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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughts on the origin and nature of today's religions, November 16, 2004
This review is from: Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics (Hardcover)
As the author is quick to point out, an obvious characteristic of life is purposefulness. As living creatures, we all have a sense, either unconscious, conscious, or both, of purpose. But how does this purposefulness, or "Life-Urge" fit into how we view ourselves, from a religious point of view?
Carleton says there are four main ways in which people can do this. First, one can view oneself as "Me." That is, the sense of purpose is one's own purpose and no more. Second, one can view oneself as a living being among many living beings, all of whom have a sense of purpose. Third, one can view oneself as part of Life, which has a unified Purpose (basically, a Buddhist point of view). Fourth, one can view oneself as an entity whose purpose is secondary to what really counts, namely one or more Goddesses or Gods and Her, His, or Their Purpose. The author strongly prefers the second of these viewpoints, which he calls "prototheism."
This idea is contrasted with what today is practically a majority concept, namely the fourth point of view: ascribing the Life Urge to a single Deity. Of course, monotheistic religions today generally prescribe specific theologies, sets of beliefs, and practices to vast numbers of people. But Carleton shows that even now, there are alternatives for people who want more flexibilty, freedom, or privacy in their religious practices.
Still, all this is the icing on the cake. I left out decribing the cake, namely the initial chapters of the book. Here, Carleton starts with an excellent summary of the origin of Catholic Christianity (there are appendices that discuss Protestantism, Judaism, and Islam). He starts with the origin of the concept of deities, but adds that when one considers, say, fire to be a deity, it "closes out any attempt to learn the true nature of fire."
Given the tendency for origins to be viewed in religious ways, Carleton gives some more excellent summaries....of the way we view origins scientifically. In roughly sixty impressive pages, he covers the origin of our Universe, the origin of the Earth, the origin of life on Earth, the evolution of life to arrive at humans, and the origin of human society and of societal theistic beliefs (if you think all this is easy to write, you try it). After that, he speculates about the attributes of the conscious and unconscious parts of our thinking and responses, and how that has contributed to our sense of purpose and of religion.
So what is to be done about the fact that much of the world is monotheistic today? Carleton basically advises tolerance, not potentially risky and disruptive confrontation. Attitudes are changing. Let them. His recommendations are to move in a direction (towards prototheism) that he feels we are heading in anyway.
I recommend this book. Nobody is going to agree with every single point in it, but it has plenty for us all to think about.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The "Life Urge" Comes From Within, June 25, 2005
This review is from: Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics (Hardcover)
This unusual book advocates a science of religion, "Prototheism." The author is careful to point out that he is not advocating Prototheism as a new religion, but as the SCIENCE of religion, a subtle but important distinction. Prototheism does not rely on on extant God, but instead puts all its marbles on a "Life Urge" that inhabits all living things - a living thing being any complex collection of molecules above RNA. Unlike religions, Prototheism is amenable to changes in its tenets in response to new discoveries in science.
From page 184: "Life initially emerged from Earth's matter nearly four-billion years ago as molecules randomly rearranged themselves to better withstand adversity. Other molecules adopted the practice and elaborated on it, passing their ever more complex and elegant arrangements on to other macromolecules - they replicated. What was a reaction became a PROaction, a way-of-life, a Life Urge...as this Urge to Life experienced ever greater adversity, it found ever more elegant solutions - synergistic arrangements of complex structures...as nervous systems became more elaborate they became brains and finally brains became reflexive - consciousness emerged. All Life is innately aware of its Life Urge else it wouldn't be alive...we conscious humans can not only revel in Life but can choose to help carry Life's evolution forward."
