Genre: Religion/History
Page Count: 170
It is natural of every conscious, existing being to think about existential questions. What am I made of? Where do I exist? What made me and the ‘place’ I exist in? Why was I made? Why am I here? What was, what is, and what will be? What gives all this meaning? Or is it all meaningless, accidental? Such curiosity, to a conscious being, is innate; for who would not question the nature of things into which he/she finds him/herself in? Then, it is rather a sad thing that most of us, in today’s populist culture with its comforting facilities and its occupying struggles, have let go of this innate need for curiosity and have busied ourselves with the immediate activities of living. Whether we fail to nurture the in-born curiosity or we grow up to think of them as futile and unnecessary ponderings, eventually we lose this yearning for knowing for a more default mode of existing – that is, we live merely because we were born, and die for the same reasons.
Yet it was such transcendentalist questions, questions that buoys oneself beyond one’s immediate concerns of the self into the realms of wonder and awe, that reignited my curiosity to know about the world I’ve come to exist in. God, the Creator, the First Being, or whatever name we ascribe to it, then becomes one of the fundamental questions that a curios being might quest upon, regardless of them being a believer or non-believer.
I remember buying this domestic copy of Aslan’s book in 2019 out of a sudden inspiration to learn about my long-standing curiosity about God. My existing knowledge about God, then, was both little and confining; in that, I wasn’t allowed to ponder about His existence or nature, but was rather propelled to follow the commands that have been passed on to me. I started reading this book, and soon enough, my interest faded: it wasn’t a book about God, it was a book about human history. And, in 2019, I wasn’t as interested in Anthropology to continue reading this book.
However, as 2021 neared its end, I checked if I had any discontinued book that I could finish; and Aslan’s ‘God: a human history’ at 170 pages seemed the most probable of the bunch.
Rereading this book a couple of year later, with the maturity that comes from reading more, was not only a thrilling experience, but a fulfilling and completing one too. While Aslan’s incredible achievement of narrating the whole of human history in regards to its religious tendencies in 170 pages made for a breathtaking reading experience, his accessible, simplifying, and unifying story of God throughout the evolving eras of human beings had a completing and even sealing effect on my knowledge and understanding of God and our relation to Him. This book made me feel as awe-inspiringly good as did Harari’s ‘Homo Sapiens’ and summarized rather beautifully and collectively the whole of Karen Armstrong’s ‘A History of God’ – all in just a 170 pages!
While provocative in its claim, as all books on God and religion can be, and too simple at times to sound serious or grave, Aslan’s book, nevertheless, defies to be an ordinary one; this book, right here, is an incredible achievement! To tell a story of human history in all its religious beliefs over the millennia of existence: from a vague idea of the ‘soul’, to seeing a face in the tree; from having powerful gods for every humanly trait, to having a High God that rules above all; from the early monotheistic religions of Pharoah Akhenaten and Aryan Zarathustra, to then Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – and to tell it all in a single, coherent narrative, that, then, ends on a unifying, albeit controversial, concept, is truly an achievement of unmatched research, scholarship, and writing.
My third time reading Aslan this year, and all the three times I’ve walked away awe-inspired, learned, wise, ecstatic, and more eager in my quest to keep on exploring and learning – with a belief that there’s something on the other end.
Ratings: 5/5 ***** December 21, 2021_