God has mellowed. The God that most Americans worship occasionally gets upset about abortion and gay marriage, but he is a softy compared with the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. That was a warrior God, savagely tribal, deeply insecure about his status and willing to commit mass murder to show off his powers.
In his brilliant new book, “The Evolution of God,” Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up.
proposing that the increasing goodness of God reflects the increasing goodness of our species.
each of the major Abrahamic faiths has been forced toward moral growth
Wright makes it clear that he is tracking people’s conception of the divine, not the divine itself.
Wright also denies the specialness of any faith.
what matters is the choices that the people make
Cultural sensibilities shift according to changes in human dynamics, and these shape the God that people worship.
it is not God who evolves. It is us — God just comes along for the ride.
clipped from: www.nytimes.com 