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Books by Trevor Klassen How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science by Michael Shermer W.H.Freeman and Company, 302 pp. What in hell is going on – and what in heaven? Michael Shermer answers these questions in his latest examination of the Almighty in How We Believe, a decidedly scientific, rational approach to the search for God in the modern age. According to recent findings, God has never been healthier: 96 per cent of Amercians believe in Him. Shermer not only asks why, he asks how . Sherman gleans information from an array of disciplines to comprehend human religiosity: anthropology is used to study evolutionary theory and its effect on creationism; psychological reasons are proffered as justification for piety; philosophical proofs of God’s existence are counted and countered. Simultaneously informative and provocative, How We Believe, is written from an agnostic’s point of view, not an atheist’s. Shermer, in fact, regards agnosticism (doubting a knowledge of God) as the only tenable position to take – atheists and theists, struggle as they may, cannot actually prove the correctness of their beliefs. As a result, Shermer is not invariably objective. He goes to great lengths to scientifically explain belief in God’s existence, occasionally indulging in secular and empirical poetics that clearly lean toward atheism. But his evidence is persuasive, and literally so – his neurological research into physical and genetic factors predisposing one to religiosity is nearly revelatory. And combined with the psychological and societal factors causing religiosity, skeptics may roundly clap while believers curse and gnash their teeth. Shermer’s work is arguably epiphanous on Voltaire’s quip: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."

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