The fallacy with this lies in how to scientifically identify the "Life Urge." Without that, Prototheism has nothing to study. The author presents supporting literature from brain studies but they do not impress me as "hard data." Dennett's (Darwin's Dangerous Idea) coined term "sky hooks" describes the tendency to ascribe to God that which cannot (as yet) be explained otherwise, that eludes explanation - a "God of the Gaps." The author relied on religion for a large part of his life and then abandoned it. Rather than searching externally for God, Carleton now looks internally to the "Life Urge." I would question the need to look at all - there are many other explanations (Boyer's "Religion Explained," Atran's "In Gods We Trust"). Among other things, whether a non-religious individual perceives an unfilled void depends on his/her personality and on the role religion played in his early life.
The author is a former Catholic with a rather rigid Jesuit upbringing during the last parts of the depression. In his adult life an "epiphany" or two caused him to leave his leadership role in his church. He is an engineer with an MBA and has always been interested in science. In his retirement he embarked on a more extensive study of science resulting in this book. In Prototheism, he postulates that an innate Urge to Life has always been misinterpreted by humans as an external God which doesn't exist. He is not unduly unkind to religions, and suggests to any non-fundamentalists (realising he is never going to be successful with fundamentalists of any sort) how his idea of a SCIENCE of religion might appeal to them regardless of their current affiliation - including those of Jewish or Islam faith. The closest religion to his liking appears to be Universal Unitarianism, except that it has no "overarching doctrine." His excerpt about their belief system does seem to match his ethical thoughts.
With that out of the way, might I say a few words about how truly impressive this book is. The first half is devoted to some of the best summaries of large disciplines of study I have ever read. The bibliography and his frequent personal comments reveal the untold hours of research, rewrites, and care that went into trying to make clear these difficult concepts. These are 1) a synthesis of early Christianity 2) cosmology and quantum physics 3) life's beginnings 4) animal evolution 5) human evolution 6) brain development & consciousness. He appears to be completely mainstream, with the possible exception that 1) He seems to accept group selection 2) He relies on "synergy" as the core of the Life Urge, but is not convincing 3) He suggests a tentative mechanism for ESP.
In addition to 254 pages of text, there are 106 pages of "Notes," very conveniently arranged, extensively documenting his sources and providing additional information in a talkative format. I looked forward to these sections and read each one after finishing the corresponding chapter. The "Life Urge" is partially referenced to other authors, although "prototheism" is entirely his own.
This can be a challenging read in spots for the scientific novice but well worth the effort. I frequently saw him leading up to a given topic and eagerly anticipated how he was going to develop it - his many autobiographical inserts adding flavor. The undertaking of this book was an obvious labor of love and I commend the author for such a well thought out and presented result.
An enthusiastic 5 stars!!
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Worthy Quest, August 12, 2006
This review is from: Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics (Hardcover)
Paul Carleton's Concepts analyses history, physics, biology, psychology and economics. At bottom, however, Concepts is about a single philosophical question: how does a skeptic, turned off by the traditional God, find meaning in life? Indeed, how does s/he find a "religion" in the best senses of that word?
Concepts is the result of an intellectual quest on which Carleton embarked when he retired from his business career. It's difficult to imagine a more worthy retirement project. The fruits of his labor can be summed up as follows: "Where does religion come from ... [i]f not from 'out there' [i.e., heaven]? ... My hunch is that it's our own Life Urge which is the sine qua non of all Life and which emerges spontaneously in all Life ... [I]f what's worshipped as 'God' is in fact our own Life Urge, could our 'Life Urge' be the basis of a new or revised religion?"
Indeed, it could -- and it is wonderful to see people who are turned off by traditional faiths look for alternatives, rather than simply proclaiming themselves "atheists" and kissing religion goodbye. As I read this book, however, I wondered why Carleton spent relatively little time addressing other alternatives already available to the skeptic. For example, Spinoza's philosophy posits a "conatus" inside every natural form that strives to persist in its own being, and extols a God devoid of all supernatural substance that encompasses the eternal and infinite in nature. Those who wish to follow in Carleton's footsteps and create religious alternatives of their own are advised to consider carefully the work of Spinoza and other heretical philosophers before starting from scratch. We all should value many types of wheels, but nobody should feel the need to reinvent the concept.
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