This essay has been in the back of my mind for a long time.  Right now it is inspired by the book that has been reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. A book has been written and it has been reviewed.  The writer is Robert Wright and the reviewer is Paul Bloom, a psychologist who is a Professor at Yale University.  An editorial insert states: "The bad news, Wright says, is that your God was born imperfect.  The good news is that he doesn't really exist."

I have not been waiting for this book to arrive but it is nice to know that others have been thinking along the same lines.  I have asked, in the past, "Who Owns God?"  The good news is that everyone, Jews, Christians and Muslims believe in one God.  The bad news is that each and many other variations believe that they have the keys to the ownership of the "God" concept.  Each is sure that there is only one God but each has a different slant on their relationship to that God and that God's relationship to them.  There is no dispute that the Jews started off the whole "one God" thing.  They got into trouble by categorically stating in their great book, The Torah or the Tanach, the Five Books of Moses, that they were chosen by God to be HIS (or it could be Hers, Its or the Force) chosen people.  Over time, the concept of a tribal God expanded to be the God of all humans or the God who created our Earth and all the life on it.  It gets fuzzy when heaven is also created and it is filled with all kinds of imaginative creatures and FEATURES living after death.

Wright does his thing in writing this book and Paul Bloom does his in constructing his review.  Schectman does his thing, from time to time, doubting miracles and the existence of an AFTERLIFE. He does not believe in prayer.  It is about as effective as animal sacrifice thought to be demanded by our creator.

I have read about miracles in and out of the Bible.  The Christians believe in praying to images which are proscribed by the Jews and the Muslims.  The latter two do not believe in modern miracles attested to by Saints in the past and Saints who are proclaimed from time to time by the modern Church.

But to say that the idea of God has gone through an evolution over time is accurate.  I think it suffices to say that if you look around at the world created at the creation of our universe that He, She or It (or the Force) did a wonderful job but gave us the job of cleaning up portions of the highways that are littered by the non-believers.  There may have been miracles and God may have been Jealous and a very touchy one when one of God's commandments was broken by a thankless and thoughtless people.  But God is very much alive in the minds of thinking people all around the world. There has been no Smiting of non-believers or fallen away believers for a long time.  We have taken care of that by ourselves.