Newsletter : October 2011 : Issue 17

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Welcome to Atheism’s October Newsletter – Issue 17.

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Atheist Alliance International: Secular World Magazine

As an affiliate organization of Atheist Alliance International (AAI), we now have access to the quarterly “Secular World” magazine, which we are pleased to make available to our members and supporters. You can read the July – September 2011 lite version of “Secular World” here. Latest versions will be posted as we receive them.

Get involved – Committee vacancies

We now have vacancies on our Council for the voluntary roles of Secretary and Council Member:

Secretary

The Secretary’s role includes arranging meetings and recording the minutes, and full involvement as a council member in the running of the organization and its progress. The position of Secretary is a strategic role for our organization and sits alongside the Treasurer and President (or Chair), along with the other Council members.

For more information see here.

If you are interested in the Secretary’s role or have any queries, please contact our President, Mark Embleton, here.

Council members

Council members form the core of Atheism’s committee and have full involvement in the running of the organization and its progress.

For more information see here.

If you are interested in a Council member’s role or have any queries, please contact our President, Mark Embleton, here.

Featured article

“Alpha mail” (by John Hunt – edited by Mark Embleton)

(Preamble: the following piece was written by one of our members, John Hunt, in response to an article about the Alpha Course in the Hounslow Chronicle. While it gives some critique of Alpha courses, it is also a good, concentrated critique of the Bible, which is worth reading in its own right)

“Your article on 7th October opens by saying that the Alpha course “helps people explore Christianity“.

However, amongst the ten topics listed on the Alpha web site, (“Who is Jesus?“, “Why did Jesus Die?“, etc.), the only mention of the Bible –the book on which Christianity is based– is “Why and how should I read the Bible?“. For an “exploration” of Christianity, it’s almighty strange that there’s absolutely no mention of what the Bible is, how it evolved, and whether it’s an authentic document.

Part of the reason for not exploring the Bible is that the “Alpha Course” is an evangelical mission, designed to sign up new believers: just as door-to-door salesman attempt to sign up new customers.

The other part of the reason is that the Bible simply doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Its “Old Testament” was compiled from the 24 texts of the Hebrew “Tanakh”, rearranged and edited, with others added that Jews do not recognise as “scripture”. The “New Testament” was compiled from manuscripts by assorted authors, often writing anonymously or under an assumed name, to lend greater authenticity. Several “councils” were held in the 4th century to select and reject manuscripts for inclusion: notably the Council of Nicaea in 325, stage-managed by the politically-motivated Emperor Constantine and Bishop Eusebius. Eastern Orthodox churches continue to use different selections of books from western Bibles.

Doubts about biblical authenticity have been raised –and censored– for a thousand years, or more, as Richard Friedman describes in the first chapter of “Who wrote the Bible” [1996]. In the remainder of the book he explains how the first five books, traditionally attributed to Moses, were not authored by Moses at all. Indeed, two similar but distinct and inconsistent accounts, relating to the distinct religious practices, politics, and traditions of Israel in the north and Judah in the south, were melded together: but not so well that literary analysis of the text couldn’t separate them clearly and reveal the differences in vocabulary, style, and interests. Although useful groundwork was done in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes, and first developed in 1711 –300 years ago!– by German minister H.B. Witter, churches continue oblivious, like ostriches, praying that no one will notice.

Prof. Bart Ehrman, once “an extremely zealous, rigorous, pious (self-righteous), studious, committed evangelical Christian“, has written several books on biblical authorship: most recently “Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are“, [2011]. He discusses the motivations early Christian writers had for amending existing documents and for forging new ones under the name of other authors. Although this was viewed by contemporaries as a deceitful and illicit practice, there are “numerous” forgeries in the New Testament, including “two books that falsely claim to have been written by Peter and six that falsely claim to have been written by Paul“. Christian authors have been lying “not only today, but also in the Middle Ages, in late antiquity, and in the time of the New Testament. From the first century to the twenty-first century, people who have called themselves Christian have seen fit to fabricate, falsify, and forge documents, in most instances in order to authorize views they wanted others to accept“.

