The Story of B by Daniel Quinn

A book about your disenchantment with religion, offering intriguing information and entertainment.


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  • "If someone tells you that Saddam Hussein is the Antichrist (and he has in fact been nominated for that honor), you're absolutely right to laugh. The Antichrist isn't going to be a worse sort of Hitler or Stalin, because worse than them will just be more of the same in a higher degree-sixty million murdered instead of six million. If you're going to be on guard against the Antichrist and not just some ordinary villain, you have to be on guard against someone of an entirely new order of dangerousness." - Page 8

  • Bible, Koran, Torah quotes - Dominion over earth
  • "What makes him dangerous," he said, "is the fact that no one can place him or his product. He's not selling meditation or Satanism or goddess worship or faith healing or spiritualism or Umbanda or speaking in tongues or any kind of New Age drivel. He's apparently not making money at all--and that's disquieting. You always know what someone's about when he's raking in millions. Atterly's not another example of some familiar model, like David Koresh or the Reverend Moon or Madame Blavatsky or Uri Geller. In fact, his presentation and lifestyle are more reminiscent of Jesus of Nazareth than anyone else, and that too is disquieting." - Father Lulfre on page 10

  • "It's 2:50, and I wonder what's wrong with me. It's 2:52, and I think my life is falling apart. Falling apart under what stress? I can't quite figure it out. Or I don't quite want to figure it out. Certainly the largest part is B, but I can't figure out why. I'm extremely reluctant to reread his lectures. His message is like a shadowy figure standing at my shoulder. I can catch it out of the corner of my eye, and it troubles me, because I can't see it clearly. I know I could turn around and face it directly, but, as I say, I'm reluctant to do that...What does this mean, Fr. Lulfre? Does it mean that some questions are dangerous after all?" - page 41-42

  • "There are some teachings that only exceptional students can handle. I hope to lay some of those teachings on you." - page 42

  • "Listening to B, I realized that...I'm in the dark. I'm at the beginning. For all intents and purposes, I'm still nineteen. At one point, my hand wavered, and I said to myself, 'I don't need to take this down. All I have to do is listen.' But I was sufficiently doubtful that I kept going. I'm glad I did, now, of course." - page 45

  • "If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with old minds and new programs. It will not be saved by people with the old vision but a new program." - page 48, B

  • "Last night I talked about changing minds. I said that if the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds. Not by programs. By people with changed minds...What you're here for today is to have your mind changed." - page 73, B

  • "The relevant measures are not ease and difficulty. The relevant measures are readiness and unreadiness. If the time isn't right for a new idea, no power on earth can make it catch on, but if the time is right, it will sweep the world like wildfire." - page 50, B

  • "Our message to those we must reassure is: 'Don't worry, nothing's happened. The world is just what it was. Don't be anxious, don't be alarmed. The foundation is solid. The pillars are still standing...Not a thing has changed since then. Though we go to war with smart bombs and nerve gas instead of swords and rocks, and write our thoughts on plastic disks instead of on parchment scrolls, these days are still those days." - Page 57, Jared explains the Church's attempts to keep people stuck in the past.

  • "If I were to tell you that the Gebusi (a New Zealand?? tribe) believe that the creator of the universe has spoken only to one people on this earth during its entire history, and that one people is the Gebusi, you would smile patronizingly. Wouldn't you?...Yet this is precisely what the people of our culture believe isn't it?" - page 81

  • "It's a wonder that our cultural revolution ever took place...It wasn't destiny, it wasn't divinely ordained from the foundation of the universe, it wasn't something that was just inevitably going to happen. It hadn't happened in two hundred thousand years of people as smart as we are. It might not have happened in another two hundred thousand years - or in another million. It was a quirk, a fluke. Combine one never-before-seen cultural element with a second never-before-seen element, add a third just as odd, and you come up with a cultural monster that is literally devouring the world - and will end by devouring itself if it isn't stopped." - page 88

  • "An electrode was implanted in the pleasure center of a monkey's brain. Pushing a button on a small control box delivered an electric pulse to the electrode, giving the monkey a tremendous jolt of sheer, whole-body pleasure...It didn't take many more repetitions for the monkey to catch on to the connection between the button and the pleasure...If they hadn't eventually taken the box away, the monkey would have sat there and literally pleasured itself to death...Pushing the button...gave the same jolt of power to the people of China and to the people of Europe. It gives us the same jolt of power today. And ust like the monkey, no one wants to quit pushing that button, and we're in serious danger of pleasuring ourselves to death with unending jolts of power." - page 94

  • "There is only one degree of having faith, but there are fifty degrees of losing it...I think I know one priest who has faith in that one degree that deserves the name of faith. All the rest, including me, are at one of those fifty degrees of losing it. Most of my parishioners would probably consider this a shocking admission, but I don't think it is. Of course there are priests who have gone beyond the fifty degrees and have walked away from the ministry. Everyone knows that, and I've known half a dozen of them myself. But the rest of us are still hanging on...This is actually reassuring, I think, because it shows that none of us wants to lose his fatih or wants to think of himself as having lost it. Admittedly, this is partly just cowardice; we know that, once our faith is gone, the religious life will become utterly intolerable and we'll have to move on, out into an unknown world. But it's also partly because we have enough faith to want to go on having faith. When that amount of faith is gone, however, then it's all gone, and you're at the fifty-first degree. You're out, you're finished." - page 99-100

