Faith in Human Nature

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, September, 2019

Believers advance praise:

“An atheistic scientist has written a book that comprehends the color, variety depth and value of faith. An exhilarating and inspiring work.” Rabbi David Wolpe, Sinai Temple of Los Angeles, Author of David: The Divided Heart 

“Believers is a wonderful book. It is a thoughtful, insightful, and engaging narrative that matters, a lot, right now… a lovely and meaningful book.” Augustín Fuentes, University of Notre Dame, author of The Creative Spark and Why We Believe

Believers reviewer quotes:

“Konner [asks]: Why is religion still around?…Then, in each of the following lively chapters, he explores an astonishing range of perspectives… Marvelously readable… Konner’s Believers offers a terrific running start for anyone who shares his excitement about the questions he raises.” Elaine Pagels, The New York Times Book Review, online November 11, 2019; front page of the print edition, December 1, 2019

“An anthropologist mounts a defense of the religious impulse as biological and cultural imperative…. A humane, appropriately qualified argument that provides aid and comfort for believers—and that should also interest fair-minded nonbelievers.” Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2019 (online June 11)

“Konner defends the search for meaning beyond life as part of human nature… Readers who enjoy the work of Mircea Eliade or Karen Armstrong will find food for thought here.” Publishers Weekly July 8, 2019

“Illuminating…an eclectic approach…Both scientific and aesthetic, his observations are always thought-provoking and stimulating.” Booklist, reviewed by Michael Cart, August 1, 2019

“Rather than dismiss religious faith, Dr. Konner, an anthropologist and medical doctor, wants to understand it as a fact of human existence… For Dr. Konner…religious affections are a natural, innate human impulse, not a consequence of undesirable and eradicable social pathologies.” Wall Street Journal, reviewed by Barton Swaim

“Konner [concludes] that religious inclinations are ‘built into the human brain,’ that they are developed in childhood, that they evolve by natural selection, and that there is a ‘human hunger for commitment to something that really gives life larger meaning.’ Enlightenment secular humanism has the right to question religion, but it does not have the right to proclaim its demise. Ever faithful to the reality that is before us, Konner offers a modern ‘Guide for the Perplexed’ that favors no religion or theology but affirms the reality of religious inclination in humanity.” Rabbi Dr. David Blumenthal, in Reviews in Religion and Theology