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Aug 18, 2011

Brian rated it:

36 Arguments for the Existence of God: a work of fiction

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's novel builds a backbone around the depiction of the life of Cass Seltzer as he rises to become the world renowned “atheist with a soul.” The non-linear plot development creates an intriguing look inside Cass's critical moments along his path as romantic pursuer, academic achiever, and simple human being.

Nontheists will revel in this book's assertive position of godless living. As the title More...

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Jul 27, 2011

John rated it:

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's novel takes up as its subject the intersections of faith and science as well as the reasons for and methods of human existence. Through Cass Seltzer, a former member of an orthodox sect, now turned psychology of religion professor who has written a best-selling book called The Varieties of Religious Illusion, his girlfriend, Lucinda Mandelbaum ("the goddess of game theory"), Jonas Klapper, a domineering charismatic and cultish professor of Faith, Literatur More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 12, 2011

Greg rated it:

This here is one of them there smart folk books. And as such, in order to enjoy it, you have to really enjoy weeding your way through smart folk stuff, like mazes of logical proofs, esoteric Jewish mysticism, faith vs. reason debates, and metaphysical philosophy. Believe it or not, though, 36 Arguments for the Existence of Godactually is a work of fiction with characters and a plot and the whole nine yards.

To be clear, it's not "a novel," it's "a work of fiction." A More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2010

Elyse rated it:

Rebecca Goldstein is a very bright woman: NO QUESTION! --- I wanted to love this book (having enjoyed "The Mind-Body Problem" several years ago), ----but this book is a PRETENTIOUS MESS. ----sometimes leaving the reader with an unquenchable desire to scream! At times I HATED Rebecca Goldstein for making me work so hard reading her book...and for what? why? Yet---I kept reading....(with discomforting intensity).....Excruciatingly at times! (but I would not give it up). Much of her sty More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2010

Mazola1 rated it:

For all those who think you can't tell a book by its cover, I offer 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction as Exhibit 1 against the proposition. Clearly, the title says it all -- logical arguments proving the existence of God are numerous, but are all works of fiction. Tackling that topic is a tall order to fill, and Goldstein gives it a good,although not entirely successful try. Her book is witty, erudite, and clever. It is also at times tedious and a bit too clever. And it d More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2010

Jackmccullough rated it:

This novel stands for the proposition that someone who is very smart, and may have very good and clear philosophical ideas, may yet be unable to write good, believable fiction.

The novel centers on Cass Seltzer, a professor of the psychology of religion who has become famous for writing a best-selling book about religious belief, and his relationships with his academic mentor, his girlfriend, who is also a professor, his university (Brandeis, thinly disguised as "Frankfurter Univ More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2010

Cheri rated it:

There doesn’t seem to be a single true-to-life character in this book, and it is is organized very strangely, yet there is so much to get out of it that I will happily give Goldstein leeway on everything. The book is captivating to read and often it is brilliant. I have not yet worked my way through all 36 of the refutations of arguments for the existence of God that compose the appendix – those are well-constructed arguments and require a good bit of effort for anyone who did not major in philo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 25, 2010

Sarah rated it:

Christopher Hitchens is a public intellectual whose witty sentences I admire and, frankly, covet, and whose opinions I generally find so inexplicable that I am beginning to wonder if he and Ann Coulter have joined in some kind of rivalry as to who can spout off the most unlikely nonsense before getting caught out as BS artists. So when I read that Christopher Hitchens was publically promoting this novel as a brilliant work of athiest literature, I was almost primed to dismiss it as so much bla More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

May 04, 2010

Thebookchubi rated it:

36 Arguments for the Existence of God will touch every logical and scientific nerve in your body. Every page is coated in thick reasoning and drips with theological gold.

In all reality, this book is arguments against religion masked under the phrase "a work of fiction".

The fictional story of Cass Seltzer and his odd path to fame is interesting at its core. He is thrown into the limelight after his book centering on theology labels him "an atheist with a sou More...

