The Skeptic's Annotated Bible


Book Description

The King James Version of the bible presented from a skeptic's point of view, with 13 highlighted categories:1. Absurdity2. Injustice3. Cruelty4. Intolerance5. Good Stuff6. Contradictions7. Interpretation8. Misogyny9. Sex10. Prophecy11. Language12. Politics13. Homosexuality




Drunk with Blood


Book Description

Completely Revised Second Edition with 23 new killings from the Apocrypha. Drunk With Blood includes a separate account for each of God's 158 killings. These stories fill the pages of the Bible, yet they are seldom read in church and are ignored by most Bible believers, which is a shame because God is so proud of his killings: "I kill ... I wound ... I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh." Deuteronomy 32:39-42 You've probably hear of a few of God's killings. Noah's Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, David and Goliath, maybe. But there are over 150 others that are unknown to pretty much everyone, believer and nonbeliever alike. Did you know, for example, that God: *Forced friends and family to kill each other for dancing naked around Aaron's golden calf? *Burned Aaron's sons to death for offering him strange fire? *Burned complainers to death, forced the survivors to eat quail until it literally came out their noses, sent "fiery serpents" to bite people for complaining about the lack of food and water, and killed 14,700 for complaining about his killings? *Buried alive those that opposed Moses (along with their families)? *Burned 250 men to death for burning incense? *Rewarded Phinehas for throwing a spear though the bellies of an inter-tribal couple while they were having sex? *Ordered, assisted in, or approved of dozens of complete genocides? *Accepted human sacrifice in the cases of Jephthah's daughter and Saul's seven sons? *Helped Samson murder thirty men for their clothes, slaughter 1000 with the jawbone of an ass, and kill 3000 civilians in a a suicide terrorist attack? *Smote the Philistines of several cities with hemorrhoids in their secret parts? *Killed a man for trying to keep the ark of the covenant from falling and 50,070 for looking into the ark? *Approved when David bought his first wife with 200 Philistine foreskins? *Killed King Saul for not killing every Amalekite as he told him to do? *Slowly killed a baby to punish King David for committing adultery? *Killed 70,000 because David had a census that he (or Satan) told him to do? *Sent a lion to kill a prophet for believing another prophet's lie, another lion to kill a man for not smiting a prophet, and some more lions to kill people that didn't fear him enough? *Killed 450 religious leaders who lost a prayer contest with Elijah and burned 102 men to death for asking Elijah to come down from his hill? *Sent two bears to rip apart 42 boys for making fun of Elisha's bald head? *Killed 27,000 Syrians by having a wall fall on them, sent an angel to kill 185,000 sleeping soldiers, interfered in human battles to kill a half million Israelite and a million Ethiopian soldiers? *Killed King Ahab for not killing a captured king, and then sent King Jehu on a series of mass murders to kill all of Ahab's family and friends who had ever "pissed against a wall?" *Killed Jehoram by making his bowels fall out? *Killed Job's ten children in a bet with Satan? *Killed Ezekiel's wife and told him not to mourn her? *Killed Ananias and Sapphira for not giving Peter all their money? *Killed King Herod by feeding him to worms? All of these killings, and more, are found in the Bible, and their stories are told in the 2nd Edition of Drunk With Blood.




The Born Again Skeptic's Guide to the Bible


Book Description

A mockery of the Bible and Christianity.




Man Jesus Loved


Book Description

Homosexuality has been at the forefront of debate in the church for the last quarter-century, with Biblical interpretation at the heart of this debate. Some biblical passages appear to condemn certain same-sex relationships or erotic practices, resulting in a challenge to clergy as well as laity regarding the preaching and understanding of these Biblical passages. In "The Man Jesus Loved," Jennings proposes a gay-affirmative reading of the Bible in the hope of respecting the integrity of these texts and making them more clear as well as persuasive. This reading suggests that the exclusion of persons on the basis of their sexual orientation or same-sex practices fundamentally distorts the Bible generally and the traditions concerning Jesus in particular.




King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice


Book Description

The Hebrew Bible portrays King Manasseh and child sacrifice as the most reprehensible person and the most objectionable practice within the story of 'Israel'. This monograph suggests that historically, neither were as deviant as the Hebrew Bible appears to insist. Through careful historical reconstruction, it is argued that Manasseh was one of Judah's most successful monarchs, and child sacrifice played a central role in ancient Judahite religious practice. The biblical writers, motivated by ideological concerns, have thus deliberately distorted the truth about Manasseh and child sacrifice.




Why I Believed


Book Description

Part auto-biography and part exposé of Ken Daniels' experience and long time belief in Christianity and the questions and answers he's had to ask about with regard to the validity of Christian theories.




A Skeptic's Guide to Faith


Book Description

Examines the apparent contradictions in the world and explains how the invisible, natural, and supernatural worlds might interact and affect people's daily lives.




Skeptic


Book Description

Collected essays from bestselling author Michael Shermer's celebrated columns in Scientific American For fifteen years, bestselling author Michael Shermer has written a column in Scientific American magazine that synthesizes scientific concepts and theory for a general audience. His trademark combination of deep scientific understanding and entertaining writing style has thrilled his huge and devoted audience for years. Now, in Skeptic, seventy-five of these columns are available together for the first time; a welcome addition for his fans and a stimulating introduction for new readers.




From Jesus to Christianity


Book Description

L. Michael White, one of the world’s foremost scholars on the origins of Christianity, provides the complete, astonishing story of how Christianity grew from the personal vision of a humble Jewish peasant living in a remote province of the Roman Empire into the largest organized religion in the world. Rather than reading the New Testament straight through in its traditional, or “canonical” order, From Jesus to Christianity takes a historical approach. Looking at the individual books chronologically, in the sequence in which they were actually written, readers can see what they divulge about the disagreements, shared values, and unifying mission of the earliest Christian communities. White digs through layers of archaeological excavations, sifts through buried fragments of largely unknown texts, and examines historical sources to discover what we can know of Jesus.




English Romantic Irony


Book Description

Anne Mellor here offers the conceptual framework for a better understanding of the Romantic writers. Her penetrating study yields new interpretations of Byron, Keats, Carlyle, and Coleridge. The Romantics have been seen as expressing a secularized version of a divinely ordered universe. Mellor emphasizes another strain in Romanicism, one linked to the philosophical skepticism and social turbulence of the age: a conception of the universe as random motion, as a fertile chaos that always throws up new forms.