The Concept - Bo Bennett, PhD

About The Concept

Maybe you were born to Christian parents and raised as a Christian. Or maybe you are just a part of a Christian nation. You might have attended church regularly, or maybe just on special occasions. If asked, you say that you believe in God, but you really never thought about what that means exactly. You are a well-educated person who accepts the idea of Biblical miracles, but only the more “reasonable” ones. You have read some of the Bible, mostly just parts of the New Testament, but never committed to reading the Bible cover to cover. You are a good person who admires the many “Christian values” as demonstrated by Jesus Christ. But something does not feel right.

Science tells us that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, but the Bible tells us it's 6,000 years old.
Science tells us life is the result of emergent properties in combined molecules, and we have evolved from a very primitive life form, but the Bible says that God made us, as is, from dust, and blew life in our noses.
You see a world where little bunnies burn to death in forest fires, and wonder why an all good and loving God would allow such a thing to happen.
You pray to God and you realize that sometimes your prayers are answered, and sometimes they are not -- just as if you didn’t pray at all.
You hear about other religions and wonder why your religion is right and every other religion on the planet is wrong.
You have a real problem with the idea of all your non-Jesus-believing friends and family spending eternity in Hell.

In fact, the more you look around, the more you see a world absent of this perfect image of a perfect God. As much as you want to avoid critical thinking and “just let go and have faith”, you find that you cannot believe in something contrary to your logic and reason — no matter how much you want to. This might lead to feelings of guilt, insincerity, and/or hypocrisy. Yet you just can’t imagine living life without God, and you don’t have to.

When you start asking serious questions about God and religion, you begin to see through the stories of people living inside the stomachs of big fish, 900-year-old men, and bodies coming back to life after three days, and understand how man created God, and not the other way around. By daring to question “sacred” religion, challenging your childhood beliefs, and risking eternal damnation (okay, so there might be a minor side effect to reading this book), you will discover an appreciation for religion on a new level, as well as a renewed appreciation for the human race.

Through a unique blend of science, philosophy, theology, and a touch of humor, you will see how you can trust your logic and reason, be true to yourself, and embrace God -- not as a being, but as a concept -- The Concept.

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4566-0000-6 / ISBN (print): 978-1-4566-0004-4 / Published by: Archieboy Holdings, LLC. / Published: 2010-11-01

About Bo Bennett, PhD

Bo Bennett, PhD

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Business.

Robert "Bo" Bennett started "Adgrafix", a graphic design firm, right after graduating Bryant University in 1994, with a bachelor's degree in marketing. In 1995, he sold the graphic design business but kept the name "Adgrafix" that he used for his new web hosting company. As a self-taught programmer, Bo created one of the first (perhaps the first) web-based affiliate systems and web-based web hosting interfaces. He built Adgrafix to a 5 million dollar a year business, then sold it to Allegiance Telecom in 2001.

A day after he sold Adgrafix, Bo started Archieboy Holdings, LLC as a holding company for many different web properties, some of which have become their own entities, and sold to new owners, and others which he is still running today. One of the past sales includes Boston Datacenters -- the distressed datacenter in Charlestown, MA purchased by Bo from former HarvardNet founder. He took the company from losing tens of thousands of dollars per month to profitability in less than a year. In two years time, he sold the property to Hosted Solutions. Today, the property is owned by Windstream, and it remains one of the premier datacenters in New England.

Bo is currently the founder and CEO of eBookIt.com, a company that formats and distributes eBooks, print on demand, and digital audio books, as well as president of Archieboy Holdings.

Success / Motivation.

By age 10, Robert "Bo" Bennett started listening to and reading personal development tapes and books. Over the years, he has developed a science-based approach to success that differs quite a bit from the over-hyped success guru's approaches commonly seen today. Before beginning his lifelong quest to shape the lives of others, he had to prove to himself that his theories, beliefs, and convictions worked.

At age 10, Bo started in business by creating and selling wooden key racks in his father's workshop. Since then, he has started several companies and sold them anywhere from $1 to $20,000,000.00.

After selling his first company of significant value, Bo began writing Year To Success, the most comprehensive book ever written on success, based on his experiences, thoughts, and timeless success principles.

Psychology.

Bo's interest in psychology began as an undergraduate studying marketing, specifically, consumer behavior. After many years immersed in the business world, Bo returned to school and received his master's degree in general psychology. He continued to the PhD program in social psychology, focusing on social, cognitive, and positive psychology.

Bo is the administrator of Socially Psyched, a comprehensive collection of social/cognitive psychology experiments, studies, demonstrations, biases, and systematic reviews, presented in an entertaining way while adhering to academic standards. As part of this effort, Bo creates videos that can be found on his YouTube channel.

Science, Critical Thinking, and Secularism.

Bo's personal motto is "Expose an irrational belief, keep a person rational for a day. Expose irrational thinking, keep a person rational for a lifetime." Much of his charitable work is in the area of education—not teaching people what to think, but how to think. His projects include his book, The Concept: A Critical and Honest Look at God and Religion, and Logically Fallacious, the most comprehensive collection of logical fallacies. His secular (humanistic) philosophy is detailed at PositiveHumanism.com.

From March of 2014 until February of 2016, Bo was the producer and host of The Humanist Hour, the official broadcast of the American Humanist Association, where he could be heard weekly discussing a variety of humanistic issues, mostly related to science, psychology, philosophy, and critical thinking.

Academia / Education.

Bo's pro bono work focuses on education. He developed and taught a public speaking and debate course for Student Athletes Rising, a non-profit youth development organization offering guidance and training for America’s youth, ages 7-19, preparing them for enriching college experiences and productive lives as future leaders of their communities. As a PhD student, Bo spent time as a graduate assistant for Walden University, tutoring masters and other PhD students in research methodology. His dissertation was on social intelligence development in both traditional and distance learning programs.