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Mar 30, 2010

David rated it:

It's interesting having a book that's primarily about atheists. Many books have atheist characters, to be sure, but I've never seen one that focuses so much on them as atheists, rather than people who happen to be atheist. Presumably this has something to do with the still relatively taboo nature of atheism in the US (e.g., 1/535 members of the national Legislature say they're not religious - this would be about 80 if it were proportional to the number of admitted nonbelievers in the country, th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2010

Tara rated it:

The opening chapter of Rebecca Goldstein's 36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction finds Professor Cass Seltzer giddily contemplating his uncanny luck. His recent publication, The Varieties of Religious Illusion, couldn't have been timed more perfectly. His book wouldn't have made the slightest blip on the bestselling list ten years ago, but a current firestorm between crusaders of the religious right and their nemeses, the "new atheists," has catapulted his book and h More...

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Feb 27, 2010

Greg rated it:

One, this novel needed a few hundred more pages. There is the feeling at the start of the book that something much more epic is about to take place in the book. For the number of interesting characters created and different narrative threads going there feels like there should be more. I had the cynical feeling about fifty pages towards the end of the novel part of the book that at some point the author was told by her publisher to 'hurry the fuck up, this New Atheism trend might not last for More...

40 comments like (16 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2010

Brian rated it:

36 Arguments for the Existence of God is an education in itself. There are so many things in this wonderful book I wish to remember, to know more about. It is so much like a cake I first tasted a while back. My friend, Bonnie Tiegel, producer of Entertainment Tonight brought this cake to another friend's (Barry Levenson) house, right after Michael Jackson's funeral, where she had just been. "This was Michael's favourite cake" she proclaimed as she cut stout pieces for us. "It More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2010

Bookmarks Magazine rated it:

A book of ideas rather than of plot or characters, Goldstein's ambitious, dense, and dazzling novel fuses a fictional storyline with scholarly debate on religion, the nature of morality, and the human capacity for faith. Narrative continuity and well-rounded characters are not Goldstein's strong points, and the mathematical proofs, poems, and fragments of game theory peppering the story do not make for light reading. However, critics touted her biting satire and penetrating philosophical questio More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2010

AJ marked it as to-read

From NPR:
Protagonist Cass Seltzer's surname suits both his disposition and the overall tone of this bubbly academic comedy. Cass is a religious-studies professor at an obscure university when the winds of academic fashion suddenly blow his way. His book hits the best-seller list and he becomes an overnight celebrity, "the atheist with a soul," as Time magazine dubs him. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's novel cuts back and forth between Cass' sunny present and his past as a strugglin More...

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Jun 20, 2010

Gerald rated it:

Here are a few things I learned from this book.
1. PhDs only associate with other PhDs (or a child genius that certainly would have been a PhD by the end of the book if he hadn't decided instead to accept his obligatory heritage to become head Rabbi of a Hassidic sect.)
2. PhDs do not say "I love you" without first computing the probability that to do so will result in a) bliss, or b) hell.
3. If you write this year's best selling book on athiesm you may get offered a pr More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2010

Mike rated it:

1. In the mid-eighties, while becoming strangely entangled with a slightly-older woman, I had a moment of what seemed to be psychic insight. I don't want to say too much about this woman, or said entanglement, but it's crucial to know that she was a fervent believer in Eckankar, a new-agey mash-up of cool stuff from Buddhism, Hinduism, the Judeo-Christian mishegoss--your mind could go anywhere, could do anything, it was all god, and you were god, too, and if you just let go you would be one wit More...

31 comments like (24 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2011

Dennis rated it:

This is a fun, smartly written, sexy book about some deep questions of right and wrong and how we should live our lives. In that way, it's like all the fiction that Rebecca Goldstein has written.

Cass Seltzer's mother grew up in New Valden, "the only shtetl in the U.S.", but she left the tight-knit Hasidic community and married a modern Orthodox man. They raised him Jewish but without any strong set of beliefs. As a college student, pre-med like many other nice Jewish boy More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 26, 2011

Kathrina rated it:

There is no point in writing my review, as Mike has already thoroughly and beautifully covered every point I might wish to make. His criticisms are well-justified and true, and his wrestling with the issues presented are synonymous with my own. This is a philosophy text disguised as fiction, and yet the characters do not quite perfectly transport the theme as the author intended, but it is an admirable attempt at a formidable ideal. After a long preamble of establishing its context, the book end More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 08, 2010

Khaya rated it:

A kinder reviewer might call this a "novel of ideas." Which means, I guess, thin plot and thinner characterization, all crafted as transparent excuses to give voices to different philosophical arguments on a range of topics. In other words, a novel of the genre of (the admittedly inferior and diametrically opposed) With All My Heart, With All My Soul.

