Friday, September 2, 2011 How We Believe: Science, Skepticism,
and the Search for God - Michael Shermer "Well-researched,
comprehensive, and persuasive. How We Believe is especially
notable in stressing the great power of narration as the vehicle
of complex thought." —Edward O. Wilson, Pulitzer-Prize winning
author of Consilience Shermer, who teaches critical thinking at
Occidental College and is perhaps best known as the director of
the Skeptics Society and publisher of Skeptic magazine,
approaches religion not primarily as a delusion to be debunked
but as a phenomenon to be explained. Shermer wonders why
religious belief, traditional theistic belief in particular,
remains widespread in contemporary America, confounding
expectations that progress in science and technology should
bring a corresponding decline in faith. One way to discover why
people believe is to ask them, and Shermer has compiled original
survey data to support his analysis. One noteworthy finding is
that, although theists tend to explain th