In “Astonishing Credulity” [2011], Michael Lawrence demonstrates that the New Testament epistles and “Revelations” were written during the period 9 BCE – 70 CE: BEFORE the gospels and “Acts”, which were completely unknown to Christian writers until as late as 150 CE. As the epistles and “Revelations” contain NO mention of the Jesus stories related in the gospels or “Acts” –including virgin birth, miracles, crucifiction, and resurrection– we must conclude that the early Christians were either unaware of them, or considered them irrelevant: quite unlike churches today. Yet nearly 4,000 years ago, Ancient Egyptians celebrated “Easter” at the Spring Equinox: the resurrection of the god Osiris three days after he was killed by Seth/Satan. A stone pillar, now in Germany in the Berlin Museum, records details of the celebrations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikhernofret_Stela Another stone –the Metternich Stele– relates a detailed, Ancient Egyptian, close parallel to the tale of Moses in the bullrushes. Clay tablets from Iraq around 2100 BCE contain the Epic of Gilgamesh, which parallels Noah’s flood long before Old Testament. Both the Old and New Testaments borrowed heavily from older religions: and much of the ministry of Jesus was lifted from Old Testament prophecies, taken out of context. Lawrence states: “the only similarity between Christianity pre-70 CE and that which is promoted by the Church today is the name. The content of the theology was completely changed to suit the political aims and despotic rule of the Roman Empire post-325 CE“.

Babylonian stone tablets, over eight feet high and now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, record the 282 laws of Hammurabi –king from 1792 to 1750 BCE– which were plagiarised some thousand years later in Leviticus: e.g. “Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth“, Lev.24,20.

In “Jesus never existed” [2008], Kenneth Humphreys cites example after example of how early Christian writers knew nothing about Jesus Christ as a man who lived on Earth: though later writers lifted phrases and entire stories from other contexts, to construct His life. John the Baptist really did exist, baptising his followers, and was probably executed in 36 CE: but as his sect persisted for several hundred years, he hardly would have venerated or worshipped J.C.. Christian bishops in the early second century knew nothing about J.C.: Theophilus in Antioch wrote 29,000 words on Christianity, but never once mentioned J.C.; Tertullian in Carthage, “an active forger”, amended Christian texts and wrote new ones, distancing Christianity from Judaism, to appease the Emperor; and Marcion in Rome had no Holy Family, rejected Jewish scripture (the “Old Testament”) completely, and taught that salvation came in Eden from the serpent’s introduction to the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The story of Mary and Joseph curiously parallels the Egyptian tale of Aseneth, a chaste priestess who was visited by an angel and married a Jew called Joseph. In 134 CE, Emperor Hadrian (who walled off the Scots) wrote that Christians in Egypt worshipped the god Serapis: derived from the earlier divine trinity of Osiris, Isis (the mother), and Horus (the child). In Luxor the temple of Amen has a mural, dated around 1700 BCE, with panels showing the Annunciation (by Thoth), the Immaculate Conception, the Nativity, and the Adoration by three kneeling figures. -That is the same “amen”, incidentally, which Christians use at the end of every prayer.

As a further aspect of exploring Christianity, consider the well-known phrase, “by their fruits ye shall know them“, [Matthew, chapter 7, verse 20]. In “Double Cross: The Code of the Catholic Church” [2006], Dr. David Ranan documents Vatican morality throughout its history: not just the recent scandals of aiding and abetting paedophile priests around the globe, but inciting war and butchery — the Crusades, in Europe, Latin America, etc.; oppressing and murdering Jews; torturing and burning “witches”, “heretics”, and “sodomites”; aiding and abetting Nazis, both during WW2 and for several years afterwards, helping them to escape justice; owning and trading slaves; subjugating women; opposing progress in science and technology, from Galileo’s explanation of the solar system to current claims that condoms promote AIDS — thereby condemning billions to sickness, poverty, and starvation.

In “The Case of the Pope” [2010], renowned barrister Geoffrey Robertson QC details the legal arguments for prosecuting Joseph Ratzinger, a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI, for crimes against humanity: advice followed in February this year by lawyers in Germany.

At at time when the Archbishop of Canterbury “wants the church to dominate secondary provision” of schools, it is important that we should examine Christianity: honestly and objectively. That is precisely what I strongly suspect that the Alpha Course does not do.”

Editor’s comment: Many thanks to John for submitting this article. Also see this recent post to our Forum about one of our members who is currently attending an Alpha course. In fact, most of the committee members of Atheism UK have previously attended Alpha courses for research purposes (don’t worry, we’re still all committed atheists!)

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