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AskWhy! Books | RSS Feed
AskWhy! Books website on Christian and Jewish origins, history, faults, fallacies, and alternatives.
Natural Law and the Moral Instinct
Natural Law expresses any human being's natural rights as a human being living in a society, their human rights, the irreducible rights everyone has by virtue of their humanity that they expect in human society.
Why Socialism and Communism are Christian
The metaphor of a camel going through the eye of a needle is common to both Matthew and Luke. Do not be misled by your pastor... this passage is saying rich men cannot get into heaven.
The Great Weimar Crash of 1923
In the first stages of the currency collapse, nobody foresaw the full consequences. By the end, shopkeepers were putting up their prices at least twice daily.
The Truth about Zionism
People all over the world hoped that Israel would take the road of peace and cooperation with its neighbours. Zionist leaders, however, took a different road.
A Religion for Agnostics—N Micklem
If Jesus were God as Christians believe, then he is a perverse God. Jesus said on one occasion that, if men could not recognize the spiritual authority of Moses and the prophets, they would not believe though one rise from the dead!
Questioning Conspiracy Theory Questioners
A conspiracy theory claims an official line is false. Officialdom has seen the need to issue a false account as misinformation to guard its secrets, and is deliberate propaganda intended for the gullible.
Kuenen, Wellhausen and Robertson Smith in Old Testament Research
Wellhausen was not to know therefore that the prophets' punitive force, the Assyrians, stood for the later Persians, and the message of justice and righteousness was a Persian one, a doctrine that had indeed been heard before—in the Zoroastrian religion.
Can Amateurish Khirbet Qeiyafa Archaeology Verify King David
I Finkelstein and A Fantalkin have slated the interpretations and the amateurish methodology of the excavation of Khirbet Qeiyafa, claimed to confirm king David!
Ramat Rahel Palace near Jerusalem
At Ramat Rahel, the evidence of irrigation systems, exotic plants in the garden, and C14 dating indicate a Persian building, garden and pottery.
Growth of the Gentile Church in the Roman World
Until it was established as the Roman state religion by Constantine, Christianity was not what Christians see it as today, and it faced as much opprobrium as Islam in the west today.
Nazarene
Updated: Origen of Caesarea (185-254 AD) lived thirty miles from Nazareth, but could not find it. He concluded that many places mentioned in the gospels never existed. Before Constantine, Nazareth was attested only by the New Testament evangelists.
How a Lemon (a Citron) Links Persia with Judaism
The citron tree, long ago absorbed into Jewish tradition, made its first unequivocal appearance in Israel in this Persian period garden. It suggests a link between the setting up of the temple state by the Persian authorities, and a fruit used in jewish ritual.
Lorem Ipsum in English: Replace Lorem for Web Design
Lorem Ipsum, is not meant to make sense but simply to fill space to show how a functioning web page would look filled with text. Something that is nonsense but imitates plausible English a bit better could look more convincing.
Georg Polti Plots: The 36 Dramatic Situations
If you have been intending to start that novel or screenplay but felt short of ideas, here is the Wise Women's synopsis of Polti plots to give you a few ideas.
Christianity, Colonialism, Imperialism, and the West
The Christian church was triumphant. The task now was to convert the world, a task that suited Roman imperialism. As Christianity was the religion of Rome, Christians were Roman citizens. Christian faith was identical to loyalty to Rome...
Fairy Tales and the Bible
Fairy tale plots have their own internal logic which must satisfy the desire for a marvel and a satisfactory outcome, like the bible stories. Though religious stories have so much in common with fairy tales, they are too sacred to be considered the same.
Jesus and Essene Evangelism in the Last Days
The last days required the first among the Essenes to reduce themselves to the level of the least to do God's work, call all Israel, men, women, and children to righteousness in an exhortation like the Sermon on the Mount
Religious Slavery, God and Moral Convenience
The need for God expresses our dependence on each other, on society. Evil now has a supernatural connotation, but it just meant dangerous. God as society protects us, and god as a father guides us in our tasks and duties in society, duties commanded by God!
