Blogging With Carol: The God Hater by Bill Myers

Monday, February 21, 2011

The God Hater by Bill Myers

Greetings Everyone! Today you get to read my review of The God Hater by Bill Myers.

First a bit about Mr. Myers:

Bill Myers was born into a Christian home, and although as a child he became bored with Christianity, he decided at the University of Washington to "make God my boss." Ironically, at the University his worst subject was writing. He claims to have prayed, and said that he would be able to do anything for God, except write. Even so, he has become a prominent Christian writer, and has a large amount of successful books and films to his credit.

His book series "The Adventures of McGee and Me" is about a typically average, mild-mannered boy named Nicholas Martin, who has what appears to be an imaginary friend named McGee. The series chronicles the boy's various adventures, all ending with him learning a moral or spiritual lesson.

Here is the book cover:

Meet Dr. Nicholas Mackenzie. Here is a man who is fed up with religion in all forms, in fact, you could say he hates God in some ways. His life is very successful by worldly standards, intellectually brilliant, but inside he is wrestling with some very deep issues. He does his best to never let them surface, never let them out. After all, if God hasn't stepped in and miracle-cured his problems by now, then he just must not be there. Since he isn't there, then philosophy or science must be more truthful than God himself, and that is why Dr. Nicholas Mackenzie is an atheists.

No one can even understand why Dr. Annie Brook even gives this man the time of day, and they would certainly not began to fathom the reasons behind Nicholas's interest in her son, Rusty. Annie is never put off by the philosophical banter that Nicholas "preaches" as he goes. Even though her own world has been badly shaken, she still knows God is there and holds to Him and sees past the words and deeper into the stoney heart of this difficult man. After all Annie is a single parent, but there is no romance between this old curmudgeon that doesn't believe in God and Annie or her small family.

But all that is about to change. It is about to shift drastically in the wildest ways possible, and all because of Alpha 11. What is an Alpha 11? I am so glad you wanted to know! Alpha, or Alpha 11 is the main character of a virtual world. A very very powerful computer program that is going to put Nicholas's brother on the map, rolling in the green, and give him everything he ever wanted, on there are a few um... glitches. Over and over again the program scenarios self destruct and the model must be stable for the mega-corporation to be pleased. Nicholas would much rather walk off and let his trouble enticing brother flounder on his own, but something rooted very deeply in Nicholas about Alpha 11 is something he can't walk away from. Among other things, Alpha speaks to one of those big un-dealt with issues in his past, one of the issues that that "non-existent" God who didn't take care of him didn't alter, fix, or change. Now, angry that he is even drug into this, and baffled by emotions he hasn't ever deal with, Nicholas aggress to help his brother Travis fix the program so it will not fail.

After many, many attempts to fix the program so that the world that is created is stable, Nicholas is forced to see that there is only one way to help stabilize the program, and the simulated characters. Characters which though he knows are not real, they are so very close to "home" to him. An over all belief system must be interjected into this virtual world. A belief system that is way way to close to being God like for Nicholas to be at all happy about it. And so the Law was given, but it didn't stop there! A rival corporation has unleashed a really evil virus into this program. Now Nicholas with the help of his friends will have to take even more drastic measures to save this extremely important virtual world.

This book is extremely well written. It is going to have a hard hitting impact on many lives, and I am very glad I got to read it. I recommend it highly!

Carol