Table of Contents

Prologue

BOOK I: THEORY'S EVOLUTION
Chapter 1: Throwing Rocks at God
Chapter 2: What Is Science?
Chapter 3: A Very Brief History of Time or Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Universe but Were Afraid to Ask
Chapter 4: Kant
Chapter 5: God as Word
Chapter 6: Universal Behavioral Patterns

BOOK II: INTRO TO BIOTHEOLOGY
Chapter 7: The "Spiritual" Function
Jung
Universal Spiritual Beliefs and Practices
The Argument For a Spiritual Function
Chapter 8: The Rationale
The Origin of Mortal Consciousness
The Pain Function
The Anxiety Function
When Mortal Consciousness Meets the Anxiety Function
Advent of the Spiritual Function
The Origins of Immortal and God Consciousness
Chapter 9: The "Spiritual" Experience
Origins of the Spiritual Experience
The Ego Function
The Transcendental Function
Chapter 10: Drug-Induced God
Chapter 11: The "Spiritual" Gene
Chapter 12: The Prayer Function
Chapter 13: Religious Conversion
Chapter 14: Why Are There Atheists?
Chapter 15: Near-Death Experiences
Chapter 16: Speaking in Tongues
Chapter 17: Why Is America So Religious?
A Bio-Historical Hypothesis
Chapter 18: The Guilt and Morality Functions
Chapter 19: The Logic of God:
A New "Spiritual" Paradigm
Chapter 20: What, If Anything, Is to Be Gained from a Scientific Interpretation of
Human Spirituality and God?
Epilogue: Quest's End
Addendum: Experiments That Might Help Prove the Existence of a Spiritual Function

Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

About the Author

Matthew Alper (New York City) graduated from SUNY Stonybrook with a BA in philosophy. He has worked as an electrician in England, a photographer's assistant in New York, a fifth-grade and high school history teacher in Brooklyn, a truck smuggler in Africa, a tutor in the Philippines, and a screenwriter in Germany.