Rating: 
Summary: Almost Worthless
Review: Now, before you pass this off as some fundamentalist who hates the idea of the book, I am an atheist. I like reading about the atrocities of the church and pointing them out to others so that that kind of thing can't happen again. However, this book was almost purely bad, and its saving graces were quite few.First off, the author readily admits that the facts are all in other places and can be accessed there. That is good to admit, but makes you wonder about the importance of the book. The quotation on the cover "This is simply a book that everyone must sit down and read." is also misleading, as I think that very, very few people should spend their time on this. She does acknowledge (like relatively few authors) that Constantine was a death-bed convert to Christianity, but she fails to clarify that he DIDN'T convert the empire, he merely made the faith a legal option. Justinian (I think) was the emperor who converted the empire finally. She also gives importance to other "sins" of the church which are important: absolutism, the necessity of obedience and blind faith, racism, and sexism are all important and very negative consequences of some aspects of Christian faith, but few authors give credence to them. That aside, the book was a waste of time. The author's fundamental premises included that the belief in only one God of one type leads to racism, sexism, and a formation of social hierarchies. I disagree vehemently, and posit that it is human nature that does that. She disagrees, stating that there were Neolithic societies which were entirely cooperative and in which there was no competition. I don't believe that this is true, but even if it is, her implied premise that Western thought is responsible for this is wrong. Eastern faiths all speak of the importance of humility and the lack of uniqueness of all people, which is to avoid the differentiation we try to achieve in the west. Furthermore, the author devotes an entire chapter to expanding a foolish premise stated in the opening of the book, namely that the discoveries of Darwin and Newton supported the ideals of the church (inevitability of struggle and necessity of domination). She states that "Newtonian science seemed to confirm that the Earth was no more than the inevitable result of the mechanistic operation of inanimate components; it confirmed that the Earth lacked sanctity." I don't know about you, but I don't think that the Christian faith has ever said that the Earth lacked sanctity; they believe it was specially created by God, and nothing could be more sacred. What's worse, she later will claim that Darwinian evolution and Newtonian physics are limited and inaccurate. While both of these are technically true at times, neither is anywhere near as absolute as she would like you to believe. She begins to reference quantum mechanics and quantum physicists (plainly without understanding, as she misunderstands their work and their references), and she states that the world doesn't work like Newton thought that it did. Actually, it does, with the exception of the subatomic level, where Newtonian physics was NEVER thought to work, nor was it supposed to. She cites that science is unconfirmable, when it is with the exception of at the quantum level. She misunderstands the Uncertainty Principle, which is perfectly valid science, but is limited in its application. At one point, she even goes so far as to claim that subatomic particles have consciousness and make deterministic choices. She did do some research in the field of anthropology, and she understands it much better, as she recognizes the importance of Mani and Mithra, two of the alternative Christs of the period. She doesn't reference them properly though, since Mani was a Gnostic. She also spells Manichaeism wrong, which is a rather odd error. Speaking of which, the writing frequently seems pretty sketchy, like most of the chapters were introductions to individual books. Just when it tightens up and you are expecting some new information, the chapter ends and the cycle starts once more. In addition to this, Satan (discussed extensively in one of the later chapters, is NEVER capitalized by the author, and neither is the name of Earth. Earth is our planet, earth is dirt. So, to recap: her theories are wrong, her grammar is bad, her science is worse. The book needs to have been edited with a more professional eye. I was initially curious why it wasn't published by Prometheus Books, but a little reading of the book more than answered that question. I wouldn't reccommend this book to anyone, unless they already have a firm grasp of the principles that it discusses and a lot of time to waste. Don't bother checking this one out from the library. Time-waster.
Harkius
Rating: 
Summary: Stay Away Christians
Review: A wonderful book about the truth behind Christianity's History. In fact, so ture, that our everyday narrow-minded christians may want to skip it, they can't handle the truth about their holidays once being pagan, the persecution of witch's etc.
Rating:
Summary: Leave this one on your coffee table face up!
Review: Not a perfect piece of literature but so what? It's accurate enough and very interesting. When did you last see or read anything that was perfect? Now don't tell me, the "Good Book", unless you are a Christian, of course. And man, do they ever give this book a bad rap! I wonder why? Read this book and you'll find out why. An excellent book to bolster your knowledge and certainly belongs in your library. I suggest that you leave this book face up on your coffee table, not on a dusty book shelf somewhere, for all your friends and visitors to inquisitively glance at. Who knows? You might start the "conversion" of a few back to sensible, non-god-fearing reality.