  • "The fundamental...delusion is that hunanity itself was designed - and therefore destined - to become us. This is a twin of the idea that the entier universe was created in order to produce this planet. We would smile patronizingly if the Gebusi (New Zealand?? tribe) boasted that humanity was divinely destined to become Gebusi, but we're perfectly satisfied that humanity was divinely destined to become us." - page 129, B

  • "There was once a universal religion on this planet, Jared," B said. "Were you aware of that?...Audiences are almost always amazed by this news. Occasionally someone will think I'm referring to what is sometimes called the 'Old Religion' - paganism, Wicca - but of course I"m not. In the first place, paganism isn't old. It's a farmer's religion through and through, which means it's just a few thousand years old, and of course it was never a universal religion, for the simple reason that farming was never universal. Very often - almost invariably, in fact - no one will ever recognize the name of the religion I'm talking about...They've literally never heard of it." - page 132

  • "The number of the gods is written nowhere in the universe, Jared, so there's really no way to decide whether that number is zero (as atheists believe) or one (as monotheists believe) or many (as polytheists believe). The matter is one of complete indifference to me. I don't care whether the number of the gods is one, zero, or nine billion. If it turned out that the number of the gods is zero, this wouldn't cause me to alter a single syllable of what I've said to you." - page 134

  • "The God of revealed religions - and by this I mean religions like yours...is a profoundly inarticulate God. No matter how many times he tries, he can't make himself clearly or completely understood. He speaks for centuries to the Jews but fails to make himself understood. At last he sends his only-begotten son, and his son can't seem to do any better. Jesus might have sat himself down with a scribe and dictated the answers to ever conceivable theological question in aboslutely unequivocal terms, but he chose not to, leaving subsequent generations to settle what Jesus had in mind with pogroms, purges, persecutions, wars, the burning stake, and the rack. Having failed through Jesus, God next tried to make himself understood through Muhammad, with limited success, as always. After a thousand years of silence he tried again with Joseph Smith, with no better results. Aveaging it out, all God has been able to tell us for sure is that we should do unto others as we'd have them do unto us. What's that - a dozen words? Not much to show for five thousand years of work, and we probably could have figured out that much for ourselves anyways. To be honest, I'd be embarrassed to be associated with a god as incompetent as that." - page 135

  • "Religions like yours, revealed religions, are all perceived to be at odds with scientific knowledge - at odds with or irrelevant to. I wonder if you see why." - page 136

  • "The revealed religions...are fundamentally wed to our cultural vision, and I use the word wed advisedly. These religions are like a harem of sanctimonious wives married to a greedy, loutish sensualist of a husband. They're forever trying to improve him, forever hoping to get his mind on 'higher things,' forever bawling him out and shaking their fingers at him, but husband and harem are in fact completely inseparable. These revealed religions clearly function as our 'better half.' They're the highest expression of our cultural vision." - page 145

  • "To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong in this list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or by rising above it...The adherents of these religions are mightily struck and obsessed by their differences - to the point of mayhem, murder, jihad, and genocide - but to me, as I say, you all look alike." - page 148, B

  • "I will not be saying Mass," I told him. So at least that much has been settled. I've reached and passed the fiftieth degree of losing my faith." - page 199

  • "Yes that's right. You see, she showed me more clearly than any advocate of ecumenism why we are a confraternity, Jared - we Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus." - Father Lulfre, page 206

  • "You took in their insights, but do you have any of your own? Are you a thinker and a teacher or just a reciter of Holy Writ? If all you can do is chant the scriptures, then you're no more B than I am. You're just an altar boy who has all the responses down pat." - Albrecht, page 213

  • "As a culture, we've grown up with the obscuring lenses of the Great Forgetting glued to our eyes. From the beginning, our intellectual growth has been stunted and warped by this angel dust of amnesia. This isn't something that will be undone by any one author - or by any ten authors. Nor will it be undone by any one teacher or by any ten teachers. If it's undone, it will be undone by a whole new generation of authors and teachers. One of which is you. There is no one in reach of these words who is incapable (at the very least) of handing them to another and saying 'Here, read this.' Parents, teach your children. Children, teach your parents. Teachers, teach your pupils. Pupils, teach your teachers. Vision is the river, and we who have been changed are the flood. I supposed people will ask you to summarize what it's all about. I offer you this, knowing how inadequate it is: The world will not be saved by old minds with new programs. If the world is saved, it will be saved by new minds - with no programs" - page 234

  • "What does it mean for me to say that I'm B?...It means I've been changed, fundamentally and permanently. It means I cannot be put back to what I was. That's why I'm B: I cannot be put back to what I was...The words have found their way to you, so it's already too late...because of what you've read here. The contagion has been spread. You are B." - page 235

  • "Have you ever wondered why it is the duty of the clergy of so many sects to read the Divine Office - daily? Why the same affirmations of faith are repeated word for word in so many religious communities around the world - daily? Is it so difficult to remember that Allah is One or that Christ died for our sins that it must be reiterated at least once every day throughout life? Of course we know that these things aren't in the least difficult to remember. and we know that the pious don't go to church every Sunday because they've forgotten that Jesus loves them but rather because they've not forgotten that Jesus loves them. They want to hear it again and again and again and again. In some sense of other, they need to hear it again and again and again. and again. They can live without hearing the laws of thermodynamics ten thousand times, but for some reason, they cannot live without hearing the laws of their gods ten thousand times." - page 240

