Hollywood Book Reviews

Our lives consist of many questions which seem to never get a satisfactory answer:
Why are we here? Is there life after death? One of the quintessential questions debated by many is: Does God exist? In Embracing Biological Humanism: Abandoning the Idea of God, author Norman Orr responds with a resounding “No.” Orr believes that the existence of God was allowed to spread throughout time as humans developed language. Orr posits that the belief in God took hold primarily because humans are clueless about their own identities as biological entities.

The author’s opinions didn’t arrive overnight as he relates his evolution from theistic to atheistic, or non-theistic belief over a few decades. Orr charts the “Idea” of the existence of God in the human beings’ minds to at least 50,000 years ago. As human beings developed, they hunted and foraged for food to survive. When the hunt was successful and provisions were plentiful, there needed to be a reason. There needed to be a hidden force which provided for early man and woman. That hidden force was God. There were different types or versions of God, depending on culture and environment.

Orr sees the belief in God as akin to children’s belief in Santa Claus. We are unable to pinpoint when the belief first began, but once it took hold it was strong. The belief of both is occasionally wielded as a control mechanism, lack of faith equates to disobedience which will have punitive consequences. Groups give belief meaning by
“societal consensus.” Orr believes that the brain’s importance is overstated, the gut is pre-eminent for belief, particularly in a supreme being. As time has passed, the idea of God has been confabulated, stories reinforcing existence getting mixed up either through defect or otherwise.

The author sees humans as “emergent biological beings” who have been misled by ancestors. Orr utilizes past discarded theories as parallels to how belief can be misguided...i.e., Bloodletting in medicine, The Flat-Earth theory.

The belief in God can be a divisive topic even among the most level headed of people. The most zealous of believers have fought wars over differences in religious belief (i.e., The Crusades). This book may not be for everyone, because belief is a hard thing to shake especially when faith is strong. The author holds that science disproves the existence of God. However, Science is always evolving and is never completely settled. Nonetheless, this is a book for not just the skeptical but also those who are open-minded.