other terms, the hagiographies of hordes of believers – rather than any want of such descriptions), nebulous, and on the whole repugnant creation of the human mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is remarkable how many of us non-believers feel so drawn to examining what a believer might choose to call our ‘apostasy’. I think it just goes to show how deeply enmeshed in our lives and cultures religion remains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I might share the desire of many naturalists and free-thinkers in wishing to see humanity’s consciousness collectively evolve beyond the religious phase, but unlike Dawkins and some others, who at some points seemed to believe such a state was imminent, I think we’re a massively (depressingly) long way – as a species – from choosing rationality over superstition. But that’s exactly<\/em> why books such as this are so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Waugh is at times flippant, and frequently very funny, but underlying all this (and despite the occasional lapse into cheap shots at straw-Gods) is the very serious desire to see, both for oneself and as a society, just who on earth this damnable God is, exactly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally I loved this book and, having gone as far as buying copies for friends, would obviously recommend it to anyone interested in such things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexander Waugh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NB – This is a very lightly revised version of a review I wrote many years ago. I really loved reading this book. Waugh’s colourful and irreverent romp through huge swathes of material – mostly Biblical, but casting his net a bit wider, in terms of sources (albeit concentrating on the Judaeo-Christian deity) – much … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “BOOK REViEW: God, Alexander Waugh”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-2IN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10465"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}