  • "Now I hope - I sincerely hope - that there are many among you who are burning to know why not a single one of you has ever heard a word about the Great Forgetting (by any name whatsoever) in any class you have ever attended at any school at any level, from kindergarten to graduate school. If you have this question, be assured that it's not an academic one by any means. It's a vital question, and I don't hesitate to say that our species' future on this planet depends on it" - page 244

  • "'Man is the scourge of the planet and he was BORN a scourge, just a few thousand years ago.' Believe me, I can win applause all over the world by pronouncing these words. But the news I'm here to bring you is much different. 'Man was NOT born a few thousand years ago and he was NOT born a scourge.' And it's for this news that I'm condemned. 'Man was born MILLIONS of years ago, and he was no more a scourge than hawks or lions or squids. He lived AT PEACE with the world...for MILLIONS of years.' This doesn't mean he was a saint. This doesn't mean he walked the earth like a Buddha. It means he lived as harmlessly as a hyena or a shark or a rattlesnake. 'It's not MAN who is the scourge of the world, it's a single culture. One culture out of hundreds of thousands of cultures. OUR culture.' And here is the best of the news I have to bring: 'We don't have to change HUMANKIND in order to survive. We only have to change a single culture.' I don't mean to suggest that this is an easy task. But at least it's not an impossible one." - page 255

  • "For the first time in history, people were beginning to suspect that something fundamentally wrong was going on here. For the first time in history, people were beginning to feel empty, were beginning to feel that their lives were not amounting to enough, were beginning to wonder if this is all there is to life, were beginning to hanker after something vaguely more. For the first time in history, people began listening to religious teachers who promised them salvation. It's impossible to overstate the novelty of this idea of salvation. Religion had been around in our culture for thousands of years, of course, but it had never been about salvation as we understand it or as the people of this period began to understand it." - page 267

  • "Nonetheless the ordinary people of that empire - the slaves, the conquered, the peasants, the unenfranchised masses - were ready when the first great salvationist religion of the West arrived on its doorstep. It was easy for them to envision humankind as innately flawed and to envision themselves as sinners in need of rescue from eternal damnation. They were eager to despise the world and to dream of a blissful afterlife in which the poor and the humble of this world would be exalted over the proud and the powerful." - page 268

  • "The promise of 'pie in the sky when you die' was no longer enough to make the misery of life in the cauldron endurable. In 1843 the young Karl Marx called religion 'the opium of the people.' From the greater distance of anotehr century and a half, it's clera that religion was in fact no longer very effective as a narcotic." - page 273

  • "The famous mythologist Joseph Campbell lamented the fact that nowadays the people of our culture have no mythology, but as Ishmael showed us, not all mythology comes from the mouths of bards and storytellers around the fire. Another sort has come to us from the mouths of emperors, lawgivers, priests, political leaders, and prophets. Nowadays it comes to us from the pulpits of our churches, from film screens and television screens, from the mouths of clergy, schoolteachers, news commentators, novelists, pundits. It's not a mythology of quaint tales but a mythology that tells us what the gods had in mind when they made the universe and what our role in that universe is. A people can no more function without this sort of mythology than an individual can function without a nervous system. It's the organizing principle of all our activities. It explains to us the meaning of everything we do." - page 276-277

  • "There are many who think it's too late for humankind to save itself. I hear from them daily, and my heart goes out to them. Their hopelessness is understandable, because they mistake the workings of the drug for human nature itself. There is time for us to stop taking the drug and to stop feeding it to our children. There is time for us to begin the Great Remembering." - page 307-308

  • "Everyone thought it had been this way from the beginning. Everyone thought this was the nature of the world - and the nature of man. They began to think that the world is an evil place. They began to think that existence itself is evil. They began to think (and who can blame them!) that there was something fundamentally wrong with humans. They began to think that humankind was doomed. They began to think that humankind was damned. They bgan to think that someone needed to save us." - page 322

  • "The origin and cause of human suffering - and the means of ending it - became the first great intellectual and spiritual preoccupation of our culture, beginning about four thousand years ago. The next three millennia would see the development of all those religions that were destined to become the major religions of our culture - Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - and each had its own theory about the origin and cause of human suffering and its own approach to ending it, transcending it, or putting up with it. But all were united in a single, central vision: Whether it's release from the endless round of death and rebirth or blissful union with God in heaven, salvation is the highest goal of human life, unimaginably beyond any other, such as wealth, happiness, honor, or fame - and each of us is utterly alone in the universe with it." - page 323

The Great Divider

Have you ever looked around and marveled at the boundless repertoire of disagreements over which humanity manages to divide itself? Whether it's the perennial Red Sox vs. Yankees rivalry or the fierce N'Sync vs. Backstreet Boys feud, we seem to always find some petty way to prevent ourselves from achieving that idyllic dream of world peace and harmony. To be sure, sports preferences and musical tastes - not to mention the classic disputes between cat and dog lovers, Big Mac and Whopper aficionados, and Coke and Pepsi drinkers - play a central role in modern life. But, of all the various preferences that we humans use to classify ourselves, perhaps none influences our lives as pervasively as religion.

