Award-winning author and journalist Robert Wright promises that his new book, The Evolution of God, “will antagonize just about everyone—Jews, Christians, Muslims, new agers, and atheists alike.” In it, this recognized authority on human moral development and evolutionary psychology presents the controversial notion that God has evolved alongside culture since prehistoric times.

In a two-part series on his new book, EnlightenNext senior editor Elizabeth Debold interviewed Wright (also the author of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny and The Moral Animal). Part one is an exploration of how our understanding of God has changed in response to technological, political, and social development, from early hunter-gatherer clans and chiefdoms to modern monotheistic religions. Defining religion as a stabilizing force throughout history, Wright argues that the spiritual traditions have always pulled humanity to a higher moral truth and kept society from falling into chaos.

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