Is this author a deity? Nah...
599197
I did not read all of it. When I thumbed through and the author began to describe himself as potentially a deity, he lost me.
1299768
For someone who's concept of God is based strictly upon what's reavealed about Him in the Holy Bible, The Shack is wierd; very wierd. I only made it to the point where its author portrays our heavenly Father as a woman. I could not read beyond that point. This book strikes me as a fusion of Christianity and the New Age. I'm apalled by the people that are promoting and defending it (Gal 1:8). Doesn't anybody test anything against the Bible anymore?

It seems that this book has some sort of spell-binding power over people, if they're willing to allow their concept of God to be bent by its author, and are willing to read beyond the point at which I stopped reading. The first question I was asked by the person who gave me the book was, "Did you read the book, or just the reviews?" He proceeded to refer to Mack (the main character) as if he were a real person.

Although this book is fiction, its author tells his false story in such a convincing manner as to make one believe it all really happened. And now good friends of mine are defending a concept of God that is a pure work of fiction.
2479821
Well, i have to admit that as a student of spirituality from a universal perspective the name of this book was already tempting, and so i bought it without hesitation, but once ive began reading it i was clearly turned off by it and i thought about returning it, the reason for this is that the author is first of all misguiding us by calling this work "the universal laws of god" while in essence theres non of gods laws within it, those are only guideline given by this author as to how one should be initiated, as well as how one would be required to ascend, giving an example, He uses the terms initiation and ascension quite loosely however little does he really explain what do these terms mean, while it is ok if read by a person who is currently taking an initiation or an ascenion it is not so ok for the reader who is ignorant of the terms and came looking at this book simply because the name suggests divine lawfulness, which, again, are non to be found.
Still, I changed my mind and i decided to investigate deeper the terms he outlined in his book and it would seem he collected his information from a wide collection of works, and in essence he is speaking truth BUT , to recognize or understand this you would need to have a fair understanding of the terminology he will be using, which the author barely takes time to explain at all, he says that initiation or ascension are basically levels of light quotient reached in your spiritual body, and heck, how would a novice know even what exactly is this body he's talking about in the first place? he didn't explain at all, a person would have to research theosophy or from other works to understand anything about the bodies, the information is most likely TRUE but assumes that the reader knows or has already investigated much into the nature of his spiritual essence or being, IF you are educated ( which i assume can also be said as "Initiated " ) to a certain level where you are famillier with the different bodies, chakras, archetypes, sephiroth, zodiac signs and many many more things he's speaking about then this book can enlighten you, otherwise it will remain hard to understand because LIKE i said, you need to be famillier with the terms, he doesnt explain them or get into the different bodies and terms deeply at all.

Take an example... how would anyone know what does he mean by the word initiation??? Is it a level of education? A level of development? An affiliation or association with a certain group / sect / cult  or what?? Im into like page 50 but he didn't explain it and yet he threw the words initiation all over
Still, i give it 5 star because this book is very illuminating and despite that it seems the author made alot of research.

and, if you can get around his way of terminology then i guess you will be well served to read this book, otherwise its a jumble of terms that mean nothing to the uninitiated or unfamilliar.
1276650
The first thing I noticed after a few chapters was that Mr. Ross does not go into to much detail about his God. The word Creator comes first in the title yet 99% of the book is about how complex the universe is. Yes, I got that the first hundred pages Mr. Ross. He states right at the begining that this creator of the cosmos is the Christian God and that it's bible is the ONLY source for truth and accuracy concerning the universe. Ross quotes a little scripture to try to win us over to his beliefs and then quickly pours on the science to draw us away from some questions concering how reliable the bible really is in it's views of God and the cosmos. What it doesn't answer is a few theological questions that I would like to pose.
1. Why would a perfect being who is self-sufficient feel the need or desire to create in the first place? Need and desire come from a lack of fullfillment. These are human qualities.
2. How can perfection create imperfection, let alone concieve it?
3. Why would a God need to be believed-in so badly that He would threaten to torture his creatures for all eternity?

Mr. Ross seems to exclude some of the bible's errors in it's view of the earth and cosmos. Some of these are as follows.
1. Dan. 4:10-ll talks of a tree that is visible to the ends of the whole earth. This is not possible since the earth is sphere shaped.
2. Isa. 40:18-23 says that God sits upon the circle of the earth. Here the word circle comes from the hebrew "chuwg" which means compass like.
3. In Jos. 10:12-13 the sun is commanded to stand still, but as we know , the earth is the one moving around the sun.
4. In Rev. 6:13 and Mar. 13:25 all the stars of heaven are to fall to earth. Trillions and trillions as Mr. Ross might say. Well I don't have to tell the reader what would happen to the earth if this happend.
I expected to read a book that would be fair and balanced. But that wasn't the case. If I should read another one of Ross's books I'm sure it will be from the libary since I intend not to to spend my good hard earned money.
To use some of Mr. Ross's mathmatics the chance of that happening is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1.
2837961
In a phrase, it's "stupidity dumbed down".