Far from just proscribing what foods we eat and when we get days off of work, religious doctrine fundamentally influences our approach to innumerable issues in nearly all aspects of our lives. Its tenets help dictate our convictions on personal choices, such as which schools our children attend or how we view sexuality and relationships, as well as on larger social dilemmas affecting those around us, such as abortion and the death penalty. Clearly, religious identity - or non-identity - strikes much closer to the core of who we are and how we live than do our tastes in music, sports teams, or any of the myriad more superficial areas in which we may identify. While loyal fans may seem to worship their respective sports or musical idols, the differences between a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim (AMAZON LINK) far outweigh even the most comically exaggerated differences between rival devotees of athletic teams or bands. After all, even the bloodiest British soccer brawl pales in comparison to the holy wars fought - ironically - in the name of these religions.

The differences between these various Western religions are indeed large. Larger still, however, is the seemingly insurmountable chasm that lies between those who subscribe to the major organized Western religions, and those who, to one degree or another, do not. If we even begin to question the tenets of these mainstream religions, we may encounter resistance, resentment, or even outright disdain from our families, friends, and communities. Yet, despite these potential deterrents, we live in a day when more and more of us are nonetheless straying from these rigid, institutionalized Western religions. Many of us have grown disappointed with the way that such belief systems limit our understanding of the world, and seem to clash with - or even purposefully discourage - a reasonable search for alternate perspectives.

An Increasingly Crucial Debate

Whether you are a fervent believer in Western religion, reluctantly beginning to acknowledge doubts, have entirely eschewed organized religion, or are downright anti-religious, it remains crucial to understand the pervasive influence it still holds on the beliefs, social standards, and policies of neighbors, co-workers, political leaders, friends, and family members. Even if you haven't set foot in a church, temple or mosque in decades, you are nonetheless living in a society inextricably infused with religious undertones. From the economy to the media to the entertainment industry to romance, we are all - religious, non-religious, and anti-religious alike - immersed in a culture ubiquitously shaped by these rigid doctrines. Questions of prayer in school, for example, highlight the ever-present debate over the role of religion in education. And the separation of church and state - one of our most basic Constitutional principles - has never been more blurred. Religious issues continue to become enmeshed in our legislative policies, social programs, official state events, and the very language used by our leaders. Religious organizations have even taken to subsidizing certain Congressmens' rent!

Furthermore, as some religious groups grow increasingly dogmatic and militant (AMAZON LINK), religion is thrust ever more deeply into all aspects of our lives, and compromise between the religious and non-religious grows increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, the more that non-religious citizens "tune out" religion in response to such fundamentalism, the more dangerous becomes the prospect of such pervasive beliefs slipping in under the radar - being simply accepted as "the gospel". Thus, regardless of your personal stance on organized religion, it is important for all of us to openly examine and debate these religious issues and maintain awareness of how they affect our lives. We must keep the discussion on the merits and defects of organized religion at the forefront of our social debate.

Disconcerting Discrepancies And The Dangers of Dogma

As you may have noticed, the church itself seems to be cooperating on this count. With some priests more likely to touch an altarboy or a Miller Lite (joke alcoholism reference) than a parishoner's soul, the church has placed itself in a very bright spotlight and kept questions about the effects of its rigid doctrine and lifestyle at the top of the headlines. Even many staunch believers in the Bible itself have been forced to question the practices and policies of the institutions charged with promulgating its teachings. But these much-publicized internal scandals pale in comparison to the more fundamental flaws and contradictions that some have described between church doctrine and the natural world around us. Despite the benefits, pleasures, and sense of belonging that many derive from the communities centered on such religions, some can't seem to help being struck by the overwhelming evidence that something is missing - perhaps even unhealthy - in institutional religion's rigid structure based on ancient books, its exalted view of mankind, and its "divinely-given" methodical paths to a mystical salvation.

For example, the sciences of archaeology and paleontology provide us with strong evidence that our universe and planet are billions of years old and that humankind is hundreds of thousands of years old. Yet our Western religions tell us that the world was created just a few millenia ago and that mankind isn't far beyond its hundredth generation. Many of us have a difficult time reconciling this contradiction. Moreover, by shortening the professed lifespan of the earth and humankind, modern religions limit our vantage point on history, willy-nilly discarding the lessons and chronicles of countless human societies and cultures, simply striking them from the historical record like David slew Goliath (joke: faster than Moses could say...blah blah).

Similarly, astronomers tell us that the earth is just one of several planets circling around the sun in a universe full of other galaxies. Yet, despite this fact, our Western religions insisted for centuries that it lay securely at the center of the universe. Biologists inform us that our planet is home to millions of other species, even the simplest of which - viruses and bacteria - can often defeat human beings in "hand to hand" combat. They have found that traits previously thought to prove man's special status, such as toolmaking and talking, are now found in apes. And, in fact, no human could knit anything as intricate as the simplest spiderweb. Yet, these exceptions notwithstanding, the church assures us that man holds a uniqely sacred place in nature. This belief in man's special status is epitomized in the Bible's mandate to "be fruitful and multiply". Ignoring the limits to growth that apply to all biological creatures, the Catholic and other branches of the church continue to shun birth control, ignoring the problems (link to Onion article) exacerbated by a human population growing out of control.

