Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief

intellegent design theory in sheeps clothing

Rodney Stark doesn¿t reveal himself as a proponent of `Intelligent Design¿ right until the end of the book. Any body looking for an informative book on comparative religion should go else where. Since 99% of the book gives a rudimentary glance at all the major and minor religions, it is quite disappointing read, unless you are a believer in `Intelligent Design¿, and want to validate your belief. Borrow it from the library, or sit in a book shop and read just the last chapter, conclusion. Just to prove my point, I quote a few lines from the book which will give you a general feel of what Mr. Stark is trying to convey. He writes : ¿at least in their initial forms, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, and Confucianism can be excluded from the category of inspired faiths.¿ ¿later faiths will tell us more about God than will earlier faiths.¿ ¿Christianity epitomizes revealed religion¿.¿ ¿I think it inappropriate to include Islam in the inspired core of faiths.¿ ¿Real science arose only once: in Europe, not in China, Islam, India, Ancient Greece, or Rome.¿ By quoting selectively, Mr. Stark makes dubious assumption that can be easily refuted by anybody who is willing to go the extra mile, and find out the truth about the inter-mingling of religious concepts through the ages. How religion evolved, sometimes parallel and many times borrowing concepts from each other, thus we get overlapping ideas, and beliefs. Devine revelation should not be a pre-requisite to an inspired faith. The study of cultural anthropology should be part of this endeavor. There are others who have done a better job on comparing religion with out infusing their writing with their own personal opinion. It is rather sneaky and deceptive of Mr. Stark not to tell his personal opinion until the last 5 paragraphs.

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