James Abington / Tere Molinder Hogue
The Great DisconnectWhere Faith Meets TruthWhat if the questions you’ve been taught not to ask are the most important ones of all?For billions of people, religion provides answers to life’s deepest mysteries. It offers meaning, purpose, identity, comfort, and a framework for understanding the world. Yet beneath that certainty lies a troubling reality: Christianity alone has fractured into tens of thousands of denominations, each claiming access to the same truth while often disagreeing on its most fundamental teachings.In The Great Disconnect, author James Abington embarks on a fearless investigation into one of humanity’s oldest and most influential ideas-the belief in God.Drawing from history, psychology, archaeology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and critical inquiry, Abington examines how religious beliefs originate, why they persist, and why they feel so compelling even when they conflict with evidence. Along the way, readers confront questions that many have wondered about but few have explored in depth:Why do religions evolve?Why does faith feel true?Where did the idea of God originate?What happens when belief conflicts with evidence?Can meaning exist without religion?Rather than attacking believers, The Great Disconnect explores the human forces that shape belief itself. It examines the role of culture, identity, fear, hope, belonging, and cognitive bias in the formation of deeply held convictions. It traces the development of religious ideas from humanity’s earliest attempts to explain an uncertain world through the rise of organized religion and into the modern age.But this book is about more than religion.It is about how human beings construct meaning. It is about our search for certainty in an uncertain universe. It is about the stories we inherit, the institutions we trust, and the difficult process of separating what is true from what is merely familiar.Provocative, accessible, and deeply thought-provoking, The Great Disconnect challenges readers to examine assumptions that are often accepted without question. Whether you are a devoted believer, a skeptic, a former believer, or simply someone curious about the origins of faith, this book offers a compelling journey into one of the most important conversations humanity can have.The goal is not to tell you what to think.The goal is to encourage you to ask why you think it.And to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