Finally, compounding the confusion is the fact that even the religious institutions themselves can't seem to get it straight. While touting themselves as religions of love, family, and values, war after war is fought on their behalf (links). Religious terrorists use bombs and other weapons to promote their particular misinterpreted or underappreciated version of God. Anti-abortion activists throw napalm at clinics in the name of Jesus. And even within a given religion, varying sects fight for centuries over minor doctrinal differences. Why after all this time can't the omniscient God, whom they all agree exists, make himself clear?

And besides, what benevolent God could possibly command us to drag ourselves out of bed, tired and hungover on Sunday morning after a night of partying?

Many of us find ourselves deeply confused, frustrated or troubled by these incongruities and the hundreds like them. Yet when we seek to reconcile these feelings, we find our attempts repeatedly obstructed by the tight intellectual constraints of religious dogma. Often, this obstruction occurs in subtle, but detrimental fashion. For example, while it is rare for scientific discovery to be overtly thwarted by the church these days - as in the historical case of Galileo - such pervasive beliefs nonetheless threaten to blind us or skew our perspectives, unconsciously limiting the range of questions we even allow ourselves to ask, in the struggle to make sense of our world and our lives.

Carlin quote (My God has a bigger dick than your God)!?? Consider to put in and where on joke pass

A Crisis of Faith: From Conflict to Reconciliation

Despite all of these problems and inconsistencies, many will continue to envelop themselves in the warmth, safety and security offered by (synonym?) modern Western religion. The prospect of everlasting serenity in the heaven of an omnipotent, protective God, along with the sense of community and belonging experienced by believers, provide powerful incentives that discourage questioning these fundamental worldviews and encourage their zealous promotion. Furthermore, when we do begin to honestly consider, rather than immediately dismiss, our lingering doubts about these modern religious institutions, we may be forced to face daunting questions about our very identities.
  • "Is my current job or career path compatible with my developing beliefs?"
  • "Are my present relationships consistent with my evolving worldview or must I seek out new, more likeminded people?"
  • "How will my growing awareness affect my goals, my habits, even my diet?"
Ultimately, we may have to ask, "Am I truly the person that I thought I was?"

But some of us - often despite desperate attempts to maintain our old beliefs - are simply unable to reconcile the contradictions any longer. If you have come to this stage, you may wonder if there are alternatives available to those of us for whom Christianity, Judaism, or Islam have begun to conflict with our unfolding sense of self. Is there another philosophy, independent of these currently dominant dogmas, where we can seek answers to the great questions of existence? Is there an even more compelling and inspiring story, which can transform our confusion into a sense of genuine inner peace? Those of us who have endured long, isolated hours bound by office walls and highway concrete may also begin to reexamine religion's estrangement of man from the natural world. We may start to seek a philosophy that is healthier for our planet - one which honors the interdependence of man, his environment, and its entire community of life.

Many of us begin seeking other avenues of belief by opening our minds to Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hindu. But, despite appearing quite different at first glance, do these ideologies actually share more fundamental concepts with Western religions than we might realize? Others explore a variety of New Age ideas, often seduced by their apparent freedom and exoticism. Ultimately, however, some of us still remain conflicted and yearn for a more realistic worldview, between the rigidity of scientific intellectualism and the formlessness of many New Age beliefs - one that fosters a deeply fulfilling reconciliation of our spiritual and rational dimensions.

Answers Through Opposites: A Unique Thinker's Ingenious Approach

So, how might we go about actually discovering such a unifying worldview? When searching for something about which we have little identifying information, it is instructive to remember that many things in our world are best defined relative to their opposites. For instance, in order to understand heat, we may study the properties of its opposite - cold. In order to understand light, it is useful to experience darkness. Similarly, in order to find an alternative to faith in Christ, a useful starting point is in analyzing his opposite.

It is this methodology which is employed to harmoniously reconcile rational understanding and spiritual intuition in The Story of B by Daniel Quinn - a gripping suspense story, centered around the struggle between modern Western Christianity and its antithesis - between a priest and the Antichrist. In it, Quinn examines what lies at the core of our modern religions, and begins a journey towards discovering a more fulfilling, down-to-earth alternative. What better way to learn about Western religion than by examining the struggle between the church and its mortal enemy? And who better to make this analysis than Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, and one of our era's most original thinkers on the subject?

In Ishmael, Quinn's award-winning novel (link to Readish), he gave us a stunningly original interpretation of the story of Genesis that has intrigued laymen and clergy alike. Now, in its follow-up, The Story of B, he offers a similarly innovative picture of the Antichrist. While this term has been loosely tossed at everyone from Hitler to the papacy itself, as well as portrayed in terms of cartoonish demons with pitchforks, Quinn gives an insightful and creative analysis of what such a character might actually look like. More importantly, he also analyzes what he or she would have to teach us about the true core of Christianity, other modern Western religions, and the alternative belief systems that have sustained humankind throughout history. Daniel Quinn fans will love this second step in the series that began with Ishmael, was continued in My Ishmael, and concluded in Beyond Civilization. Those new to Quinn's work will find it a riveting introduction to his ideas.

