Doug talks with Hector Garcia about his new book Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression.

For some, God is a violent and fearsome deity. It's an idea used to justify atrocities and oppression committed in His name. The psychologist Hector Garcia says that we have created this God in our own image, and to understand Him, we first have to understand how our own psychology has evolved over eons. Tuesday, Garcia joins Doug to talk about the way humanity's quest for evolutionary success resulted in an "Alpha God" who is more a reflection of us than we are of Him.

Hector A. Garcia is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Center at San Antonio and a clinical psychologist at the Veterans Health Administration. His book is called Alpha God: The Psychology of Religious Violence and Oppression [Indiebound|Amazon]