Cass Seltzer is a man of Hassidic origin, thoroughly secular, dubbed "the atheist with a soul" after the publicat More...

34 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 07, 2010

Lynn rated it:

I almost didn’t finish this book, and I wish someone had told me that the chapter on the Harvard debate (toward the end) and the Appendix (36 actual arguments and rebuttals for the existence of God) were the only parts worthwhile. These could stand alone and make a great 5 star book; so I'm glad I finished the book, otherwise I would have missed some great writing.

The best parts of the book were not part of the novel. In the novel, the characters were empty (Azarya is the exception More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 22, 2011

Destinee rated it:

This is a real thinky book, kind of like Sophie's World but focusing on religion (and almost exclusively Judeo-Christian religion). The main character is a professor of psychology named Cass Seltzer. He's a nice guy who's just written a book called The Varieties of Religious Illusion (yes, there are a lot of William James references). Cass's book includes an appendix that lists out the 36 big arguments for the existence of God and then lists the flaws in each argument. Cass is now a famous athei More...

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May 17, 2010

Juliette rated it:

About a 40-something college professor who becomes famous when he writes a book claiming to disprove the existence of God, but at the same time proving the depth of his spirituality. He becomes known as "the atheist with a soul." The story flicks back and forth (often erratically) between his young adulthood and the present. It tells the story of his various relationships and his involvement with a child math prodigy slated to become the Grand Rebbe of his isolated Hasidic community.
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Aug 01, 2010

Jim rated it:

a perfectly fine book that tempted me all the way through with the promise of being something more. in the effort to create a compelling narrative that simultaneously engages big questions, neither goal is wholly satisfied. the narrative is frequently sacrificed to the purpose of generating philosophic interest and consequently the protagonist's actions feel arbitrary. philosophic questions are raised, sketched out but never productively engaged - for example, the theist's arguments in the clima More...

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Aug 14, 2011

Amy rated it:

Reading this book was like starting a class in which the other students all know each other, have taken classes together, have a bunch of in-jokes they laugh at together, and know more than you. It was all over the map; there's a million in-jokes about academia, a million in-jokes about jews, a million in-jokes about philosophy - the list goes on - and a meager plot that gets lost in the cleverness. I loved the words, though. The novel culminates in a debate between the hero ('the atheis More...

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Jun 20, 2010

Dominica rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jan 31, 2010

Susan rated it:

How can I resist any book that includes the following sentence in its first page: "It's a tiresome proposition, having to take up the work of the Enlightenment all over again, but it's happened on your watch."? It would be easy to pick this book apart. I can argue that it's plot points are a little too pat, that there is a quality of post-modern cleverness that can be annoying, that the narrative structure is a bit disjoint, that I'm not sure about the philosophy/choice that underlays More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2012

Scilla rated it:

Cass Seltzer was a premed at Columbia when he meets Jonas Elijah Klapper, Professor of Religious Psychology and follows him to Frankfurter outside of Boston as a grad student. Cass's mother grew up in New Walden, a hasidic community in New York, and Cass arranges for Klapper to meet the Rebbe. Cass and his girlfriend Roz drive Klapper to New Walden. They both become very interested in the Rebbe's six year old mathematical genius, Azarya. Years later, Cass has received his PhD, continued teac More...

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Mar 16, 2010

Joseph rated it:

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's newest novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, is about a professor Cass Seltzer. Cass is a professor of psychology and his field of academic study is the psychology of religion. Cass has written a book, "The Varieties of Religious Illusion", that discusses the novel's eponymous 36 arguments. The book, a best seller, has propelled Cass to fortune and fame. If academic success weren't enough, Cass has garnered the affections of a beautiful mathema

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May 13, 2011

Quinten rated it:

A fascinating and enjoyable novel about moral choices, identity and the varieties of religious experience--and agnosticism. It's about belief and the nature of genius. The setting in the world of academia is perhaps a little limiting, but it nevertheless succeeds for anyone who has a slight experience in that world. It pokes gentle fun at the politics and vanity of academic luminaries like the "extreme distinguished professor" and the less obvious, insecure stars of the more rigorous d More...

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