The author obviously is not educated in the discipline of Religion, and simply regurgitated fragments of great philosophers, such as Descartes' proof of existence of God, and a bunch of other rationalizations for the Christian faith.

At a point he mentioned that Man can commune with God without the church, and that the church has been nothing but trouble and translation errors (he must've overlooked the fact that Jesus agenda to build a church [On this rock I will build a church(greek: ekkl h sia) -Matthew 16:18] So there he contradicts himself in claiming he believes in Jesus but not what Jesus believed in.

His conclusion was that God was simply the name that we people give to the life-creating force, and that we created God to feel safe. even calls the Bible a fiction book, setting himself against the library of archaeological findings we have on the ancient Greco-Roman society and the Biblical characters.

In a word, bull.
3853092
You'll never be able to present enough evidence to the non-believer...

It's a pretty good bet that the author has no faith and is writing about a subject that is faith-based.  If this individual were around when Jesus was performing exorcism's, it's a pretty sure bet she would have scoffed.

During the majority of exorcism's I wouldn't expect to see evidence of the supernatural (IE, levitation, ghosts,  the Devil, mind reading, etc.)  Yet I have read about these occurrences on rare occasion.

She referred to Father Amorth, who may have performed more exorcisms than anybody in history, as an individual who sees the Devil around every corner.  What should the author expect?  If you talk about making money to Warren Buffet, he's going to see making money around every corner.  Duh!

OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I still think the book is worth while to read.  If for no other reason than the interviews with exorcists.
1590790
This author I believe is a athiest who writes science fiction as a means of delivering his opinions that religions are obsolete. I really enjoyed his writing style, the character personalities, and the realism of the stories he creates... and yet every few chapters there is a slur against religion. Every few chapters my enjoyment is tainted by an increasingly more robust push to drive his beliefs into the readers lap.
357916
This is a part of the Ancient World Series of books.  Be aware that she considers that she is a pagan and a proponent of hinduism not of Christanity.
3936956
John Shelby Spong, in my opinion, is one of the most overrated scholars in the history of Christianity.  The title of this book is the epitome of irony, yet the irony seems to elude Mr. Spong (I refuse to call him "reverend").  If traditional Christianity is as far off the mark as Spong claims, then why shouldn't it die?  His own theology bears little resemblance to Christianity (if I understood him correctly, he does not even believe in a personal God).  If churches implement the kind of changes he recommends, they may still promote religion, but it will hardly be Christianity.

Not long ago I read an article in the Washingon Post about churches in Canada that have done exactly what Mr. Spong suggests.  Do you know what is happening to them now?  They're dying!  Guess which churches have actually seen real growth?  The ones that still preach the Bible and the orthodox doctrines of Christianity.  Has it occurred to anyone that maybe - just maybe - Mr. Spong doesn't know what he's talking about?

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of Christianity have been greatly exaggerated.  People have been predicting the death of Christianity ever since it came into existence, and I suspect Mr. Spong's prediction will suffer the same fate as theirs.
2294000
I will give the writer the latitude of being deeply deceived and teaching gross error. May God have mercy on her and deliver her from exceedingly great sin. Otherwise her writings are sheer profiteering. Spiritually this is a MIXTURE (AND GOD DESPISES MIXTURE) of some Biblical truth and profound imaginary nonsense. Her visitations as a prophetically anointed minister into assorted prisons to gather scraps of people's spirits is worse than Harry Potter and his horcruxes. ALL IS UTTER DECEPTION. Do not dabble in this darkness.
2818655
What is this supposed to be? The blurb calls the author "the master of satirical absurdity" but that, like the positive reviews, seems to have been written by the author himself. This is neither satirical nor absurd (and certainly not masterful), just a self-published, self-indulgent, unfunny, uninteresting rant.
4759212
In an interview, the author has stated he is an idea man, and has presented his ideas through a plot cleverly presented to hold the reader's interest. In that same interview, he has stated he is not religious and considers himself to be an atheist even though he includes an external, supernatural being as one of his characters. Even though it is obvious his core belief is unbelief, it seems he is forced to at least include God as a creator in submitting to the logic that every effect must have a cause.

Through the dialogue of his various characters, it is obvious the author does have his own religion: He expresses all of the basic tenets of a belief system called secular humanism. Secular humanists believe that there is no God, at least there is no God who cares about his creation. They believe man must make his own way in this life by making his own decisions and live with the consequences.  As theologian Francis Schaeffer once said, "man begins with himself and then builds out from himself having only himself as a reference point accepting no external influences like God in his life. He thus strives to find all knowledge, meaning and value in his life." Secular humanism is all about denial of the God of the Bible and focus on what man can and must do for himself. It's all about power to the people.

