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AskWhy! Books website on Christian and Jewish origins, history, faults, fallacies, and alternatives.

• 10/31/2008 10:00 PM

Primitive Revelation
A Primitive Revelation is described in Genesis 3. Father W Schmidt laboured to prove it from anthropology, and S Zwemer sought to popularize the idea. It demeans humanity. God gets all the credit, and humanity all the blame. Natural explanations and evolution explain more satisfactorily what is found. Humans are social animals and sin and morals are violations of instincts and rules necessary for society to exist.

• 10/11/2008 10:00 PM

The Origins of Religion
The origins of religion. Further update of 5 pages which introduce aspects of religion as a scientific study.

• 09/26/2008 10:00 PM

America, Christianity and Violence
A Christian defence of religion against accusations of violence is that the secular state is responsible. The US, constitutionally secular, is far from it. Fanatical evangelical Republicans control it, and the supposed violence of the secular state is Christian jihadism against non-Christians. The thesis of religious violence is not refuted.

• 09/15/2008 10:00 PM

Higher Criticism of Islam
Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a sham and honest scholarship on these religions cannot avoid being offensive to believers. Religious belief excludes scholarship, so no believer can decry work critical of belief as not scholarly. Moslems, as usual, will be outraged that their beliefs are subject to the same criticism here as Judaism and Christianity. These religions are false, and any amount of indignation cannot change it.

• 08/10/2008 10:00 PM

George Polti Plot Outliner
The plot outliner simply juxtaposes, not in any logical way, some Polti categories to give you ideas for plots.

• 07/30/2008 10:00 PM

Nietzsche and Secular Christianity
Nietzsche severely criticized Christianity, but thought there was a "genuine Christianity". His Ubermenschen, "supermen", were Christs, the equivalent of the Cathar Perfects, people trying to be Christs who would raise humanity to a higher level.

• 07/25/2008 10:00 PM

The Path to Secular Christianity
Christ proclaimed God is real. God is society. His practical dictums, to love each other, to love God, and that to love God was to love each other, are objective not subjective like faith. Yet Christian churches tolerated every imaginable atrocity. Secular Christianity.

• 07/23/2008 10:00 PM

Myths of the Freemasons
The foundation myths of the Freemasons can be shown to be plausible, given considerable correcting, but plausibility is not proof, even though Christians, and perhaps Masons too, think it is. There is no solid evidence, and we remain skeptical.

• 07/18/2008 10:00 PM

Death of God and Secular Christianity
Science has proved the death of God, but Christ and his precepts live on. Christians do not do what God incarnated as Christ told them. They must do as He said to enter the kingdom of God. It is here in this world, a secular kingdom, not supernatural. Scientists can be Christs!

• 07/16/2008 10:00 PM

The Templeton Essays
The Templeton Fund invited contributors to abswer the question, "Does science make belief in God obsolete?". Only Vic Stenger gave an outright "Yes" in reply. Here the replies are analysed.

• 07/14/2008 10:00 PM

The Patristic Age
The Patristic Age, following the Apostolic Age of the Church, was the age of the Church Fathers. The honest Christian has to admit these Church Fathers had no consistent or coherent doctrine. By the fifth century, Cyril of Alexandria had a complete theology, but not in the second century. Part 4 added 13 July.

• 07/04/2008 10:00 PM

The Truth in Religion
John Polkinghorne is greatly admired among Christians. He once had a reputation as a scientist but became a clergyman. Now he writes tendentious reviews pretending to be a scientist. He reviewed a couple of books in "The Times Literary Supplement". It was the usual dishonest Christian pap.

• 06/23/2008 10:00 PM

The Failed Hypothesis of God
Victor Stenger, in a book everyone should read, shows how science can test for the supposed interventions of God in the world, and shows consclusively that there is no evidence that He does intervene. Either God does not exist or He does not intervene as Christians pray He does.

• 06/18/2008 10:00 PM

Professor Plonka Defends Delusion
Alvin Plantinga is the greatest living Christian Philosopher, the heir to Augustine and Aquinas, he thinks. He argues like a thumb sucking infant. Plantinga by name, Plonka by nature. Here we review some fatuously childish replies he has for Dawkin's book, The God Delusion.

• 06/17/2008 10:00 PM

In God We Doubt
John Humphrys the BBC broadcaster explained in a popular book how he is a failed atheist. His book is a polemic against atheism, and yet another apology for Christianity, under attack from savage atheists who want to persuade people to accept only what is provable and not what rogues tell them, notably the clergy.

• 06/05/2008 10:00 PM

Philosophy in an Evolutionary Light
Kant uses "pure practical reason" to present us with a pure philosophy of morality, but, like everyone else, uses metaphors derived from material experience to do it. Without realizing it, he ends up with the puritanical Christian assumptions he bagan with, but secularized. Cognitive studies contradict Kant's conclusions. Not only are they not universal, they are no more true than the initial Christian assumptions of a God-based morality. They are not true at all! Above all, Kant ignores all human feeling.

• 02/17/2008 10:00 PM

History and Meaning of Salvation
For the Jew, obeying the law, being righteous, saved them. A young man asked how to inherit eternal life. Jesus said without obeying the law, and being poor, he could not be saved. Christ's own life showed salvation depended on doing something, loving others and not accumulating wealth. Paul thought the law was too hard. He dropped it, making it easier to get converts, and for Christianity to spread. Paul made salvation into the mystery of God being magically obliged to save the faithful just for professing their faith in Christ!

• 02/05/2008 10:00 PM

Social Psychology of Christianity
People are not necessarily or even mainly rational in their choices. They adopt ideological belief systems, such as conservatism, that satisfy their psychology. Political choice is not merely a personal choice but is also a group choice, and group or social threats can also alter political choice. Those in such privileged positions have a motive not to want change. Why though are poor whites, poor blacks and poor hispanics conservative? The answer is fear.

• 01/13/2008 10:00 PM

AskWhy! Gadgets
NEW Some Google gadgets from the AW! website.

• 12/31/2007 10:00 PM

Menehem and the Son of God
The second beast of Revelation persuaded the whole world to worship the Roman empire. The Oracle of Hystaspes was being used as a vehicle to parody Augustus and the Roman empire as dragons opposed to the Son of God of the Christians. Essenes hated the Romans, yet the Essene leader, Menehem, was a "friend" of Herod. Odd? Not really because the Essenes were a secret organization. Menehem was a mole. Did the Essenes know about Roman propaganda? Menehem must have known of the poems eulogizing Augustus as a god and saviour, and been outraged by it.