Did Man Create God? Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace with Your Thinking Brain? (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: creation controversy, cosmic symphony, endless forms most beautiful, New York, Intelligent Design, Big Bang (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The scientific attempt to explain religion has been around for over a century, but only recently has it exploded onto the cultural scene with the renewed interest in the relationship of science and religion, and particularly with the advances in the neurosciences. It now appears that we are getting close to understanding what is going on inside the religious mind, and David Comings has written a remarkable analysis, that includes the most detailed and up-to-date science ever generated on the subject of religion. Did Man Create God? will be the definitive scientific reference on religion for some time to come.
Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, Monthly columninist for Scientific American and author of Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, and How We Believe. --Michael Shermer, Publisher of Skeptic Magazine, Monthly columninist for Scientific American and author of Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, and How We Believe.

Product Description

Winner of USA Book News Best book for Religion and Finalist for Science. Recipient of the prestigious Mom's Choice Awards that honor excellence in family-friendly media, products and services.
Unlike recent popular books that call for the end of faith and religion, this book by Dr. David Comings, an internationally renown physician, human geneticist and neuroscientist, proposes that spirituality is genetically hardwired into a specific part of the brain, is pleasurable, is critical to the evolution and survival of man, and will never go away.
The primary goal of the book is to allow the reader to develop a rational spirituality in which their thinking brain and spiritual brain can live in peace. A basic assumption of most humans is that God created man and divinely influenced the writing of all his sacred books. This book dispassionately explores the possibility that in premodern times man created the theory of a personal God to answer questions about the physical world like, Where did we come from? Where do we go when we die? in order to satisfy the transcendent yearnings of our spiritual brain. In an era when politicians are judged on the basis of the strength of their belief in God, when schools are urged to teach Intelligent Design, and when religious terrorists threaten the existence of Western civilization it is critical to dispassionately examine the question Did God Create Man or Did Man Create God?
The book examines a wide range of issues including intelligent answers to intelligent design; the relevance of modern cosmology to the existence or non-existence of god; the role of genes in spirituality; the evolution of spirituality; innate morality; the positive and negative aspects of religion; the problem of evil, and many others.
Combined these chapters indicate that humans are inherently happy and good, independent of religion, and that spirituality played a critical role in the evolution and survival of man. A feeling of being associated with something that transcends one s self became an important, rewarding, comforting, and innate part of the human condition. Michael Shermer called this the most detailed and up-to-date science ever generated on the subject of religion and suggested it will be the definitive scientific reference on religion for some time to come.
The world recently learned that Mother Theresa had life-long doubts about her faith. This book is for others who have also questioned any part of their faith but treasure their spirituality and want answers that are not hostile to religion.
Dr. Comings concludes that religious intolerance, wars and terrorism are based on irrational spirituality where there is an incompatibility between the rational and spiritual brain, where individuals believe that one person s God is better than another's. By contrast a rational spirituality allows individuals of all religions to live in peace. This book is a potentially life changing read for anyone who has ever had doubts about their faith or religion but wanted responses that were sympathetic to their spiritual brain.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 694 pages
• Publisher: Hope Pr; 1st edition (April 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878267736
• ISBN-13: 978-1878267733
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #813,616 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound, fascinating and utterly convincing, April 8, 2009

By	Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: Did Man Create God?: Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace With Your Thinking Brain? (Paperback)

The obvious answer to the not so rhetorical question in the title is yes, of course. Comings however gives a most complete and thoroughly convincing answer in 694 carefully considered pages. The book left this reader a bit in awe of not only his erudition, energy and competence, but most impressed with his generosity of spirit in tackling the project in such a thorough manner. The deeper question of whether God exists independently of man's creation is of course another question entirely, and not one that I think anybody can answer, and certainly Comings does not attempt to do so. He writes:

"...[T]he questions 'Did Man Create God?' or 'Is the Theory of God a man-made theory?' are fundamentally different from the question 'Does God Exist?' It is perfectly possible that the answer to the question, 'Did Man Create God?' is 'Yes,' and yet a God, different than the one man made, still exists." (p. 640)

Dr. Comings makes it clear however that such gods as depicted in the Bible and other religious works, gods that bring havoc upon the world and intercede in human affairs, answering or not answer prayers, defeating or not defeating enemies, etc., are, by their very nature, obvious projections of the human mind. One the reasons that Comings went to the considerable trouble to produce this rather remarkable tome is to remove any doubt on that score. The evidence he presents from a wide range of disciplines is all but overwhelming.

