Notice: Site is Under Construction.
After God: A Secular Review of Religion is a project that examines how we came to believe in the existence of a god or gods, how those beliefs developed and evolved, and what consequences these beliefs have had on the world. It concentrates on Judaism, since that is the religion I was raised in and have studied most, and on Christianity, which is one of the major influences on the western world. It also looks at Islam from time to time, and occasionally touches on other faiths such as Hinduism.
The foundation of this project is that is there is not and never has been any sort of deity that created and runs the universe, nor any supernatural intelligence that controls or guides or advises humanity or that gives us ethics or purpose. Everything that we claim comes from some divine inspiration or revelation is, rather, the product of human invention, human ingenuity, human history. Further, these claims, when believed, have had considerable and often deleterious consequences for our health, happiness, and development as human beings.
The purpose of this project is to examine both the source texts that claim God or a god exists, and the religions that grew out of those sources, and the evaluations scholars have made of these sources and their supporters, to see whether my foundation stands on solid ground. I have determined that it does; that is the first part of the book that will be the culmination of the project. The next part, currently in progress, is an examination of some of the consequences of these beliefs, including their impact on our views of other religions, on sex, death, war, and the idea of an apocalypse.
I am using this website to post some of my ideas and research in the hope that readers will want to explore them as well.
This website is a work very much in progress and will be undergoing adjustments in the next few weeks as I work out what I want it to say. Stay tuned. For now, use the Contact Me page to send comments.
Dan Kohanski
March 2019
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