I’ve had the book, “God,” by Reza Aslan since it came out at the end of 2017. I got my copy right after I heard Aslan speak in Austin, Texas. I started reading it right away. But then stopped barely a dozen pages in.
It’s not that I didn’t find the book interesting. I did. In fact, I thought often about what I’d read so far. The reason I didn’t finish the book a year ago is about where I was on my spiritual journey. The reason I finished it one year later is because of where I am now. Now, I am ready to hear his ultimate message.
I’ll start by saying that I believe “God” is an essential book for anyone at any stage of his or her spiritual journey — whether you’re ready to hear his perspective or not. The book delivers several layers of important insight for all levels of spiritual seeking.
First, it provides solid bones about the history of humanity’s search for the divine, from the beginning until today. This insight puts modern-day religion in the context of a much bigger picture — hundreds of thousands of years bigger. With this wider view, we can better assess the relevance of the current religions holding court with the planet’s populace.
Secondly, it shows that conflict has always been at the heart of religion on this planet. While we may believe the heart of religion is kindness, love, compassion, and other positive qualities, the history of persecution, oppression, and war in the name of religion proves otherwise.
Finally, the book provides an ultimate conclusion about humans’ relationship with the divine. Likely, many will find Aslan’s view controversial. Those deeply beholden to one single religion will find it blasphemous — the book’s one-star reviews on Amazon are comprised largely of people that fall into this category.
But a lucky few souls will be open minded enough to understand Aslan’s conclusion about God and, perhaps even embrace it. Among these people are the tiny percent who are far along on their journey back to our source.
In the Beginning — A Perilous Journey
The story told early in the book that caught my attention and that I couldn’t shake is about the very first known structures created, it is believed, for worship. It’s caves. Long, deep, dark, multi-leveled cave. Many have been found around the world. Most contain curious cave drawings in different sections.
One of the caves culminates in one very odd drawing in the innermost section. Worshippers would have had to walk, slide, and crawl in the dark or dimly lit cave to traverse the various sections and make it to the “sanctuary.”
Here are parts of Aslan’s description of these ancient places:
“Most painted caves are hard to reach and unfit for human habitation. Entering them is like passing through liminal space, like crossing a threshold between the visible and supersensible worlds. Some caves show evidence of prolonged activity, and others contain a sort of anteroom where archaeological evidence suggests worshippers may have gathered to eat and sleep. But these are not dwelling places; this is sacred space, which explains why the images found inside them are often placed at great distances from the cave’s entrance, requiring a perilous journey through labyrinthine passages to view.”
“Each chamber, each niche, each fissure and corridor and recess has a specific purpose — all deliberately designed to induce an ecstatic experience. This is a carefully controlled affair, so that moving through the nooks and passages, absorbing the images cast on the walls, the floors, the ceilings elicits a particular emotional response, somewhat akin to following the Stages of the Cross in a medieval church.”
“The drawings are often tucked between pillars or otherwise placed in a position that allows them to be viewed only from certain angles and only by a handful of people at a time, indicating that the cave — not just the images projected upon it, but the cave itself — was intended to be part of the spiritual experience. The cave becomes a mythogram; it is meant to be read, the way one reads scripture.”
After I put the book down for almost a year, I still wondered about these caves and our ancient ancestors climbing through them, some more than a mile long, for spiritual reasons. Why caves? Why did they have to take their religion underground? Was it to hide it from disapproving others? Or was what they experienced so sacred that some were just not ready for it?
The Journey Through the History of God
After Aslan tells the story of the earliest forms of religious practice on this earth, he moves on to the next stages of man’s spiritual evolution — all while attempting to answer the question: What is the origin of man’s religious impulse?
For example, he posses the question: “Where did the idea of the soul come from?” Then he answers it.
“The truthful answer is that we don’t know. What seems clear, however, is that belief in the soul may be humanity’s first belief. Indeed, if the cognitive theory of religion is correct, belief in the soul is what led to belief in God. The origin of the religious impulse, in other words, is not rooted in our quest for meaning or our fear of the unknown. It is not born of our involuntary reactions to the natural world. It is not an accidental consequence of the complex workings of our brains. It is the result of something far more primal and difficult to explain: our ingrained, intuitive, and wholly experiential belief that we are, whatever else we are, embodied souls.”
The rest of “God” provides a journey of the dominant religions throughout history — beginning with the Mesopotamians. He overviews how each iteration of dominant religion came to be and how they held their ground — until the next upstart religion superseded the previous. Aslan tells what they thought about God and humans’ relationship with the divine.
He concludes with where we are today — with three dominant religions dictating humans’ lives. All three originated with ancient ideas and bring nothing new to help guide modern humans. In fact, they are degraded from the influence of politics and power. If you need proof of this, there’s one three-letter word that speaks volumes: War.
Hope Springs Eternal
If you believe what Aslan shares with us, and why wouldn’t you — after all, he’s an acclaimed religious scholar and author — the evolution of religion on this earth follows an interesting trajectory. In early history, religion seemed to evolve naturally as humans evolved.
Later on, religion appears to become a tool used by the most dominant to control the masses. They dictated who God was and what the religious rules were for the rest of us. Naturally, there’s a huge chance these dominant humans are wrong — and have been steering the masses in the wrong direction for millennium.
But Aslan’s final conclusion should help us clear the fog of religious disinformation, so we can each take our own journey’s internally — hidden far from the prying eyes of the rulers of our day — much like our forbearers did as they crawled through caves to experience deep spiritual insights because they were ready to hear and see them.
I highly recommend “God” by Reza Aslan. It will add valuable new insight to your spiritual journey.