Rating:
Summary: Leave this one on your coffee table face up!
Review: Not a perfect piece of literature but so what? It's accurate enough and very interesting. When did you last see or read anything that was perfect? Now don't tell me, the "Good Book", unless you are a Christian, of course. And man, do they ever give this book a bad rap! I wonder why? Read this book and you'll find out why. An excellent book to bolster your knowledge and certainly belongs in your library. I suggest that you leave this book face up on your coffee table, not on a dusty book shelf somewhere, for all your friends and visitors to inquisitively glance at. Who knows? You might start the "conversion" of a few back to sensible, non-god-fearing reality.
Rating:
Summary: revising religion and now also history
Review: Amazing - a real eye-opener! This book has given me a whole new
vision of religion, just as I received a whole new vision of history from "History: Fiction or Science?", a masterpiece by the heretical genius AT Fomenko (ISBN 2913921023).
Rating:
Summary: Christians are sad
Review: This is a great book but it makes Christians sad because it punches holes in their pagan religion.
I wish all Christians would read this book as their hostile reviews make me glad I gave up religion for lent. I do feel sorry for Christians who read this book as they must be shocked that they live in a Matrix and most of them don't even know it. All religions are like drugs if you put either inside your head you are going to get wierd.
I try to be kind and agree with them as few people can win a debate with a person on drugs; and why bother. Why do you think they call it dope???
Rating:
Summary: All The Stars in Heaven
Review: Some moron who writes about a dozen reviews a day has dissed this book. Obviously, he didn't count on me coming to it's defense! This book does quite a thorough job of dismantling Chrisinanity, and backs up all its claims with painstaking research. After finishing this book, there can be no doubt that it is 100% true in every particular.
Rating: 
Summary: A hate text that pretends to expose hate
Review: This book claims that Christianity is the worst of all evils, that the church creates 'sexism' and 'racism' and all the other 'isms' one can think of. Unfortunately this book is the one that is intolerant, intolerant of Christians. Rather then giving Christianity credit for creating a homogenous Europe where people like Darwin, Newton and Marx and Locke could create their wonderful ideas of science this book accuses Christianity of suppressing everyone from Africans to women and maybe even pets. But lest we forget that it is in the Christian countries of the world where women have the most rights, where minority rights are protected and where religious rights are protected. Everywhere else in the world, in non-Christian countries, free speech is frequently illegal and religions are suppressed. All one has to do is compare America, a Christian nation, to Saudi Arabia and one cans see the difference between Christian influence and other religions. And it is undoubtedly true that pets are treated better in Christian Europe then in most parts of the world where pets are eaten for lunch or kept outside. This books amounts to nothing more then religious hatred convincing its readers to hate Christians and the Christian faith. Yet this text ignores the truth. This book ignores that no Christian church anywhere preaches hate or intolerance or racism while many other faiths do actually preach such doctrines. The book says that it was Christianity that destroyed art work. While true of Christianity in the 1400s, it was actually Christian nations that created the renaissance in the 1500s, where the Pope himself employed artists like Michelangelo. It was also in 'evil' Christian Europe where Darwin and Newton began toe experiment with natures laws, and Pavlov raised his dogs and the mad monk cultivated his plants that led to the discovery of genes and heredity. SO this book is simply one long diatribe of the worst side of Christianity, like the Spanish in Aztec lands, whereas it ignores the noble, good and peaceful deeds of the Christian faith. Seth J. Frantzman
Rating:
Summary: Not a History of Christianity.
