Religion plays an important role in the lives of billions of people across the face of this earth. While the majority of these religions are based on a belief in a God, some such a Buddhism do not. Many claim theirs is the only true religion and their God is the only true God. While an association with religion can carry many very positive benefits, it can also serve as deadly and destructive force. Over the course of human history, untold numbers of people have been killed in religious wars, battles, pogroms, and genocides, based on the assumption that one religion and one God is better than another. In some countries religion also plays a central role in politics, with voters urged to vote based on which candidate is the most devout, and their political beliefs are strongly influenced by their religious beliefs.
Prior to the modern era of vast new knowledge about how our universe works, a belief in God served as the go to hypothesis about how we and all other living things were created, how the earth was created, and how and why different events in our lives occurred, including sickness and death.
I am a physician/scientist in the field of neuroscience and genetics and author of over 490 research papers and several books. I have adopted a philosophy that does not include any supernatural forces. Even as a young man it never made sense to me to explain everything using the hypothesis that God created it. If you adopted that approach, it did not explain where God came from. Who made God? Another God? The most logical explanation was that Man made God, not that God Made Man. This idea is strengthened by the fact that over 4,000 different religions have developed across history. Each is finely tuned to the individual and local environment, customs, and people. People create religions and dieties that are the most perfectly suited to their needs. This idea leads me to wonder, how would the religious worshipers, for who God plays such a central part in their lives feel if they came to accept that Man Created God?
A supernatural being is not necessarily a critical element for a religion. Many churches revolve around the wonderful teachings of Jesus, and he was a mortal. All the positives of a religious congregation including a feeling of belonging to a caring and compassionate group, socialization, mutual support, and other positives, do not require a supernatural being. The many fraternal organizations speak to that. In addition, the Unitarian Church welcomes all comers, believers, agnostics, and non-believers. I do not care for the term atheist, because many atheists want to eliminate religions. I do not feel that way. Most religions bring many positives into people’s lives. I only strive to have people attain peace between their rational brain and their spiritual brain - thus the subtitle, Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace with your Thinking Brain?
In the latter part of the last century, the concept of Intelligent Design was widely afloat. This was the idea that incredible diversity of life on earth really was the result of Darwinian evolution, but that there were some areas where it needed God’s help to get over seemly impossibly difficult problems – a God of the gaps. From my life-long appreciation of the enormous power of evolution by natural selection, I knew this was not really a problem. I decided to write a book along the lines of Intelligent Answers to Intelligent Design. However, when these chapters were completed, I realized what I really wanted to do was address the larger question – Did Man Create God? This resulted in adding chapters on the Neurology of Reason and Spirituality including the regions for social, rational, meditating, hopefull and happiness brain. This also included the largest chapter the Spiritual Brain which addressed the question of what part of the brain was involved in spirituality.
An additional section was on the Genetics of Reason and Spirituality. I defined spirituality as feeling of being connected to something greater than oneself. While for many this is God, it can also be community, friends, family, and other supportive units or simply the wonders of nature. Because it fostered cooperative, mutually supporting behavior, I proposed that Spirituality had important survival value for our species. This also included chapters on the genetics of spirituality, good and bad behavior and reason.
The section on Other Aspects of Spirituality and Reason included chapters on the benefits and the evils of religion, the origins of religion, myth and ritual, the role of psychedelics in the origin of some religions, does God play favorites, the problem of evil (why does a compassionate God tolerate such evil in the world?) and are the sacred books literally true? It concluded with a section on whether our rational brain can be compatible with our spiritual brain, religion, and faith?
An added chapter at the end of this second edition addresses the question of whether religion is necessary for man to be a moral being. The answer was a resounding no. If all people simply adopted the golden rule of treating other as you would like to be treated, an enormous amount of evil in the world would be eliminated. Instead of religions being necessary for such a moral code, many religions reject the Golden Rule in their push to subjugate other religions.
Finally, if all people accepted the proposition that Man Created God this would level the playing field in that all religions would thus be equally valid, and one is not better than another. No religious wars necessary. It might also moderate the role that religion is playing in politics. Political policy should be based on reason and what is beneficial to citizens, not what a politician thinks God wants.
These three simple propositions, the Golden Rule as the basis for moral behavior, all religions being equally valid, and maintaining the separation of religion and state - could play a major role in eliminating much of the divisiveness between people in the world today.
The first edition of this book was published in 2008. It received many positive reviews (see www.DidManCreateGod.com/Reviews) and a 5-star rating on Amazon. Given the current state of the world with religious wars raging and and the growing influence of religion in politics, this current release is to encourage people to re-examine the lack of validity of using religion and God to dictate policy instead of using one's own innate intelligence.
This edition has been subsidized to keep the price low, an inexpensive kindle version is also now available on Amazon, and it can be downloaded in PDF or ebook format for free at the above web site.
David E. Comings, M.D. 2024