Read the book, and see for yourself how we have been indoctrinated, how the Old Testament and its offshoots of Christianity and Islam have been constructed from Babylonian and Egyptian religions and mythologies.

RELIGION THE GREATEST CONFIDENCE TRICK IN HISTORY

By DENNIS MORRIS

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Copyright © 2007 Dennis Morris
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84753-600-6

Contents

DEDICATION AND COPYRIGHT...........................................................................................2ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................................................................3PREFACE............................................................................................................4CONTENTS...........................................................................................................6INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................111. AN ALTERNATIVE TO RELIGION.....................................................................................132. THE EVOLUTION AND MIGRATION OF HOMO-SAPIENS....................................................................213. PRIESTHOODS....................................................................................................364. ANCIENT COSMOLOGY, BELIEFS AND DEITIES.........................................................................47THE TRUE BIBLICAL GENESIS..........................................................................................766. THE BEGINNING OF BIBLICAL MYTHOLOGY............................................................................917. MORE BIBLICAL MYTHS............................................................................................978. NEW TESTAMENT CONTRADICTIONS AND ABSURDITIES...................................................................106DEATH AND RESURRECTION RIGHTS......................................................................................123THE CRUCIFIXTION AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.........................................................................12711. DEMAND FOR A MIRACLE...........................................................................................14512. WHO WERE THE NEW TESTAMENT AUTHORS?............................................................................15213. SHOULD JESUS BE EMULATED.......................................................................................16114. DIVINE INFLUENCE...............................................................................................16715. THE PROTESTANT BIBLE...........................................................................................17816. GOD'S EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD.....................................................................................19817. THE LEGACY OF THE BIBLE: Abuse of Power in the Name of God....................................................20018. CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................22919. CHRISTIAN SECTS AND CULTS......................................................................................235Appendix A. None So Blind: Take stock, The Truth Shines Through (Continued from Chapter 11.).....................245Appendix B. Old Testament Contradictions and Absurdities including Quotations From The Qur-an.....................248Appendix C. New Testament Contradictions and Absurdities Including Quotations From The Qur-an.....................279BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................296

Chapter One

AN ALTERNATIVE TO RELIGION

MODERN sociology and the sciences can represent a different approach to religion. An approach which explains certain so-called religious phenomena in scientific, physiological, psychological and social terms, which is the path followed by secular Humanists.

Humanism is a way of thinking and a way of life which had its philosophical roots in early Greece, and is now a world-wide international movement of human beings committed to a way of life based on ethical principles devised by human beings, not only for human needs, but also for the love and care of our planet and its fauna and flora. It is for those people who base their interpretation of existence on the evidence of the natural world and its evolution, and not on the belief in a supernatural power. This is why it is called a naturalistic stance for living.

The development of humanism started two and a half thousand years ago when some of the ancient Greeks reflected on the ideas of gods, or a God, and made a morality based on humans. The same people, in fact, were the first to develop an atomic theory. Their philosophy was naturalistic in that it applied only to 'natural processes', without gods or a God. Their tradition was very influential throughout the ancient world.

Throughout history most people have been prepared to trust the assumption that their welfare and their Earth was in the hands of a god or gods, until that golden age of classical Greece when the tradition of freethinking looked to the natural world for answers. The ancient Greeks were well versed in astronomy, they had already calculated the circumference of Earth at least one thousand years before Galileo (1564 - 1642 A.D.) who put forward the theory that the Earth moves around the sun for which he was threatened and tortured by the inquisition and forced to recant. Protagoras (484 - 414 B.C.), Epicurus (341 - 270 B.C.). and Lucretius (100 - 55 B.C.), ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, created a system of ethics based firmly on human nature and experience. A lot of their understanding was lost in the blaze of early Christianity. But Renaissance scholars of the fifteenth century, the Rebirth of learning, re-discovered wider sources of knowledge. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries began to see science shedding new light on superstition, dogma, intolerance and injustice. The early sponsors of the International Humanist and Ethical Union were also instrumental in founding the United Nations. They included Sir Julian Huxley (first head of UNESCO), Lord Boyd Orr (first head of the World Food Organisation), and Brock Chisholm of Canada (the first head of the World Health Organisation).

Human attributes, such as love, kindness, compassion, tolerance, sympathy, empathy, sincerity, honesty, integrity, forgiveness, goodness, truth, morals, ethics, contemplation, meditation, peace of mind and finding happiness within the simple things in life, need not have religious connotations at all.

Dr. Andrew Newberg (Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania) is one of the neuro-researchers who has discovered that as meditators go deeper into the meditative state, not only are the temporal lobes involved but also that the parietal lobes get an ever decreasing flow of blood until they almost shut down. The parietal lobes are concerned with perception and interpretation of sensations that give us a sense of time and space.

Therefore, during meditation there is the sensation of loss of self, or silent awareness of the full-sustained attention of the present moment, when there is no mental chatter. This is easiest achieved by sitting comfortably and merely becoming aware of the incoming and outgoing breath. Bringing the mind back whenever it strays, until awareness of the five senses are absent. It does not matter which technique is used to get ones attention one pointed, the flow of blood to the parietal lobes decreases. The more proficient one becomes the less blood supply to the parietal lobes will cause a deeper state of meditation, a state when peaceful void is reached. After all, the brain is the source of personality, emotions, intellect, body function and...