Customer Reviews

The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

This is a book that must be read with an open mind. Those with hard-core beliefs will not like this book. They will not give it the proper thought. The book focuses on Christianity, probably because it is the most popular religion today, and only touches on most other religions. That is the reason I could not bring myself to award a five star review. But the author's points are worth considering for an open minded person.

The book reviews letters and speeches by some of the founding fathers including Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. it touches on the native American with a review of the words of Chief Seattle. Talks on the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Essenes and Mithra releigons. It follows the history of the English Bible and the changes, reprints and revisions that have befell it. The history of many of the stories in the Bible, how they existed before Christianity, the parallels in beliefs of Christianity and other religions that existed prior to it. The customs around The Last Supper as well as the contradictions between the four gospels.

A good read for those interested in the true origins of religion and what man believed before the religions of today. This book should be read as one of many on the subject but no thorough research on the subject should leave this book out. Read it with an open mind and think on it.

I found "The Book" very informative on contemporary issues such as women, religion and politics, religious persecution, etc. However, the over-biased nature of the critiques in some of the articles lessens its creditability. Several of the historical essays abound with fallacies and misinformation. The strength of the book lies in its attack on Christian fundamentalism. The fact is that historically, Christianity has been the enemy of freethought and intellectualism. Most Christians are not encouraged to examine their scriptures critically but to accept what they don't undertand "on faith." It provides convincing arguments to show that the Bible is not the moral yardstick that Christians proclaim it to be. For example, it deals with savagery of Yahweh's Laws and commands, and looks critically at the New Testament's teachings. Many of writers of are very well-respected in their fields such as Robert Eisenman, known for his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Overall, this is a pretty good buy and it makes for interesting reading. I think that it belongs on the bookshelf of every Christian home. Though some of the material is a bit sketchy, it will make the serious Christian reexamine his faith in light of the many complex issues--from ancient to contemporary--that have to addressed.

i have read this book twice and i find it fascinating, as it shows concepts of religion from many perspectives. those with narrow viewpoints, tunnel vision, or have staunch beliefs should not read this book nor should they feel the need to acid-tonguedly review it. by lashing out irrationally, the book's authors are only being proven more. this book is meant to open the doors of the mind, not lock up the already closed ones.

This book was very informative. Although some of the sections seem to scatter a bit, it hit right on the nose. After reading the reviews, I am quite interested in what many religious people have to say. I left the Christian faith 6 years ago and in doing so really began to see the true colors of the so-called "christians". I am in no way suggesting that all Christians are hypocrites and attack those who do not believe as they do, but from personal experience, it is hard not to think that way. The book hit on some key points and made people angry because much of was true. People are afraid of anything that is true especially in religion because that is what many base their whole lives and thoughts around. Hats off to The Book for its brave and informative looks at christianity and its history.

The book contains an excellent assortment of contemporary and historical freethought writings organized into broad categories, including Fundamentalism, Church & Society, and even Dead Sea Scrolls. The book's impact suffers, however, from the poor copy-editing and composition. In particular, I stumbled over a profusion of typo's, poorly reproduced and sometimes crude illustrations, and occasionally slap-dash page design. The editors should better identify the author of each piece and the date it was written, and the source and date of each quotation. The threat to the United States from religious fundamentalism has grown and metastasized since this book appeared in 1993, so perhaps a revised and expanded edition is in order.

This is a great book that exposes religion, and in particular, Christianty for what it truly is, which is a 2000+ year old fraud that has been perpetuated by the church at all cost. This is just one of many books that tells the truth and facts about the Christian religion. So the information is out there if a
person really desires to know the truth concerning his church and all churches. I have been on both sides of the fence, so to speak, as I was a Christian for nearly 30 years before I woke up to the truth. Sure, it was not easy to dump a life-time of false
theology, however, I'm glad that I'm totally free of the organized relgion that used to run my life. The christian church needs to be exposed for what it really is, as its been a
horrible scam to millions of victims so in this regard, all Christians should own a copy of this book, although most of them
are way to close minded to even read it. I would highly recommend "THE BIBLE FRAUD" By Tony Bushby as well.

