Argues that historically atheism has rarely been a denial of the sacred itself but has nearly always rejected a particular conception of God. Tracing the history of faith since the Palaeolithic Age, this work shows that until recently there was no warfare between science and religion.





But science has changed the conversation. The meaning of words such as belief, faith, and mystery has been entirely altered, so that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God - and, indeed, reason itself - in a way that our ancestors would have found astonishing. Why has the modern God become incredible? Has God a future in this age of aggressive scientific rationalism? Karen Armstrong suggests that if we draw creatively on the insights of the past, we can build a faith that speaks to the needs of our troubled and dangerously polarized world.