About The Concept

Maybe you were born to Christian parents and raised as a Christian.  Or maybe you are just a part of a Christian nation.  You might have attended church regularly, or maybe just on special occasions.  If asked, you say that you believe in God, but you really never thought about what that means exactly.  You are a well-educated person who accepts the idea of Biblical miracles, but only the more “reasonable” ones.  You have read some of the Bible, mostly just parts of the New Testament, but never committed to reading the Bible cover to cover.  You are a good person who admires the many “Christian values” as demonstrated by Jesus Christ.  But something does not feel right.

  • Science tells us that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, but the Bible tells us it's 6,000 years old.
  • Science tells us life is the result of emergent properties in combined molecules, and we have evolved from a very primitive life form, but the Bible says that God made us, as is, from dust, and blew life in our noses.
  • You see a world where little bunnies burn to death in forest fires, and wonder why an all good and loving God would allow such a thing to happen.
  • You pray to God and you realize that sometimes your prayers are answered, and sometimes they are not -- just as if you didn’t pray at all.
  • You hear about other religions and wonder why your religion is right and every other religion on the planet is wrong.
  • You have a real problem with the idea of all your non-Jesus-believing friends and family spending eternity in Hell.

In fact, the more you look around, the more you see a world absent of this perfect image of a perfect God.  As much as you want to avoid critical thinking and “just let go and have faith”, you find that you cannot believe in something contrary to your logic and reason — no matter how much you want to.  This might lead to feelings of guilt, insincerity, and/or hypocrisy.  Yet you just can’t imagine living life without God, and you don’t have to.

When you start asking serious questions about God and religion, you begin to see through the stories of people living inside the stomachs of big fish, 900-year-old men, and bodies coming back to life after three days, and understand how man created God, and not the other way around.  By daring to question “sacred” religion, challenging your childhood beliefs, and risking eternal damnation (okay, so there might be a minor side effect to reading this book), you will discover an appreciation for religion on a new level, as well as a renewed appreciation for the human race.

Through a unique blend of science, philosophy, theology, and a touch of humor, you will see how you can trust your logic and reason, be true to yourself, and embrace God -- not as a being, but as a concept -- The Concept.

ISBN: 978-1-4566-0000-6 (ebook) / ISBN: 978-1-4566-0004-4 (paperback) / ISBN: 978-1-4566-3212-0 (hardcover) / Published by: Archieboy Holdings, LLC. / Published Date: 2010-11-01

Book Reviews / Endorsements

Read The Concept

This book is available from various retailers in the following formats:

Hardcover Paperback Audiobook Ebook (.pdf) Ebook (.mobi) Ebook (.epub) Online Course

About Bo Bennett, PhD

Bo Bennett, PhD

Author

Bo's personal motto is "Expose an irrational belief, keep a person rational for a day. Expose irrational thinking, keep a person rational for a lifetime." Much of his charitable work is in the area of education—not teaching people what to think, but how to think. Bo holds a PhD in social psychology, focusing on social, cognitive, and positive psychology.

From March of 2014 until February of 2016, Bo was the producer and host of The Humanist Hour, the official broadcast of the American Humanist Association, where he could be heard weekly discussing a variety of humanistic issues, mostly related to science, psychology, philosophy, and critical thinking. 

Bo's pro bono work focuses on education.  He developed and taught a public speaking and debate course for Student Athletes Rising, a non-profit youth development organization offering guidance and training for America’s youth, ages 7-19, preparing them for enriching college experiences and productive lives as future leaders of their communities.  As a PhD student, Bo spent time as a graduate assistant for Walden University, tutoring masters and other PhD students in research methodology.  His dissertation was on social intelligence development in both traditional and distance learning programs.

Bo has developed several online courses and the learning platform on which they run—as well as teaches those courses.  These courses can be found in the "online courses" link on the main menu. Bo worked for several years as an adjunct professor at Lasell University teaching introduction to psychology and social psychology. Today, Bo continues to write, teach, and run his businesses.

Visit Author's Page

Frequently Asked Questions

Christianity

Much of what Christianity is based on is believed by many, to be historical fact.   Christianity is, however, far more likely based on theologized stories with little, or no historical, factual, or scientific basis.

Faith

While nobody can say for sure they don’t, it is extremely unlikely that they do, or ever did.  It is easy to demonstrate the psychology behind miracles as well as debunk claims today.
Faith, or believing in something with no evidence, is dangerous in many ways.

God

God exists, but far more likely as a concept than a being.
Certainly.  In fact, without the idea of divine meaning, we are free to give our lives our own meaning.
We, as a species, do not need God.  But many people do need the idea of God.

Philosophy

Tuning implies a “tuner”.  Something that must be tuned must also have been out of tune (imperfect) to start with.  The initial laws and conditions of the universe are not bound to any laws, and therefore work because they are, not because they are tuned.
No, not in any common sense of the word.  Morality is a human-created concept that changes over time and different among cultures.  The ideas of “right”, “wrong”, “good” and “evil” are nothing more than subjective ideas that exist only in our minds.
Virtually all people, religious and non, believe that we have some type of freewill.  The fact is, we are much more bound to determinism than most people think with the possibility of randomness, leaving no room for "freedom."

Religion

Belief comprises deterministic factors that are outside out control.  So if we are not "free" to believe just on the basis of desire, the idea of salvation based on belief is fatally flawed.
Our modern-day concepts of Heaven and Hell are so mythologized, that they are very little like the afterlife portrayed in the Bible.  But even the Biblical afterlife ideas are widely varied and based on ancient beliefs.  If such places do exist, we have absolutely no idea what they are like.
Study after study, prayer has been shown to have mixed results -- just like one would expect from any factor that had no effect on the outcome.  Prayer has its benefits, but they have nothing to do with the divine.
No, we can’t.  The Bible is far from a historical and scientific textbook.

Spirituality

Spirituality does not mean believing in another world filled with beings and creatures; it is about having control over your emotions and inner happiness.

Press / Media

Point of Inquiry

The Concept in the media. Airdate: 2011-05-02

Contact the Author

The author is available for select interviews. If you are interested in conducting an interview, please enter the details of your media outlet. If you are contacting the author for another reason, please enter the reason. Although we don't guarantee all messages will be responded to, the author does their best to respond to all requests and all messages will be read.

Other Books by Bo Bennett, PhD