Psychologist Cass Seltzer's book, The Variety of Religious Illusion, has become a surprise bestseller, and has him rubbing shoulders with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens on the bestsellers lists and chat show circuit. Dubbed 'the atheist with a soul', Cass's sudden celebrity has upended his life and brought back the ghosts of his past, including a lover in pursuit of immortality, a mentor with a suspicious obsession with messianism, and a six-year-old mathematical prodigy, heir to the dynasty of a strict fundamentalist community.
Over the course of one week, Cass's theories about the inescapability of the religious impulse are born out in ways he could never have imagined.
36 Arguments for the Existence of God is a remarkably original novel which explores the varieties of the human religious experience in a story of obsession, consuming love, and divine genius. By turns hilarious, moving and devilishly clever, Goldstein's novel is an exhilarating romance of heart and mind.
