The Evolution of God positive review in "The Atlantic", saying that the book "...gave me hope that we can avoid both the barrenness of a world without God and the horrible fusion of fundamentalism and weapons of mass destruction." "Newsweek" religion editor, Lisa Miller, described "The Evolution of God" as a reframing of the faith vs. reason debate. Drawing a contrast to such authors as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, Miller gives an overall positive review of the book's approach to the examination of the concept of God. In a review for "The New York Times", Yale professor of psychology Paul Bloom
Alternatives to evolution by natural selection denied, explanations of evolution such as Lamarckism, catastrophism, orthogenesis, vitalism, structuralism and mutationism (called saltationism before 1900) were entertained. Different factors motivated people to propose non-Darwinian mechanisms of evolution. Natural selection, with its emphasis on death and competition, did not appeal to some naturalists because they felt it immoral, leaving little room for teleology or the concept of progress in the development of life. Some who came to accept evolution, but disliked natural selection, raised religious objections. Others felt that evolution was an inherently progressive process that natural selection alone was insufficient to explain. Still others felt that nature, including