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Astonishing Credulity
This book aims to confront our readiness as a society to impress
theological ideas on to young children, and our acceptance of
the tenets of theology within the political system. Serious
questions are asked of religion’s specially protected
sensitivities, given religion’s demonstrably fictitious
foundation.
The first two chapters of this book have been used as material
for a presentation which I have called ‘Just Suppose’. The
presentation has been delivered as a lecture to several Humanist
Groups within the UK; below is a sample of the feed back from
these lectures.
“Mike does have a striking argument.”
David flint: Chairmen, North London Humanist Society.
“…This presentation was very professional, very convincing
and very well received. We strongly recommend it.”
Robert Tee: Secretary, Humanist Society of West Yorkshire.
“I am writing to thank you again, on behalf of Essex
Humanists Group, for your most interesting presentation. It was
quite evident that you are extremely knowledgeable and have
spent considerable time and effort in researching and gathering
your material. One of our members commented that ‘Just
Suppose’, broken down into smaller sections, would make an
extremely good course for secondary school pupils and also
other humanist and secularist groups.”
Marie Oatham: Secretary, Essex Humanists.
“As you will have detected on the night, your presentation
'Just Suppose' was very well received by our members and a
number of them have asked me to convey their thanks to you and
have asked how they might obtain further information about your
work. We were very impressed with the level of professionalism
in the production especially the visuals in the slide show which
made the line of argument easy to follow. I would have no
hesitation in recommending this presentation to anyone with an
interest in the history of religion and the origins of
Christianity”
Graeme Smith: Secretary, Bedfordshire Humanists.
“I
am writing to thank you for your interesting and informative
presentation last night. Your talk went down very well and
provoked quite a discussion. Indeed the meeting went on
longer than usual -- a good indicator of the level of
interest in the subject! We really appreciate your
efforts and wish you every success with promoting your ideas
more widely. They deserve to be heard. You should definitely
go for something on the box!”
Mike Flood: Chairman, Milton Keynes Humanists.
Following a presentation to the members of South Place Ethical
Society, I was invited to submit 3,000 words which were then
duly published in the SPES ‘Ethical Record’ magazine, Vol. 115
number 4, May 2010.
Astonishing Credulity will appeal to all who have purchased for
enjoyment, or counter argument, material from the likes of:
Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Karen
Armstrong, Melanie Phillips, Sue Blackmore and Daniel Dennett.
--Introduction--
The subject matter of this book evolved out of a
personal interest in mythology and theology. However, I myself
am secular, and have always been secular, coming from a
non-religious family background. I have never considered the
religious stories to be anything but stories. In point of fact,
I see no real distinction between mythology and theology; save
one is considered past defunct beliefs, and the other presently
held beliefs.
With this book I aim to create an argument that
could be used to convince the powers that be in our country
today that we, as a society, should not allow the theological
world access to developing young minds through the school
curriculum; particularly when such access is used to promote the
acceptance of personally held theological beliefs. I formed the
view that: if it could be demonstrated that the main figure head
of Christianity is not a character from history, it would be
sufficient to use as the opening for a wider debate on the role
of religion within the school curriculum and its inclusion in
political issues. From this standpoint I believe the book
successfully confronts head on the claim from the Church that we
cannot use an argument from silence to claim the character
‘Jesus of Nazareth’ did not exist in history. That is: the
Church claim that just because there is no contemporary
corroborative writing about the character, of which there is
not, does not prove he did not exist. It is interesting though
to consider that, if the character did not exist, there would,
by default, be no contemporary corroborative writing about him.
The Church as an organisation therefore feels
impregnable behind this “you cannot use an
argument from silence” wall. I take the reverse approach.
I claim, and demonstrate, that literature does exist
which reveals Jesus, as in ‘Jesus Christ’, existed as an
allegorical character long before the dates attributed to the
Jesus character from the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and
Acts in the New Testament; thereby proving the five books to be
updated fictional stories of an ancient allegorical myth, as
opposed to factual biographies.
Having presented the case for a
mythical, as opposed to a historic Jesus the book then
demonstrates how theological belief evolved from ancient
astrology. I present many parallels with naked eye astronomy and
mythology. I also demonstrate how these links have found their
way from ancient mythology, to form the base line stories in
present day theology. The book then tackles the issue of how
these newly created theologies came to be entrenched into the
psyche of mankind.
So, that being the main content
of the book, what is the rationale behind the book? I wish to
promote the idea that “Religious Theology” is quite simply just
“Iron Age Ignorance”. That
is, it was an acceptable description of how the world works,
given the knowledge available at the time that description was
fashioned. But it was a theology formed in all ignorance of what
we now know today. Just as we should also accept that our
current scientific view of how the universe works is acceptable
today, given the knowledge we have amassed to date. But this
view will undoubtedly be seen as ignorant by the people of the
fifth millennium, given what man will find out about the
universe over the next two thousand years; things we, do not yet
know. If we can accept this argument, then it follows that we
simply should not be teaching “Iron Age Ignorance” to our
children in our schools as stated fact. Moreover, we should
promote the view that Christianity is:
“a massive literal misinterpretation of ancient allegorical
stories, on a global scale”.
Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1 Clement and Barnabas
Chapter 2 Astro-Maths
Chapter 3 Theologies R Us
Chapter 4 Rampant Plagiarism
Chapter 5 Absurdity of Scripture
Chapter 6 Weak Evidence
Chapter 7 Cruel Origins
Chapter 8 The Right to a Free Mind
Chapter 9 Concluding Thoughts
Bibliography
The book is priced at £6.00 plus
postage and packaging. If you would like to purchase a copy
please send an email in the first instance to:
mike.lawrence100@ntlworld.com
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