This anthology of writings by religious scholars documents the fact that Christianity has its roots in ancient astrological sun worship (son worship) religions. It is a documented historical fact, not disputed by any legitimate scholar of ancient history, that in the thousands of years that preceded the story of Christ, there have been numerous "saviors" who were born on December 25th to virgin mothers, were proclaimed to be the "Son of God", and were crucified, only to be raised from the dead on March 25th. For example, the Egyptian god Horus was the "Good Shepherd", the "way the truth and the light", the "krst" (the Christ), was baptised at age 30, was a child teacher in the temple, had his birth marked by a star, had 12 disciples, and was tempted on the mountain by a demonic figure. The eastern god Virishna's birth to a virgin mother fulfilled an ancient prophecy, and the ruler of that time killed all male children under the age of two in an attempt to kill him. At his birth, he was given gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. He was worshipped as the savior of man, led a humble life performing miracles such as raising the dead. He was put to death on the cross between two thieves, only to rise from the dead and ascend to heaven. Then there is Mithra, Tammuz, Quetzalcoatl, .....well, you get the picture.

The astrological connections in Christianity are inescapable. The winter solstice, which occurs on December 21/22, is the low point of the sun in its yearly cycle, when the ancients believed it "died", only to be "born again" three days later (December 25th). At the spring equinox (March 21/22), life is "resurrected" (in plants and trees), and again takes three days for this process to be symbolically completed (March 25th, Easter). Since the sun was all powerful for the ancients, giving warmth and life, human and animal sacrifices were made to the their "God", just as in the Old Testament. Astrological tables and horoscopes were found next to the Dead Sea Scrolls in cave No. 4, and the Essenes, who authored the Scrolls were very much into astrology.

Over 40 authors chronicled history at the place and time (including the century after) Jesus was reputed to have lived, and none of them (outside of the Bible) ever mentioned his name with the exception of one paragraph in Josephus'work of 20 volumes which has since been shown to be a forgery. Likewise, there has never been any shred of archeological evidence that Jesus ever existed.

Perhaps most damaging of all, Christians are asked to "judge a tree by the fruit it bears", and Christianity has been responsible for more murder, torture, wars, inquisitions, hatred, intolerance, destruction of native cultures and priceless historical records (the burning of the library at Alexandria) than all other philosophies and religions in the history of the world combined.

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Anyone who has ever taken the time to evaluate the Christian religion is aware of the absurdities underlying its primary claims. But it has always required a great deal of reading to gain some background on the historical underpinnings of the religion. In this book Leedom has gathered together articles on a wide range of subjects that attack the shaky foundation of Christian mythology.

From Graves' "Sixteen Crucified Saviors" to Thomas Paine's delightfully rational analyses of Christian irrationality, this book is a wonderful read. The Remsburg excerpt on the lack of any historical record for Jesus is worth the price of the book alone (although you might also want to purchase the two Remsburg books: "The Christ" and "The Bible").

This book is not an attack on Christianity. Instead it is a well thought out and full history of the Church itself, warts and all. Discussed within it is the validity of the Church's claim to be the only bearer of the Word of God, along with the interesting parallels between the other 16 crucified "saviours" in world myth. It questions, also, the Bible's status within the Church as the true story of Christ. If you want a real discussion on whether it is the earth bound Church or God that holds the key to your soul, read this book. There's a lot more too it than the faith bashing some Christians might have you believe!

Only Christians who "believe" despite the inconsistencies and contradictions of the bible will think this book "Funny". The fact is, Christianity is a remake of Egyptian Myths. Isis the single mother giving birth to Horus of which Mary and Jesus is the remake. The fact that Egyptian Religion always puts the gods in a trinity and then the father, son, holy ghost trinity of the roman catholic church. The fact that Jesus had many disciples but the 12 represent the 12 astrological signs. The whole bible is full of Astro-theology. And just because one believes that Jesus walked on water, or that Passover resulted in the death of all the first born of Egypt doesn't mean that is what happened. Christians who cannot differentiate from the myths that abound in their religion and that were adapted and incorporated from other civilizations and religions and try to make them real by simple belief are deluding themselves.