I found this book rather boring, maybe because I don't need to be convinced by the arguments he makes. I had already read some excellent books on the subject by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Even as a child, I was called "negative" and "critical" perhaps because I saw through people's self-delusions. However as a speaker, Dr. Shermer is excellent -- funny, relevant, concise. I saw him give a talk at a university a couple of months ago. The event was listed in a Meetup group of which

I enjoyed the first chapter the most of this book. I found chapter 2 and 3 a wee bit drawn out, still good just a little long. I'm looking forward to seeing what else Michael Shermer has written as I find his perspective on religion interesting. The main thing I appreciated in this book is how the author doesn't engage in proving or disproving a supernatural being as that seems insoluble.

I found this book to be incredibly frustrating multiple times through the book. As background, Shermer and I have similar backgrounds in fairly literalist christianity but have moved into more skeptical stances as adults. He is, of course, a fairly devout skeptic, while I am a fideist similar to the types he discusses in the book. (Note that anyone who discussed with me would call me a theist, but I'm NOT a theist according to the definition he gives near the end of the book, one of many little

"In her left hand are riches and honor Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace; She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy . (Proverbs :3:13 -18) . The Hubble Telescope Deep feild photograph revelas as never before the rich density of galaxies in our neck of the universe,is as grand a statement about the sacred as any medieval cathedral.How vast is the cosmos.How contingent is our place.Yet out of this apparent insignifica...

Shermer is very sharp! I'm not sure why, but I kept hearing some of these sentences in Carl Sagan's voice. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, he illustrates why the scientific method is the best way to learn about ourselves, our world, and the universe. Not a believer in any traditional way, he treats believers with respect, and I prefer that approach to, for example, Richard Dawkins' in-your-face confrontational stance. I've had discussions with both believers and non-believers and find that...

Imagination is a powerful tool. Over millennia, it helped the human being survive the most calamitous scenarios, such was our will to succeed as a dominant species. As a result, gods were concocted. Religions were edified. Myths were invented, and successfully propagated.The 21st century brought hope. Civilization is now able to use its cognitive powers to discover new ways of explaining reality. Science seems to be the definitive answer to ignorance. But how are people using this privileges? In...

A great book detailing why people believe what they do. This book went over several different standpoints on God and religion for example, Agnosticism, Atheism, and obviously Christianity. One of my favorite discussions in the book is, in an age of science are religious people becoming scarce or are they on the rise. The quick answer would be that people believe in God more than they used to, but I would highly suggest that you read the polls and studies done they are very fascinating. I really

This book starts off rather strong and interesting, but it descends into several final chapters of rambling.

A little too technical at times, but interesting. Shermer doesn't totally dump on believers, having been a born-again Christian at one point. He now is skeptical of religion, but allows that many others might not be. Not so much looking at how religion rose, but just an overall view of how/why people today believe.

Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the director of the Skeptics Society, and host of the Skeptics Lecture Series. I don’t need to tell you what sort of direction this book is going to take. But even knowing what to expect, this was a fun book, well worth the read!Shermer, noting that 96% of Americans believe in God and 73% believe that angels regular visit earth, asks one question: Why? Why do even 40% of scientists proclaim a belief in God? Why do more people believe...

Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, and director of the Skeptics society, has produced a work attempting to synthesize several academic fields including: anthropology, sociology, and biology to answer the question as to why humans hold to religious beliefs. Divided into two parts the book discusses I. God and Belief, and II. Religion and Science.Part I begins with a chapter called “Do You Believe in God?” Shermer starts with his own story of conversion to the Christian faith and his

The thing I like about Michael Shermer is he holds a very precise view of the world - if you make a claim (about anything) then be prepared to prove it, with scientific evidence. The survey of American's beliefs is fascinating (though frankly scary), the reasoning and conclusions as to how we believe odd things convincing, and the breadth of the research that has gone into this volume fairly impressive. The problem is I found the book cast a little wide to be able to be able focus on properly. T...

After I read Why People Believe Weird Things, I really wanted to get a hold of more books by Michael Shermer, renowned skeptic and founder of Skeptic magazine. And while this book is enormously valuable, it sails far over my head sometimes. It is not as fun or readable as WPBWT, perhaps because that book was more of a general collection of self-contained essays and this books is a grand dissertation on a topic. Nevertheless, there is a lot here to think about. The subject of the book is about ho...

A wonderful explanation of why the mind makes up things that aren't real.

Shermer illustrates that our "belief machine", our mechanism for understanding the world, arose from our need to believe _something_ in that believing true things and disbelieving false things increases our chances of survival. Unfortunately, that same mechanism easily picks up and believes false things and disbelieves true things, especially where those mistakes don't cost us too much. At the same time, he helpfully illustrates the features of worldwide cults and religions that are shared with

This book does a great job at explaining the origins of religion and how it was a necessary by product of evolution. After reading this is hard to deny that religion and the concept of God is not explainable through natural processes. Then given the choice between an understandable natural phenomena and a mysterious supernatural phenomena, why should anyone choose religion over science unless for comfort? Because of this book I changed my religious label to nontheist meaning I don’t believe reas...

My notes and quotes:Origin myths among indigenous peoples, of course, neatly fit this description. Landau, however, goes on to show how scientific theories of human origins are no less susceptible to narrative bias. Was it bipedalism that gave rise to tool use, which generated big brains? Or was it tool use that led to bipedalism and then big brains? Were early hominids primarily hunters – man the killer ape, warlike in nature? Or were they primarily gatherers – man the vegetarian, pacifist in n...

Overall a very good and worthwhile read. I think some of the material needs to be re-evaluated and updated at this point in time.

I have read the first edition, so I don't know what might have changed between editions. Shermer is the director of the Skeptic Society so it is not difficult to imagine his stance regarding belief and religion. Still, Shermer is obviously well-educated and makes a good case for his agnostic position. However, I would have liked for Shermer to engage Catholicism more and better. He was a born-again Christian who lost his faith. This has resulted in what I see as a certain hostility, if not, patr...

Not bad, but an urban legend oops and a caveatOn page 220, Shermer repeats one version of the QWERTY myth when he says the normal typewriter layout was "designed for nineteenth-century typewriters whose key striking mechanisms were too slow for human finger speed." He then goes on to point out the sequence DFGHJKL on the home row and says, "It appears that the original key arrangement was just a straight alphabetical sequence, which made sense in early experiments before testing was done to dete...