A Reflective, Educational Thriller With a Surprisingly Potent Message

As always, Quinn holds up a mirror with the distinctly unique capacity to reflect our personal and cultural blind spots. And as usual, his mirror consists of an impressive combination of wonderfully educational material, drawn from an incredibly vast array of disciplines, set in the context of an intriguing mystery. The Story of B is a suspenseful thriller that takes us on a journey into the mind - and diary - of a priest, Jared Osborne, from a Roman Catholic order known as the Laurentians.

Osborne was an up and coming star in the Laurentian ministry, but failed to live up to his potential. Stuck in a clerical position beneath his abilities, Osborne one day receives a strange request to meet with Father Bernard Lulfre, the superstar of the Laurentian church. The request deals with the special mandate of the Laurentians - namely to be in the vanguard in finding, suppressing, and/or destroying the Antichrist. It turns out a new suspect has popped up, and while the issue of the Antichrist is rarely brought up in day-to-day talk, the higher orders of the church are always on the lookout. Whenever a potential candidate is identified - about every 50 years - an insider like Jared is sent to investigate.

Jared learns that the candidate is one Charles Atterly, aka B, a 40 year old itinerant preacher who travels Europe speaking, and picking up a motley following. What could this man be saying to raise such concern in the church? Jared's mission is to travel to Europe, find out, and report back. In the process, B's shocking message threatens to shatter Jared's faith, all the while promising to bring him new understanding. Who is Charles Atterly? Why is his message so dangerous? What makes him a candidate for being the Antichrist? Is he a murderous dictator? A doomsday prophesizer? Or is he simply someone telling a better story?

Religion Under the Microscope

As the truly unique human traits of storytelling, prediction, and tracking combine to help us answer such questions, we find even deeper questions being answered as well, revealing some of life's greatest mysteries. Quinn examines our religious and cultural worldview from all angles, taking us on a broad intellectual and spiritual journey back through time, to the true origins of human thought. Employing thought-provoking parables, stories, speeches and academic explanations, he weaves disciplines as disparate as anthropology, archaeology, biology, ecology, history, law, paleontology, sociology, technology and theology to create a strikingly coherent and original picture of the world.

Along the way, we look at mankind's awareness of the sacred, including Western and Eastern religions, Wiccan, Pagan, and other belief systems, in a new historical context. We examine how the limitations of time and place allowed the founders of our modern religions to discard crucial aspects of human history, and how later scholars, determined to secure man's special status in the universe, managed to disregard these facts as they came to light. We review the biblical notions of good and evil, life and death, humanity and nature, and original sin in a unique new light. We explore the contradiction between the lengthy scientific record of human existence and the relatively brief biblical timespan. We analyze just how different our modern Western religions are from their Eastern counterparts, as well as from each other. And we look at the chicken-or-egg link between these religions, our modern industrial, imperialistic way of life, and the current political and economic power structure, which many feel is unsustainable. Ultimately, we come face to face with one of the most crucial questions of all: do the fundamental tenets of modern Western religion stand in direct conflict with our ability to meet the challenge of maintaining human life on this planet? In a nutshell, can we both save souls and save the world?

Internalization and Awakening: The Method and Process of Mindchange

Part of Quinn's genius lies in his understanding of the process by which new messages are spread and old ones displaced. In The Story of B, he weaves a remarkable exposition of this process into the fabric of the story. Each of us, throughout the course of our lives, internalizes certain fundamental beliefs and understandings that become core to our identity and are then manifested through our actions. Picture in your mind what you were like at a younger age. Who did you look up to as a role model or a hero? What did you hope to become when you "grew up"? What ideas were important to you at that point in your life?

No doubt some of these feelings remain and were, in fact, indicative of your true lasting identity. But, how many of them do you only now realize were heavily influenced by your family, friends, peers, or mentors such as teachers, coaches, or clergy? How many did you consciously or unconsciously adopt through television, movies, or books? Our lives become walking expressions of the messages we have internalized from this diverse range of sources - messages which blur the line between what we know and who we are. It is this process of internalization that is the vehicle by which religious beliefs - and most other core ideas - are themselves spread.

Some of us later undergo an awakening process, internalizing a new set of ideas which begins to replace the old in our future behavior. For example, what are the major differences between your self-image today and that of your younger self? How have you fundamentally changed? Do you admire a different set of heroes, maintain different values and beliefs, or aspire to different goals than you did in those younger days? Now, consider this: how did you get from there to here? While many of us are familiar with the occurrence of such fundamental paradigm shifts, and some of us have experienced them ourselves, few have kept a record of the various emotional stages involved in such a process of change. In The Story of B, Daniel Quinn gives an enlightening analysis of how minds are changed from the perspective of one hearing a new message, one telling a new message, and of the institutions whose existence depends on maintaining the status quo.

Reluctant Resistance, Cautious Consideration, and Resolute Retelling: The Personal Challenges of Opening Your Mind To Change

Can you recall the last time that you encountered ideas which, though unfamiliar - even strange - nonetheless struck a deep, undeniable chord of truth? Perhaps your initial lack of understanding left you feeling confused, uncertain, or even fearful. You may have wondered what your family and friends would think of you if you were to internalize these new beliefs. Perhaps you realized uneasily that their acceptance might necessitate a reassessment of certain areas of your life, such as your job or your relationships. You may even have blocked out what you were hearing to avoid facing such changes. Alternatively, you may initially have shrugged off the new message or its messenger with a contrived laugh, trying desperately to maintain your comfortably familiar identity.