Syriac Christianity: A Transitional Stage Between Essenism and Catharism
"Sons and Daughters of the Covenant", were pious elite Christians whose main characteristic was their chastity, even when married. Like the Essenes, they aspired to be angels, eternal beings with no more need of reproduction than God Himself.
New Testament and Christian Ethics: Christ's Morality or Paul's?
Who should be believed? The Christian believes Christ to be God, so there is no question about it. Paul is a man, Christ is God! Why do Christians believe Paul and ignore God?
Decaying Society: Libertarianism Undermines Social Instincts
The extension of individuation by ever greater personal freedom ignores society, particularly that it is held together by constraints that can be broken only at the risk of its destruction.
Knowing God, Man, and Morality
It is not compellingly apparent that God is the explanation of human history -- the problem of evil seems to deny it. Why would God expect us to believe in Him having arranged the world such that He is not apparent to us? We can imagine many things that do not exist like mermaids, and God is one of them.
Christianity without Love is not Christian
Christ told a rich man how to be saved. It was not by faith alone. He had to love God and his neighbors, and give his wealth to the poor. Like the rich today, he could not do it because the rich love money more than people! Only works, care and kindness for other people, shows when faith is real.
Francis Hucheson and Moral Sense
Ultimately how do you judge what is moral? Either God has given us the gift of moral judgement, or He has not. Yet sympathy with the feelings of others explained the moral sense adequately...
Positive Freedom, Christian Morality and the Human Moral Instinct
"Freedom to" is positive freedom, a concept that the Christian west hasn't understood, yet it is practical Christian morality, which reflects human sociality.
The Nature of Christ: the First Six Hundred years of Christian Love
After the Nicene Council, Arianism became the Christology of the invading barbarians. The savages who destroyed Rome and took over the western empire were Christians. Cyril's gangs of brutal Christian monks ensured he was always right. He was implacably opposed to Christ having two natures.
Christology and Metaphysical Warfare
"Who or what Christ is?" is the problem of Christology. No one today are much interested in it, least of all, the Christian sheep, who think their believes would not be worth having if they were required honest answers to honest questions.
Mithras or Mica
Updated: Roman writers believed that Mithraism came from Persia and that Mithraic iconography represented Persian mythology. Mithraism was called the mysteries of the Persians. Christian apologists say Iranian Mithraism was not continuous with Roman Mithraism.
The Magi and Epiphany
Epiphany has become most closely associated with just twelve verses of Matthew concerning the visit of the wise men from the East, or Magi, who came to adore Jesus in Bethlehem.
J Horgan, R Dawkins and the Anthropic Principle
The anthropic principle is more of an observation than a theory. We are here, and so the Universe's age and physical constants are those that allow us to exist, and not all those others that would make our existence impossible, because the physical constants would be too big or small for the universe to exist itself, or to exist long enough for us to have evolved.
F C Conybeare: History Of New Testament Criticism
Where there are two rival and inconsistent accounts of the same divinely inspired biblical fact or event, only one can be true. Christians must have to believe that gospel inspiration is consistent with discrepancies, and even with untruths and inaccuracies.
Secular Christianity
PDF book length paper: The Natural History of Secular Christianity. Freely circulate. Constructive comments welcome.
Politics and the Moral Instinct
The ordinary citizen does not have power and cannot so exercise it. We have yielded our rights to a professional political caste, out for their own personal gain, not often doing what electors want, then using the media to persuade them they want what they get. Without a satisfactory welfare system allowing benefits and personal enterprise, the gross inequalities of capitalist society will justify revolution!
Religion: a Spandrel of the Social Mind
Religion is a side effect of natural mental processes, an evolutionary spandrel. Moral instincts support us as animals for which society is essential, not just an option. An instinct to attribute agency to anything suspicious or unusual helped us survive by being cautious. These contrived to give us religion, an explanation of phenomena we experience through our sociality.
Personal God: How Morality, Intentionality and Religion Evolved
Updated: People often reason egocentrically about others' beliefs, using their own beliefs as an inductive guide. Correlational, experimental, and neuroimaging evidence suggests that people may be even more egocentric when reasoning about God's beliefs. The God of the believers has just the same opinions as themselves!
