AW! Epistles
From Eric
Abstract
Thursday, 01 January 2004
I have spent quite some time reading from your website and I have found your writings to be of great interest. I have also found you to be better than well informed on most matters. I am interested to know if you’ve done any writings regarding the non-canonical books of the bible and how they are in any sort of agreement/disagreement with the King James version. I have spent many years reading about the writing and collection of the Bible, I have not however been able to find any treatment on the non-canonical books. I am speaking in regards to their true histories. In the event that you’re unaware of the political happenings here in the states, do you find it at all strange that a supposedly learned man such as a state judge not be aware that which he risks his job on is not in fact what he imagines it to be? I am referring to the fight over the ten commandments—Ex 20 (oral) vs Ex 34 (actual written).
I have not particularly studied any of the non-canonical books but they are readily available on the web. It sounds as though you will know far more about them than I do. I don’t know the incident you mean involving the judge, but Christians are amazingly ignorant of their holy book. They just do not get beyond the comfort stories they are taught at infant school and Sunday School, so maybe the judge is no different. Few people know that there are different versions of the Ten Commandments, and how many bother counting them, even? I can understand ignorant peasants believing what their ministers and priestly witchdoctors tell them, but I just cannot understand how sophisticated people can accept it. Nothing is more incongruous to me than that a powerful New England aristocrat can use every modern technology from communications to B2s and computers to laser bombs, be treated with modern medicines and surgical methods, and yet believe every word of a book that has God accepting a human sacrifice and illness treated by driving out demons. It’s a funny old world, as they say, and certainly gives us no confidence in our leaders.
Thanks for writing back I wasn’t sure my letter had gone through. The judge I was referring to is, now was, pending contempt charges (as I understand it) is the chief justice in the Alabama Supreme Court. ( Roy Moore ) He had a replica of The Ten Commandments placed in the foyer of the courthouse and refused to remove it. He has since been removed from the bench. I am very pleased that you wrote back, since I am not one inclined to hero-worship, ie sports stars, entertainers etc. I’ve always been more impressed by those of a higher intelligence. I have cited your work to many people, some who have seen the light so in a sense you could say that I would place you on a par with those to be admired, heroes if you will. Space here doesn’t allow for total thoughts, So I’ll leave you with these thoughts.
I had vaguely heard of the case of the judge and the Ten Commandments. It sounds odd to me, but typical of the way certain Christian sects insist on imposing their own religion on to everyone else. That a judge should be in on it does not say a lot for his understanding of the constitution, unless I have it wrong. I thought the USA was a jealously secular state, yet the bigots seem to be getting closer and closer to changing it into a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. One imagines the first thing a judge should defend is the constitution, so he deserves to lose office.
I am like you. I can admire people who do well as sports stars, popstars or film actors but not hero worship them. My heroes are mainly scientists, but it probably reflects my own interests and beliefs. I have tried to see what others get out of peculiar beliefs not based on any evidence, but purely on uncritical acceptance, and I cannot get it. At the best it is simply wishful thinking, and at worst it is downright exploitation and oppression of others. It is flattering to feel admired as a hero, but I doubt that I say anything original. It worries me, though, that our essentially democratic and tolerant societies are threatened by religionists and it is up to us to take the threat seriously and counter it, if our children are to enjoy what we have enjoyed. So, thanks for joining the campaign. I fear though, that we need a lot more of us. “God” is always on the side of the big battalions! My own worldview is that of Adelphiasophism, a sort of rational scientific pantheism, in which the world we live in is treated as if it were divine. If salvation, providing food and pleasure, and giving life are the qualities of a divinity, then they are the qualities of Nature, not some abstract father. It is a practical Stoicism, with a simple gratitude for having been, an acceptance that we cannot always be, and a severe hesitancy to judge whether other life can be or not. I enjoyed your letter.
It’s good to know that take the time to write back. I can only hope that I’m not seeming like some stalker. It is just that I enjoy “speaking” with someone who understands what corruptible ends have come along with religions. Some here, (San Diego) have a “So what” attitude. They like to ask, “What’s the point?” I then ask them why they think gas prices are so high, at this they usually respond with corporate corruption and the like. When I explain to them that it because we backed Israel in the Yom Kippur war, I then have to explain how this ruined our economy throughout the 70s. I also explain that the whole reason for the war was to gain back territories that were given to people that claim a divine right to the land. That usually gets them thinking… being that we all need gas. They seem to understand the pocket book.
Quite true, but few people can be bothered making the connexions or thinking that much, if not most, of what they read is propaganda. I am not a pacifist, but I do think that our defence forces are for defence! When we send them to attack another country unprovoked, I just cannot see how that is defence. As I have said on my pages, the dualistic division of the world into good and evil, suits the purpose of the world ruler, and has done at least since the time of the Persians, the real authors of Judaism and Christianity. The simplistic savage Christianity of our current world leaders differs not a whit from the dualism of the mad mullahs. All use religion to serve their own purpose, just as the Persians did. After 2500 years the weapons are better but the rationale is the same. Pathetic.
In regards to the non-canonical books, aside from those to be found in the Catholic Bible I have had a hard time finding the others online. I probably need to use different search engines. Oh while I’m on the subject are you aware some of your sites aren’t pulled up using certain engines? One site available to me only through Jeeves(ask.com) I continue to get error reports and find it impossible to go through the site. I haven’t as of yet tried my normal engine(Google). I’ll try it and let you know how it works. It’s your site on Barabbas and the Essenes.
Wesley has a noncanonical website and so does a site called Refrigerium and one called St Pachomius. I reckon a search on Google for “noncanonical” or “non-canonical” will pull up hundreds of sites like these.
On the other point, I presume you can get there from the askwhy! homepage or via the google search engine onsite. Someone else once said they could not get some of my pages, and the only reason I could imagine is that I use javascript for layout and navigation. It saves having to change hundreds of pages when you change a page address, or a colour or whatever. Some older browsers might have trouble, but, if so the answer is to update.
I have recently by chance done some reading on the Stoicism and find that it does make a lot of sense. I was researching Epictetus. I had just read about him on the Three Impostors pamphlet. I had first gone to this site researching more writings about someone you had mentioned. You have probably read most of these items but in the event that you haven’t the address is-infidels.org/library/index.shtml. It was there that I first read the writings of Thomas Payne.
I’ll let you go at this point to enjoy your cider, hope to hear back.
Stoicism was influential in early Christianity, and much of what is considered good in Christianity today, at least to liberals, is probably taken from the Stoics like the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus was a big figure among the Stoics, and just as admirable as Jesus, I would have thought. He certainly had a good collection of one-liners, quite up to the supposed sayings of JC.
As for Thomas Paine, I would have thought it was dangerous in the USA to read such stuff. Modern American leaders have not only forgotten the federation was set up as a secular state, they have forgotten that it was founded on a revolution from tyranny. If the French had said to the Americans that they needed saving from the tyranny of the Georges, and fought the British on behalf of the American settlers, but uninvited, George Washington would have been fighting the French! I have always had the weakness of being able to put myself in the position of someone else to think, “How would I like it?” No one wants to do that these days, or cannot. We are getting more polarized and rigid in our thinking. Too black and white, good and evil, dualistic. The pretty colours and shades of grey in the real world are ignored to suit religious bigots.
Back to the cider!