But, as several of the characters have expressed in the book, the people really don't have much power at all. Nonetheless, they have no choice but to trudge on, trying to make some sense out of what they perceive to be an absolute absurdity. The farce ends when the comet hits the earth, and, as atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell once opined, God has tired of his little game and has decided to put an end to it.

If a person is inclined to believe Mr. Currie's secular humanist concept of reality, this is the book for you.  Even though I'm not a member of the choir the author is preaching to, I did find the book interesting because I often learn more about what I believe from contrary opinion.
3067162
Faith doesn't mean what this author claims. This means the foundations of the book are extremely rocky, and based on a very scant understanding of any faith community's intellectual tradition. It is surprising that such shoddy work is taken seriously by anyone.
2917661
The author excoriates Daniel Dennett and Carl Sagan by name, and by implication all of the New Atheists. My criticism of Richard Dawkins, to name another, is that he has blind spots about religion and is dishonest in addition to being irrational and ignorant. I give Dawkins a character quotient of zero. Jean-Paul Sartre, on the other hand, gets a character quotient of 100 because of the following quote:

"Thus the passion of man is the reverse of that of Christ, for man loses himself as man in order that God may be born. But the idea of God is contradictory and we lose ourselves in vain. Man is a useless passion." (Jean-Paul Sartre,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Being-and-Nothingness-The-Complete-Text-Fourth-Printing/dp/B001BYRL5G/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Being and Nothingness: The Complete Text (Fourth Printing)</a>, New York: Washington Square Press, p. 784)

Sartre and Schaeffer have similar concepts of God. The "contradictory" nature of God is perfectly consistent with Thomas Aquinas's understanding that God is pure act of existence and humans have an existence that is limited by an essence. The paradox, contradiction, or mystery about God is the question of what would motivate an infinite being to create finite beings.

God has revealed to mankind through the prophetic religions of the Near East, the mystical religions of India, and the Wisdom religions of China that there is life after death.  We are not guaranteed salvation, but can hope for it with "fear and trembling." We have to decide whether this is true, not whether or not God exists. Faith is both a decision and a gift from God. Schaeffer does not believe our freedom is before God because God does not want him to believe. Schaeffer has no grounds for thinking that his metaphysical insights are what prevent him from believing that his beloved mother is in heaven.

Sartre and Schaeffer both realize that the Resurrection of Jesus was an historical event that can't be understood in terms of any other historical event. He says, "the Enlightenment was a Christian heresy." (location 1355) Schaeffer calls himself a Christian because Jesus taught that human beings should be compassionate.  Schaeffer does not see the Enlightenment as a rejection of Jesus, but rather an improvement of Jesus' message. Needless to say, he does not think that the Enlightenment caused the genocide and wars of the 19th and 20th century.

Sartre admits that life without God has no meaning, but Schaeffer thinks it does and tries to prove it by telling about his loving parents, successful careers, and happy marriage.  His only rational argument against religious faith is the insight that if God cared about our welfare, He would not cause so much suffering in the world. I'm giving Schaeffer a character quotient of 50.
4483821
Thinks he is a genius about spirituality because of one experience.  Now openly into the occult in search of other supernatural experiences:  He is a Fool. Author is narrow minded and not educable.  You'd think he would have learned something from his experience.  Confuses supernatural experience with spiritual experience and falsely seeks supernatural experiences as means of spiritual growth.  Thinks he is spiritually advanced when he should know he isn't.  Arrogant and blind.
2897672
the author is out of his mind! i found this book online and read it for free, and i am sorry that i read it.
i skipped through it, i could not take too much of reading every page. the author claims to be satanic
and yet he rambles on throughout the book about both god and satan, it would seem that he worships both.
to say that this book is confusing would be an understatement. pointless rambling, no rituals, that's right,
this is not a grimoire. it is nothing more than a jumbled up collection of the authors personal opinions, thoughts,
ect. he constantly changes his opinions on any given topic over and over and over again throughout the entire
book. he lays down endless sets of rules and then changes those again and again. there is no magic here,
and no freedom, only more dogma. my mind is still numb from reading this nonsense. it would appear
that the author wants people to join his church of both satan and god? confusing. many occult writers do not seem
to understand the path of the true sorcerer, AT ALL!
1563895
Behe's theory of irreducible complexity is so full of holes it sinks almost immediately. Unfortunately, he sounds as though he knows what he's talking about, so is able to blind much of the reading public with misinformation and simple faulty logic masquerading as science. I am a Christian and believe in a Creator, but I don't believe in Behe's "God of the gaps" (which is what his argument boils down to)- and furthermore see no reason why Darwinian evolution should be in any way incompatible with Christian faith. If there is a God who created a world which is truly free then natural evolution would have to be part of the package, warts and all. (John Haught's  "God After Darwin" explains the synthesis very nicely without conflating science and religion.) Don't waste your time with Behe's book...and if you are an "intelligent design" proponent who wants intelligent arguments that will stand up to serious scrutiny, you won't find them here!