Diaspora of the Jews
The Hellenized world of Alexander's generals was already full of Jews from the outset. Their Persian masters had been destroyed leaving the underclass of Juddin as a substantial body of people with a history and a temple.
Jonathan Haidt: The Happiness Hypothesis
Where is the political balance? About half way along the left-right scale appear the liberals, the demonic lefties of modern US conventional politics, almost at the center of the whole political space! In Great Britain, political parties are differentiated mainly on the left-right continuum, and little on the authoritarian-libertarian axis.
New Atheists and the Misunderstanding of Religion
Emile Durkheim showed that morality is a set of rules to bind people into an effective group. Religiosity is a feature of human life, and evolutionary, developmental, neuropsychological, and anthropological theories must explain human religions. J Haidt thinks the New Atheists do not get it.
Secular Christianity, Morals and the Kingdom Vision
Christ's message was a practical ethic for a successful, caring, unoppressive society for everyone. "God is love" is meaningless outside of a social context, and acted upon within society. Those accepting it and acting on it were Christians. They live their lives by the teachings of Christ, whether they believe in God, or Christ himself.
Secular Christianity for Christians and Darwinians
Professor Kitcher of Columbia university classifies Christianity into three main taxa, of which "spiritual" Christianity is the only one suited to the modern world, and seems closely similar to Secular Christianity.
Pauline and Secular Christianity
Since Paul, Christians have had almost two millennia to justify their revisions of Christ's social teaching. Real Christians get on with being a Christ. Fake Christians boast about their faith. Faith and doing nothing is not an option. Christ told them precisely what they had to do, love one another.
Evolutionary Morality, Society and the Golden Rule
Moral judgments promoted prosocial behavior, expressed to our ancestors the common judgement of the group of why anyone should act favorably to others in society, even though directly it might be somewhat detrimental to themselves. People had this instinct because those without it had been unable to live in a group. Those with it could, and the group was stronger for it.
Reciprocity and Selfishness
Cooperation is the cement of society, but people will cooperate only when others cooperate. Selfish people prefer free riding. When free rider unfairness cannot be punished somehow, people stop cooperating. Without social glue, society will come unstuck. Selfishness must be punishable.
Divine Command Theory and the Evolution of Morality
Survival of the fittest was misinterpreted for a long time as equalling pure selfishness. It seemed to mean selfish enough to make sure you reproduced even if it meant your rival did not. Pure selfishness seems to exclude any type of altruism, but reciprocal assistance within a group might make all of the members of it better able to reproduce than their purely selfish solitary rivals.
Morality and Humanity
Excessive richness shows society is malfunctioning, and wealth must be redistributed to correct it. The Principle of Humanity is to get people out of bad lives, not to put them into them, even the rich. If everyone has a good life, then no one has a bad one. Those who are already well rewarded, like bankers, do not need inflated bonuses as an incentive. It is robbery of the bank's customers and shareholders.
John Rawls, a Theory of Justice as Fairness
Justice as fairness permits justice to be indeed fair. It shows why people want a fair and equal spread of rights and duties, and also an equal distribution of benefits, to value a place in society. Any variation in the distribution of benefits will only be acceptable because they are within acceptable limits of tolerance, or because some inequality of distribution benefits everyone.
The Origins of Religion
The origins of religion. Further update of pages that introduce aspects of religion as a scientific study.
When was the Bible Written?
If the bible was written around 700 BC, Jewish historians preceded the first historian, Herodotus by 200 years. It is manifest nonsense. Persian scholars with access to Assyrian records wrote the history to back up the law, Deuteronomy. The message was to obey God whose law it was. It showed God had punished previous generations for apostasy, and would do again, if the people were not righteous, ie obedient to the law. Obedience suits rulers.
Did King David ever Live?
Revised: The evidence for king David outside the bible is minute and controversial. No kings of Judah before Hezekiah are attested outside the bible. Judah was created as an Assyrian puppet.
Solomon and his Temple
Revised: An empire centred on Jerusalem in the tenth century BC is strongly disputed. There was a tenth century BC, but no emperors called David and Solomon lived in it. Tenth century BC "Solomonic" strata should be dated to the ninth century BC Omride dynasty of the Northern Kingdom. No literary tradition existed in tenth century BC Palestine.