But, unable to avoid the persistent truth of these new beliefs, which seem to suddenly haunt every book, movie, and conversation you encounter, you find that they eventually attain a level of acceptance equal to the old. At this point we may feel we are teetering between two identities, like a lawyer fighting alternately for both sides of a case. Such uncertainty, denial, fear and ambivalence are quite normal at this stage, and it is through the character of Jared Osborne that we explore these emotions and the various stages experienced by a person being presented with a new and intriguing set of ideas.

Ultimately, as Jared's character displays, this tenuous balance is shattered and you can no longer avoid recognizing that the mosaic pieces of these new ideas have begun to form a coherent picture. As the authenticity of the new message resonates with more and more clarity and certainty, you may feel as if a part of your unconscious has burst into your awareness. This transfer from unconscious to conscious acceptance - in many ways the opening of an uncharted part of one's self - can feel terrifyingly new, triggering shock at both the novelty of this growing awareness, as well as its sheer obviousness. Though a positive revision of a previously inaccurate foundation of beliefs - a step towards "the truth" - it nonetheless shatters comfortable, familiar patterns, and can be experienced as a true crisis, requiring reexamination of our lifestyles and our very identities. You may simultaneously wonder how on earth you are going to live with this new knowledge - as well as how on earth you managed, for so long, to avoid it.

However, eventually, the new ideas become second nature, weaving comfortably into your growing sense of identity. Your life activities naturally begin to align with these new views, as you become more comfortable in your own skin. You find yourself able to not only understand them, but to explain them to others, answering their questions with ease and confidence. You have "become the message". As it is passed down from one person to the next, each adds a different perspective, a new angle, and a new method of explaining and expressing these ideas. The culmination of these various approaches embodies a vision, be it religious, political, or otherwise, which, subjected repeatedly to the internalization process over time, eventually becomes part of the unquestioned identity of the next generation.

Overcoming Apathy, Resistance, Hostility and Ignorance: The Personal Challenges of Spreading A New Vision

There comes a time when every new vision has passed down through so many generations that - like a horse and buggy in a 21st Century world of highways - it begins to feel incongruously out of date in the changed environment, no longer reassuring and comforting us. It then becomes an old vision, and those of us with the gift of forethought may grow disenchanted with its increasing discordance with our daily experiences. We may begin to imagine yet another new vision which promises more effective solutions to the new set of social, moral, and personal problems of the day. For many, the modern day is just such a pivotal time, marked by problems such as an exploding human population, escalating environmental concerns, and the challenges of global interdependence. Clearly, change is overdue in many areas, but in order to accomplish this, those with new ideas and solutions must be able to convey them to others.

If you have come to recognize this need for change, you have probably tried in various ways to convey these sentiments, as well as the solutions that you have come across. Yet you may well have faced the same frustration, confusion, misunderstanding, and resistance from others that you yourself experienced at first. You may have even been ignored or laughed at when you tried to explain your new vision to others. Through the character of Charles Atterly, aka B, we examine this other end of the spectrum - the process undertaken by a person spreading a new idea. Gandhi once said "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." The Story of B is in many ways an exposition of just such a process. As Atterly promulgates his message in smoky inconspicuous auditoria, indifferent to reactions, we come face to face with some of the most common and daunting mental and social barriers to change.

We see how a bearer of new ideas must gain the attention of his listener, and, accepting the possibility of being met with hostility and resistance, steadfastly hold on to his ideas. He must speak confidently and matter-of-factly to both friend and foe, regardless of the reaction of his audience. And he must simply accept that old habits die hard. No matter how obvious the truth of these new ideas may seem to him, overcoming the inertia of long-held beliefs will nonetheless require diverse explanatory approaches, as well as constant repetition.

If the message is truly a paradigm shift, he must be willing to patiently set an entirely new foundation of understanding for his audience. The speaker must not be discouraged by the fact that certain lessons will be understood immediately only by a rare few with the insight and technical knowledge to appreciate the message. He may even have to accept that while many listeners will, in time, be able to understand a portion of his ideas, many may simply never understand their most specific details. It was said in Einstein's day that only three people on earth truly understood the theory of relativity. But, just as Einstein bravely forged ahead in promoting these now ubiquitous ideas, so must any bearer of unfamiliar ideas plod ahead, reaching those he can in the present, while accepting that, as Max Planck said of scientific innovations in The Philosophy of Physics, a visionary transformation in any area “...rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. . . . What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.”

An Enlightening Journey Through History: The Content to Complement the Process

This process of popularizing a new message is a topic of its own, separate from - though intertwined with - the actual message itself. The Story of B mirrors this split in its layout, separating the specific content of B's ideas from the process by which they are spread. Indeed, this format is one of the key elements that makes the novel a unique experience. While the story - traversing the phases of the "waking up" process - makes up the bulk of the book, the heart of B's message is compiled in the form of his speeches and public teachings, and resides in a richly informative appendix section. Whether you intermittently flip to the back, reading each speech as it takes place in the story, or wait until the end, absorbing the teachings all at once, you will be intrigued by the wealth of information that you are finally able to assimilate and the profound questions raised. How does a boiling frog relate to the process of cultural collapse? What are animal ethics and why are they important? What are some of the answers to the problem of overpopulation? What differences in laws, customs, and worldviews allowed some cultures to last for millenia, while ours stands in questionable stead after a mere several thousand years?

