The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read

Rating:
Summary: Not threatening, just plain silly
Review: The Christian Church I belong to doesn't censor anyone. I don't believe blindly and I am not outraged by this book. It just confirms my belief in Jesus. I will not write an angry review for something that isn't worth it. God Bless all of you, regardless of what you believe. The truth will win in the end. The book raises many questions, which is good. Blind Faith is not a good idea. Every Christian should read this book. It's an amusing fairy tale. Nice try, but I'll stick with my Savior!

Rating:
Summary: please... (bad rating by mere association)
Review: "Mithra was born of a virgin, with sheperds present..." - from a previous review of this book

Oh no. Acharya S. I admit it, I'm a christian. Sorry. But as a human being (if I may presume) I understand anyone's honest impulse to question. And I understand the reasoning behind the doubt (really).

But the things that really poison me on this book are some of the reviewer's references to Acharya S and her, um, work. Please... Mithra was born out of SOLID ROCK. A virgin rock? Will someone please tell me how a rock can be a virgin? (No, wait. Don't.)

Or - picking on Acharya again - her statement that "In Sagittarius, Jesus was wounded in the side by the Centaur, or centurion." Please look up the Greek word for centurion, and tell me WHAT IN THE WORLD (or anywhere else) it has to do with "centaur." (And no, 'kentauros' does NOT mean 'hundred,' or anything like it...)

It gets worse with Acharya... but I will assume that the reviewers who went to the trouble to drag THAT into THIS are just confused... and I'll read this book anyway, because it appears to matter to some folks. I just hope it's not an equivalent waste. (And that THIS author hasn't 'had beings around' who are 'telling <him> to put this information out there.')

(But I can't help to ask an unrelated question in closing: Isn't any title like 'the X that X doesn't want you to X' a little... well... unimaginative? Sensational? Cheap?)

Rating:
Summary: Sigh
Review: If you are silly enough to think that "faith is irrational" (try some Plantinga) or that a television evangelist represents the cores of a 2000 year old religion. . . or that it is still bold and daring (!) to be critical of the church. . . this book is for you. It is badly argued. . . full of historical errors. . . and useful for knowing what the fringe "skeptic" community believes. Our church would love to do a study on this book with its young people . . . but it be unfair to thoughtful atheism. It is not nice to destory straw men.

Rating:
Summary: Changed my life
Review: Theres a point in every christian persons life when they begin to discover that the bible is a fabrication and fabrications can be proven wrong ,once that happens you begin to read the bible for what it is ,it changed my life I was a catholic in my sophomore year in school I read this book and everything opened up for me ,Im now a atheistic buddhist.

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Summary: Yes, go ahead and read it! Even Christians need a laugh!
Review: There are several good books against Christianity, which are usually against theism in general, but this book is not one of them.

Despite what promised to be an interesting read, I was very disappointed by the rather amaturish historical arguments, not to mention all of those straw men. The most respected scholars of biblical and early church studies (Pelikan, Wilken, Hengel, Jeremias, etc) are much more informative and honest than this author.

An atheist friend of mine gave this to me, all excited that he had finally had the proof that debunked Christianity. After openly reading it, I told my buddy that all it debunks is a certain type of Protestant fundamentalism which doesn't stand up to scholarship and historical criticism. No big surprise there! There are several good books against Christianity, but this is not one of them. Look elsewhere and save the money.

Rating:
Summary: A Friend For the Atheist
Review: Whether you're a born-again atheist, a seasoned veteran, or anyone who sometimes feels they're going crazy wondering why everyone just accepts all these far-fetched religious claims because they were told to them when they were young and naive by the sort of people who say things like "give them to me when they're young and i'll have them forever" - this book is for you.

Myself, i fit into the born again category. I went to christian schools, and it took me a while, but i eventually fell for it. But now i found myself wondering how everyone takes religious claims for granted. The religious argument is a non-argument. Faith is synonymous with irrationality. Religious people think they can "just believe" something, despite lack of evidence, because they've had some kind of "personal experience," some co-incidence of events, a change of breeze, a trick of light, which allows them to infer something mysterious moving behind the scenes. Unfortunately, life isn't like a movie. There ain't no director, but the sheep need one.