Bo has developed several online courses and the learning platform on which they run—as well as teaches those courses. These courses can be found in the "online courses" link on the main menu. Bo is currently an adjunct professor at Lasell College teaching introduction to psychology and social psychology.

Toastmasters.

Bo joined Toastmasters in 2003, after a painfully embarrassing speech given to a room full of his contractors. Desperate to improve his speaking skills in the least time possible, he devoted full-time to being a Toastmaster and completed all 40 speeches in a record six months. He served the required leadership roles to achieve his Distinguished Toastmaster Award (DTM) in record time of just over one year.

In 2004, Bo created the FreeToastHost website hosting platform for all Toastmasters clubs. Today, FreeToastHost hosts over 10,000 clubs -- around the world.

In 2008, Bo started the Toastmasters Podcast, which began as a district podcast, then in 2010 transferred ownership to Toastmasters International, to become the organization's first official podcast. Although Bo no longer hosts the podcast, the podcast is still going strong and serves as the voice to over a quarter of a million members worldwide.

Personal Life.

Bo was born in Connecticut where he lived until he was 21. He attended Bryant University where he paid his own way through by running a promotional business while also serving as a Resident Assistant.

At age 13, Bo started studying the martial arts. By Age 18, he earned his first-degree black belt in Shaolin Kempo Karate. Since his first black belt, he has also earned a second-degree black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and continues to study several different styles. He is also passionate about health and fitness.

Right after graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Bo moved to Boulder, Colorado where after just five months, realized the "Rocky Mountain High" wasn't for him. Missing his family, he moved back to Connecticut.

In 1994, Bo met his wife-to-be, Kim, at the bar "Archie Moore's" -- which is where they got the name for their first dog, Archie, which is where he got the name for his business. Bo and Kim moved to Boston, Massachusetts shortly after they met, got married, and been living in the Boston area happily ever since, with their two children.

Public Speaking / Interview Availability.

Bo is available for interviews and speaking engagements on a number of topics. The general topics include:

Business
Science Education
Success
Entrepreneurship
Motivation
General Psychology
Social Psychology
Positive Psychology (well-being, flourishing, happiness, etc.)
Cognitive Psychology (belief, cognitive biases, memory, our flawed brain, etc.)
Social Science (scientific method, what is / is not science, etc.)
Critical Thinking
Skepticism
Logical Fallacies
Humanism / Secularism
Atheism Research
Toastmasters / Public Speaking

Some samples of his presentations and interviews are lined under the "Media" section of each book, with presentations/interviews specific to the topics of the books.

Frequently Asked Questions

God exists, but far more likely as a concept than a being.

Certainly. In fact, without the idea of divine meaning, we are free to give our lives our own meaning.

Tuning implies a “tuner”. Something that must be tuned must also have been out of tune (imperfect) to start with. The initial laws and conditions of the universe are not bound to any laws, and therefore work because they are, not because they are tuned.

No, not in any common sense of the word. Morality is a human-created concept that changes over time and different among cultures. The ideas of “right”, “wrong”, “good” and “evil” are nothing more than subjective ideas that exist only in our minds.

While nobody can say for sure they don’t, it is extremely unlikely that they do, or ever did. It is easy to demonstrate the psychology behind miracles as well as debunk claims today.

Virtually all people, religious and non, believe that we have some type of freewill. The fact is, we are much more bound to determinism than most people think with the possibility of randomness, leaving no room for "freedom."

Belief comprises deterministic factors that are outside out control. So if we are not "free" to believe just on the basis of desire, the idea of salvation based on belief is fatally flawed.

Faith, or believing in something with no evidence, is dangerous in many ways.

Spirituality does not mean believing in another world filled with beings and creatures; it is about having control over your emotions and inner happiness.

Our modern-day concepts of Heaven and Hell are so mythologized, that they are very little like the afterlife portrayed in the Bible. But even the Biblical afterlife ideas are widely varied and based on ancient beliefs. If such places do exist, we have absolutely no idea what they are like.

Study after study, prayer has been shown to have mixed results -- just like one would expect from any factor that had no effect on the outcome. Prayer has its benefits, but they have nothing to do with the divine.

We, as a species, do not need God. But many people do need the idea of God.

No, we can’t. The Bible is far from a historical and scientific textbook.

Much of what Christianity is based on is believed by many, to be historical fact. Christianity is, however, far more likely based on theologized stories with little, or no historical, factual, or scientific basis.

What Readers Are Saying

A delightful combination of straight talk, friendly challenge and a singular absence of bitter ax-grinding... he shows in plain-spoken, engaging prose how his view (and mine!) just makes better common sense. I just love the section on heaven! This book is quite an achievement. Read it!

— Dr. Robert M. Price (Professor of Theology and Scriptural Studies, Host of "The Bible Geek")

Loved this book! Awesome book. I read his new book first, "Logically Fallacious" (thanks to Dr. Robert M. Price) and found it extremely humorous and insightful. I laughed out loud several times. Same thing with this book. Bo has a way of putting into words things that I've always thought but haven't been able to articulate. Whether you're well learned in religion, or just a beginner, you won't regret buying this book.

— Brad (Amazon Reader)

Written for the thinking Christian. Outstanding work for the layperson coming to grips with those nagging questions for which "It's a mystery" is an insufficient answer. Well researched and clearly presented.

— Steve Horn (Amazon Reader)

A Plethora of Information. I don't often write reviews, yes I am a bit lazy in that respect. But, this one that I think is really warranted. Contained within this book is a wealth of knowledge that the Author could have not accumulated within just the space of a few weeks; it must have taken years! I highly recommend this book.

— Jack (Amazon Reader)