Review: The Dark Side of Christian History is a dark creation of a pseudo-historical Christianity whose purpose is to shame the devout into silence and provide the myth for bigotry against Christians. For example Orthodox Christians (an ill defined term) foster sexism, racism, intolerance, destruction of the natural environment, disregards human freedom, dignity and self determination. They are the cause of human alienation from other humans, God and nature. They punish dissent; have wiped out education, technology, science, medicine, history, art and commerce. They have attacked Muslims and Jews. The only mentioned purpose of the crusades was to subdue dissent. The Orthodox changed all the holidays from being nature centered to commemorating biblical events. They have no concern for human rights and love intolerance. Their belief is built not upon love and support but upon fear and hierarchy. Blind faith is more important than understanding. Most of this nonsense, according to Ellerbe, is the logical result of believing in a single monotheistic god. Orthodox Christians revised (doctored) scripture, and used politicically expedient means to allow them to control and manage large numbers of people. The Church had a devastating impact upon society Ellerbe claims. The Church is responsible for the Dark Ages in Ellerbe's view. The Orthodox caused the Black Death and killed people by "bleeding" them, the invention of male Christian doctors. If only they had listened to the wise women, the crones with their herb baskets, we wouldn't have had any of those plagues. Ellerbe assures us that Orthodox Christians are a dirty lot, who do not use personal hygiene or wash their hands a point made several times through out the book. Toilets and indoor plumbing disappeared due to the influence of Orthodox Christians! We are left wondering where they went to the bathroom. Of course this caused disease and plagues, directly attributed to Christian influence according to Ellerbe. Ellerbe also leaves the reader with the impression Orthodox Christians burned all the libraries down, destroyed all the books and closed all the schools. Orthodox Christians supposedly opposed the study of grammar and Latin. If this is not enough, Christians hated the arts and had devastating impact upon artistic expression. Ellerbe tells us, the Crusades were a means of uniting much of Europe in the name of Christianity and in doing this they massacred both Muslims and Jews without cause. Ellerbe blames slavery in the world on the Church. The portrayal of witch hunts is another example of Ellerbe's disinformation. Ellerbe claims witch hunts were a devastating blow and the foulest event in western Civilization. Ellerbe represents the accusations of witchcraft as coming from male clergy of a powerful male dominated Church. She also leads us to believe these were goddess worshiping witches. In the end she ends up with a mean spirited prejudiced characterization of Christianity, almost devoid of truth. Ellerbe's book fails to live up to its claim to be a history of Christianity in any sense of the word. This isn't the history they didn't want you to know about, it is a history that never existed. Christians did not cause the plagues that ran over Europe. Those same plagues overran much of the world where no Christian was present. Need we point out plagues are diseases that know no religion? As for Christian hygiene Ellerbe does not tell us if pagan, goddess worshipers used toilets in Neolithic times. She does not tell us how herbs or wise women could have stopped the black plague or small pox either. She does claim Christians caused it. Given the history of Christian religious art, it is amazing Ellerbe seems unaware of it or how she can claim Christians hate the arts. She also seems to be ignorant of the religious source of many of the universities and centers of learning started by the Church. She seems to be totally ignorant of the important role of the transmission of most of classical learning, including the languages by the Church. Ellerbe's knowledge is deficient in constructing her representation of the Crusades. She seems clueless in representing the reasons and causes of the Crusades. She is equally clueless on issues of slavery. Slavery flourished long before Christianity and in parts of the world that knew no Christian influence and in numbers far exceeding anything Christians were ever involved in. The portrayal of the witch hunts is also lacking in historical accuracy. Pagan scholars place those dying from witch trials at thirteen to twenty three thousand. These numbers are taken from the actual trials themselves. The largest numbers who died came from areas where the Church was weakest and about a fourth of those were men. Ellerbe uses her mythic persecution history to incite and intensify people's hatred of Christians. Ellerbe claims that Christians changed the holidays from nature to Christian festivals. Historian Ronald Hutton notes in his book "Stations of the Sun," that almost every holiday finds its first mention in Christian sources, not pagan. Ellerbe's representations of the holidays lack any historical verification and are fanciful constructs. Christians deny that God is far away, removed from the earth and hearts of people. Ellerbe seems to not understand the relationship between transcendence and immanence in Christian theology. God is both without and within. From this she leaps to numerous false conclusions concerning Christian belief. Ellerbe's book is a sieve where she skims bits and pieces from here and there to construct her dark pseudo images.
Rating:
Summary: This book while technically 'true' is misleading
Review: By just seeing the summary I can see that this book has it's facts crooked. While the autrocities mentioned in this book are all true, virtually all of them were commited by the Roman Catholic Church, which also (not sure if it is mentioned in this book) murdered people for "heretical crimes" such as translating the Bible into English. (whatever happened to Jesus' command to love our enemies?) The Catholic church doctrine to this day still contradicts the Bible. Despite ALL alledged self-contradictions of the Bible explained through poor translations, (NIV is the worst) not taking note of the difference between between 'then'(chronological order) and 'and'(not chronological order), not looking at additional meanings of particular words. Furthermore Christianity predates the founding of the Roman Catholic church by centuries. The term 'Catholic' means 'universal' True Roman Catholicism was founded by Constantine, when Rome became converted, to gain favor with the pagans, his version of Christianity had many pagan elements in it and still does. My opinion, the Roman Catholic Church is not anywhere close to Biblical Christianity. When was the last time you heard of Hutterites, Amish or Mennonites killing anyone?
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