If any of this stuff rings true with you, this book is on your side. It'll just put into words the things you've been wondering, and the stuff you wonder about but couldn't be bothered researching. Its a a great survey of the issues, no, an encyclopedia of the subject, of the problems with religion. It mainly deals with christianity, though there is a section on Islam and bits and pieces on Eastern religions.

What i love about this book is it makes me feel sane again. It makes me realise i'm not alone in the philosophical universe - quite an ironic, but a very human instinct. Sometimes its quite hard being anti-religion, when so much of the world is for it. The thing about that is what i felt when i started taking all this stuff seriously is that i was thinking about it logically for the first time in my life - like religion was intimidating me and others away from questioning it - the Bible screams at you: who are you to question God's will, he is almighty - you're only a person, you're only REAL.

I can just dip into it any place and find something that'll get me thinking, as well as something that says what i'm thinking better than i ever could. Its great especially that its such an encyclopaedia - it takes excerpts from seemingly everything and everywhere.

Its a book that truly proposes everything your church doesn't want you to think about and realise. Its another big book, but not another Bible. Naturally it doesn't teach and be didactic - it presents ideas and leaves it up to you to think about them, like all philosophies should. They shouldn't present them as an almighty commandment and order you to obey them - and if they do, then we've made no progress, and all is lost, as a Jedi Master once probably said.

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Summary: S O M E F A C T S
Review: FACT = throughout the times a lot of church people are not really after facts but are only in it for the conveniece of being in a religous club. And in the more ancient times, it is more for intellectual reasons such as for political influence and gain of power.

Another FACT = most Athiest and so-called "agnostics" are totally predjudized whenever it comes to christianity and its source the bible, that it is often the case that whenever they make statements mainly pertaining to criticise the scriptures, they didn't really know what they are talking about - because they have not taken the time to really test the valid credibilities of the biblical records. Thus, like pigs to a mud pond - they quite automatically jump ahead to conclusions driven by their impressions on what they are opposing.

The bottomline is = are we after FACTS or are we only after what we prefer to believe ?

and just one more FACT = it is sickening to encounter something which falsely poses itself as bringing facts- such as this book which makes statements that are totally out of focus with the arguments it discusses against the scriptural records - which the commoner who never had any biblical knowledge would easily accept to believe without questioning. And what is really weird is that a lot of people buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Note about 'CaptainReflection' and his supposed 'review'
Review: 'CaptainReflection' is certainly NOT a qualified book reviewer, but rather a bombastic purveyor of smiteful diatribe against Christianity. While he elucidates certain salient points in the history of Christianity, he in no regard reviews the book! (which he was supposed to be doing) He, instead, 'reviews' Christianity. Read the book and think for yourself. CaptainReflection has fallen into the very trap which he tries to warn YOU of! I apologize for not writing a review, either, but I could not let his 'review' go unanswered.

Rating:
Summary: I Can See Why Your Church Doesn't Like It
Review: I can see why any church would shy away from this book. It is atheistic in viewpoint and droll in content. It is not so much a book as a compilation of excerpts. It takes on a wide variety of Christian subjects, but doesn't plow much new ground. I bought this book because people who read "The Christ Conspiracy" were buying it. It was not nearly as good however. That book went deep into the mythic and astrological roots of the Christian church. This book tries to take on everything. It does it angrily and crudely. It almost reads like a college kid's scrapbook.

Rating:
Summary: About as polemical as the beleifs it rebuts
Review: Personally, I do beleive in God, although I have no use for the fundamentalist school of Christianity. That said, on with the review.

Essentially, this book's essays are to show the fallacy of fundamentalism. At least that's what you get at first. But then the book makes the leap, with heavy sarcasm, into a diatribe against the very idea of any sort of theism, completely ignoring what good religion has accomplished in society (Ghandi, Martin Luther King, etc.).

There are indeed better books that handle this subject in a more informative fashion. Primarily, this is only for those who feel that ALL beleif in God consists of ignoramuses who are being suckered by con men. I would agree that this is true in a lot of cases, but not in all.