B's lectures explore such issues by way of a journey through the last several millenia of human history. From the rise of political states through the modern industrial era, Quinn unearths the origins of our current religious and spiritual worldviews. Moreover, he reveals how these dominant philosophies have, by dint of their very flaws, become self-perpetuating. Progressively engendering crime, plagues, famines, revolts, corruption, slavery, drug abuse and genocide, they have rendered believable the claims of countless doomsday prophets, thus priming their own captive audience of billions hungry for the glorious promise of eternal salvation. B's historical trek finally arrives at the present day, where we are daily surrounded by the terrifying specters of world wars and weapons of mass destruction - chilling evidence of the continued progression of cultural collapse. Yet, as we reach ever more frantically for the seductive emotional escape of faith in imminent heavenly salvation, we paradoxically accelerate the plunge towards impending catastrophe.

Bringing Religion Back Down to Earth: The Once Universal Alternative Worldview

However, hopeful as always, Quinn puts his systemic view of mankind's history and future to constructive use. After summarizing where we may have gone wrong, and identifying the three core factors that are continuing to lead us astray, he culminates by offering an inspiring alternative vision to those of us who long for another story that can better reconcile science and spirituality. As majestic as any Christian version of heaven, yet offering a spiritual focus much more accessible than a bearded man in the sky, this alternative to Western, Eastern, and New Age religions once comprised a nearly universal belief system among humans. While the possibility of a unity of belief throughout such varied human cultures may sound fantastic to us today - even too good to be true - it is this very system that allowed mankind to survive for millenia in harmony with the laws of nature and the community of life. This down-to-earth spiritual paradigm sought truth in the real world, rather than in books, fostered life by studying its natural laws, and engendered a sense of community rather than exclusionary divisiveness. Ultimately, it showed that the universe is all of a piece, a coherent picture that fits together - something our current religions may never accomplish.

B-ginning the Journey

Merely reading the litany of modern maladies is enough to leave one disheartened and exhausted, let alone being surrounded by them physically and mentally on a daily basis.

Vicious holy wars. Rampant child molestation. Epidemic alcohol and drug abuse. Deadly viruses that devastate your immune system, overwhelm your lungs, or even eat your flesh. Sardine-packed ghettos and filthy slums. Homelessness and poverty, even among children. Weekly, if not daily, terrorist and suicide bombings. Perpetual third-world starvation. Unprecedented species extinctions. The great outdoors replaced by the concrete jungle. Air-poisoning pollution. Ignorant racism and xenophobia. Practically institutionalized political and economic scandal. Tragic rape and abuse. Soaring divorce rates. Dreary, mindlessly tedious jobs.

It's no wonder that, feeling overwhelmed and impotent, we may descend ever closer to spiritual bankruptcy, devoid of a deep sense of purpose or meaning in our lives. Despite the desperate need for elucidation of the root causes and solutions to such urgent social ills, one can hardly be blamed for retreating into the comfortable, insulating oblivion of a summer's day doubleheader or the latest Britney Spears video (fix in humor) - not to mention the much more powerful reassurance of religious community and potential salvation.

But, many of us are pressed beyond any such possibility of retreat by a nagging lack of fulfillment - a yearning to actualize our true identities in our relationships, our careers, and in our political, social, and natural environments. Unfortunately, if you have embarked on an earnest search for more satisfying answers, recognizing that these problems - and our resulting emotions - belie much deeper root causes than generally acknowledged, you have likely come up against religious dogma as both a potential source of problems, as well as a roadblock to further questioning. In The Story of B, Daniel Quinn delivers some good news: you can discover more harmonious explanations, if you are willing to explore beyond not only mainstream Western religions, but beyond Eastern and New Age "alternatives", as well.

In fact, finding them may require little more than freeing your confused identity and conflicted beliefs from previously limiting assumptions, and rediscovering a worldview that, while once nearly universal among humanity, has simply been forgotten along the way. Because of religion's socially pervasive nature, such an exploration will bring you face-to-face with those fundamentally internalized values, beliefs, and aspirations that inherently affect your entire worldview, and pay rich dividends in the form of new discoveries in all areas of your life. A paradoxical process, this exploration blurs the line between active change and passive transformation. While conceptually simple, entailing a serene, detached acceptance of the fears and doubts lurking behind our socially-constructed barriers of denial, this emotional and spiritual journey can nonetheless prove challenging.

In order to realize a peaceful reconciliation, you will have to remove some of your protective blinders, rethink some of your most core beliefs about God and man's place in the universe, and risk feeling confused and misunderstood. You're going to have to demand more than the "official story" given by our modern religions. However, if you are willing to brave this "awakening process", you will enjoy newfound self-acceptance, as well as the ability to "become the message", sharing the gift of awakening with others. You can embody a healthier vision for our children, grandchildren, and our world as a whole - one that reunites man with nature, individuality with community, reason with spirituality, and science with religion. If you're ready to begin that search, there are few better places to start than in the densely-packed, mind-blowing 352 pages of The Story of B.
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