In addition to being a physician, Dr. Comings is also a neuroscientist and a molecular geneticist. A good portion of this book is devoted to applying knowledge gleaned from neuroscience and genetics to the question "Did Man Create God?" Additionally Comings brings evidence from evolution, history and philosophy to "provide strong evidence that man made up the Theory of God in an attempt to explain how the universe, the earth, and man were created." (p. 642) Comings shows how God is maintained in our brains and in human society because belief in God has proven adaptive in the Darwinian sense and efficacious psychologically in the sense that God is the answer to all the unanswerables, and as such, is essential to humanity's mental homeostasis.

To maintain this dualism, however, Comings sees humans as having a split consciousness. He writes: "One of the central themes of this book is the remarkable ability of man to possess both a rational brain that critically analyzes and assesses all...important questions and a spiritual brain that does not care much about facts and just plunges ahead with its need to find the transcendent, to rise above mere mortality, and to connect with an all-encompassing spiritual presence." (p. 642)

Belief in God can be seen as part of a spiritual dimension to human existence. However I would say that belief in the sort of God that would reward mass killings with sexual fun in heaven with many virgins is not spiritual at all, but is instead a kind of bestial expression of human politics and the war system. In contrast, a desire to transcend the reality of mortal flesh is what is spiritual. Comings demonstrates that genetically and neurologically, this spirituality is what is hardwired into our brains and not a specific belief in God or gods. He writes: "Spirituality can be defined as a feeling of a connection with something greater than oneself including any form of social order. Perhaps the greatest factor in the evolution of spirituality is that such a trait would maximize the development of man as a social animal." (p. 530)

Most books exceeding 600 pages have proven in my experience to be too long and in need of reduction. Dr. Comings' book is the exception. He writes long because he writes thoroughly with a keen desire to make an irrefutable case. I believe he has succeeded admirably. Some of the material he covers is difficult, but he writes in such a clear and engaging manner that we are marvelously informed. Additionally the text is adorned and augmented with numerous color prints, drawings, tables, photos, graphs and other artwork. The entire book is printed on expensive glossy paper so that it weighs 2.65 pounds. (Yes, I weighed it.) This is indeed a magnum opus, a fitting testament to all that Dr. Comings has learned in a lifetime of study and practice.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If only--if only!--this book were required reading for all of humankind how much better we would understand ourselves and others, and how so much of the hatred, prejudice, plain ignorance and stupidity that characterizes human affairs and leads to untold amounts of pain and suffering would dissipate like the wisps of a bad dream.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lesson in Not Judging a Book by Prior Beliefs, May 31, 2008

By	Carolyn Howard-Johnson "Author 'This is the P... (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

One of the problems with the our culture is that it is now so easy to fine tune what we are exposed to. We can watch TV news slanted to our already held political beliefs (CNN or Fox?). We can careful craft an iPod program so that we're never exposed to a rap ditty because we're so sure there isn't even one we'd like. We do the same on the net. Many have discarded their newspaper, for heaven's sake, in favor of chery picking the news we want to hear.

"Did Man Create God?" is precisely for those of us who do that (and we all do to a certain extent, don't we?). It gives a reader everything to examine and re-examine their existing belief system.

If we believe in a traditional God then most likely we believe God gave us a brain to think and make decisions. This is the book for that. It is crammed full of good stuff. Philosophy. Biology. Theories. History. Illustrations. Even little summaries in red to help a person skim through what he knows, delve deeper into what he may want (or needs!) to know.

In short, Dr. David E. Comings has written a book to help us understand ourselves and our universe. The science and details and clear-headed fair approach is perfect for those who want to cut through the spiritual babble available to us to get the facts and make up our own minds. That, after all, is what God gave us brains to do, right? Or did I already say that.
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Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson award-winning author of This Is The Place,

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes He Did, December 27, 2008

By	Charles R. Anderson (Salt Lake City, Utah USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Did Man Create God?: Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace With Your Thinking Brain? (Paperback)

This book explains a lot of things I couldn't understand but had observed to be true, like the reasons for the similarity of near death experiences and why bright scientific minded men still believed and often held what I considered to be juvenile attitudes about religion. I particularly liked the authors explanation of the cloud around God being really the shape of the human brain in the famous Sistine Chapel painting of God & Adam. Very complex descriptions of the brain and it functions but a great reference book on many human behaviours.