When was Exodus Written?
Updated: Evidence that Exodus is an Hellenistic romance written in Alexandria
Goddess Pages
Christianity Revealed! —Massive book explaining the historical origins of Christianity in the New Testament free of pious lying. Incorporates much of the Mystery of Barabbas and the Hidden Jesus and more besides. Jesus was an Essene revolutionary who captured Jerusalem 40 years before the Jewish War! | Abstracts
The Truth about the Jewish Scriptures —Full explanation of how the Jewish scriptures, the Christian Old Testament, were founded by the Persian kings in the fifth century as a political weapon of mass control and its subsequent evolution and elaboration under the Greeks and Maccabees. Nothing supernatural here either! | Browse Article Abstracts
God’s Truth or Pious Lies? —Science and Truth or Christianity? Addresses the way that Christians believe lying is acceptable as long as it is to the glory of God and His religion, Christianity. | Browse Article Abstracts
Analogies and Conjectures —Speculation at the fringes of history and science. Is it unlikely but, on the evidence, not impossible? Or quite likely but lacking sound evidence? Or even likely but ignored because of prejudice.
Heresy, Inquisition and Witchcraft —The heyday of Christian love.
Questioning Belief—Questions most Christians never wonder about. 
God’s Truth —Answering the evangelist Ernest Phibber.
Discussion and Letters —from Christians, mainly critical.
Goddess Pages —Articles on aspects of the Goddess as Nature personified and the need for matriarchy. | Browse Article Abstracts
War and Propaganda —Comments started on Bush's Iraq War, and widened to the political origins of it, and the use of propaganda in war. | Browse Article Abstracts
Last year in Marienbad —what happened? | Browse Article Abstracts
Epitomes —Epitomes of great works of religion and politics
SVG Art —Free abstract SVG art generator.
Science —tips and papers.
Frome: Home of AskWhy! Publications —Learn about this relatively unspoiled Wessex town, the cider capital of the world!
DHTML Art —Selection of mainly DHTML pictures.
SupplementArt Gallery —Mike’s paintings.
E-books for download —and miscellaneous amusements and DLs.
36 Plots —George Polti thought there were 36 dramatic situations. You can get some ideas for creative writing from an old source updated, the Polti plot outliner.
UK Lottery picker at AW!’s old main webpage, and another one.
FIBA Sermoniser Download zipped Java application (22KB). Same as Bishop Ecclesiasticus, this page.
Anthroposaurus sapiens Pages relevant to Who Lies Sleeping? The Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man. Who Lies Sleeping? Blog
AskWhy! Books —The Hidden Jesus, The Mystery of Barabbas and Who Lies Sleeping? US customers, order our books from Borders. Orderform to print and order direct from AskWhy!
The Hidden Jesus. The Secret Testament Revealed —ISBN 0-9521913-2-6 £12.99. A commentary on Mark’s gospel that relates the Jesus of the gospel to the practices of the Essenes. The life of Jesus can be convincingly explained without recourse to supernatural inventions. Buy the printed version from Amazon | Orderform to print and order direct from AskWhy!
The Mystery of Barabbas. The Origins of a Pagan Religion —ISBN 0-9521913-1-8 £9.99. Why does Barabbas suddenly appear in the gospels as the hero of the Jews when Jesus had been hitherto? He was called Jesus. Coincidence? His surname, Barabbas, means "son of my Father" —Coincidence? Buy the printed version from Amazon | Orderform to print and order direct from AskWhy!
Who Lies Sleeping? The Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man —ISBN 0-9521913-0-X £7.99. No longer online Book—Dinosaurs, Extinction and Ecology—Death planet or planet of death? What caused the end of the dinosaurs? Perhaps the coup de grace was an impact but why had they been failing for centuries? Did they poison their own environment—like mankind? But you can get it in a convenient book form! Buy the printed version from Amazon. | Orderform to print and order direct from AskWhy! 
Who Lies Sleeping? The Dinosaur Heritage and the Extinction of Man
The Mystery of Barabbas. Exploring the Origins of a Pagan Religion
The Hidden Jesus. The Secret Testament Revealed