Jacob G. Hope

All religions have something to teach us, yet none of us can come to a sense of peace except on our own terms. God + Other Ideas is a refreshing work of poetry based on the idea that if we want to get our hearts right in our own way, we have to do it through the trial and error of intelligent experience. Philosophy might be the mother of the sciences, but conscience should be their queen. These are poems for people who think as well as feel, and feel as well as think. Influenced by over fifteen years of reading the Bible and other religious works and shaped by philosophy and the rhetoric used to express intellectual and ethical positions, God + Other Ideas aims to replace conflict with cooperation and understanding. It emphasizes commonality over difference, the value of tolerance and the role conscience and a rich inner life can and should play in a scientific, humanistic worldview. It is always ironic when people kill or disrespect each other in the name of love, or ignore evidence in the name of a truth which evidence cannot touch. Yet that irony is so much of our lives. This book is not just personal, but also expresses a hint of a way out. The only way to harmony is to recognize that we are all playing the game of the day, coping a move of choice at a time through each twenty-four hours. God is not a cause for fighting, but one more way of coping. Let it be a peaceful one.