Voice of Reason

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Review of More Than a Carpenter (Reader’s Review)

For those of you who wish to know, this is my first review. I usually give very critical reviews of nonfiction type novels (especially those that contend that the Christian Faith is true). I thought I would give a little bit of background on me regards to who I am and what I believe

Background and Beliefs

I spent many years of my early life from the age of 9 through 14 studying and learning about Mythology, Computer Hardware, Computer Programming, etc. I always had an interest in the subject of Ancient Theology and Mythology at the time so I mainly had most of my studying in those fields. I was a Christian for quite some time and during that time I studied Nordic, Celtic, Hellenistic and even Egyptian Mythology. I learned much about the ancient god’s, demigods and mythological heroes.

During my study I had found an interesting fact that many of the God’s and demigods I studied had attributes and general characteristics that mirrored Jesus. I didn’t think too much of it until I decided I would study my own religious history in regards to it all. What I found was staggering; I found out that the Christian faith was established on such a rocky position. The history of defacing and destruction of ancient pagan literature that contradicted Christian thought and theology, the burning of pagan detractors and the torture of non-believers so as to garner religious converts was too much for me to bear in regards to what my own religious has done to others. I concluded that that it was quite possible that many of these similarities I was seeing in other god’s and demigods were not just coincident but they were possibly deliberate.

I wanted to see what other early church father’s thought of these similarities. Oddly enough however the writing’s of Justin Martyr and Tertullian were the prime cause of my deconversion over to Atheism.

That is mainly my background regarding to my knowledge of early Christian History, now for my stance of Atheism.

In the current age I have no read many of the famous Atheist literature today as I possibly should have such as Richard Dawkins The God Delusion and Darrel Ray’s The God Virus. It might be a reason why I am not a militant Atheist preaching out that “there is no god.” To me such stances are very illogical and seem to bear the burden of proof upon those who make such declarations and claims (even though in reality it doesn’t but that is another story).

I am more of an Agnostic-Atheist. For anyone confused at this point allow me to take a statement from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to clarify such things:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism… I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest. They were essentially finite beings, and the god of one tribe or collection of tribes was regarded as good in that it enabled victory in war against tribes with less powerful gods. Similarly the Greek and Roman gods were more like mythical heroes and heroines than like the omnipotent, omniscient and good God postulated in mediaeval and modern philosophy. As the Romans used the word, ‘atheist’ could be used to refer to theists of another religion, notably the Christians, and so merely to signify disbelief in their own mythical heroes.

Huxley thought that as many of these people liked to describe themselves as adherents of various ‘isms’ he would invent one for himself. He took it from a description in Acts 17:23 of an altar inscribed “to an unknown God”. Huxley thought that we would never be able to know about the ultimate origin and causes of the universe… ‘Agnostic’ is more contextual than is ‘atheist’, as it can be used in a non-theological way, as when a cosmologist might say that she is agnostic about string theory, neither believing nor disbelieving it.[1]

That being said Agnostic-Atheism follows several presuppositions being:

1. The knowledge of god being unknown but not necessarily unknowable.

2. The knowledge of god is unknown and is therefore unknowable.

3. The knowledge of god is unknown and is unknowable within the claims of theists but is not unknowable.

4. The knowledge of god us unknown and is unknowable within the claims of theists along with the lack of evidence of god being unknown shows that god is unknowable.

All of these definitions are mainly agnostic but the point of these is that these describe the knowledge of god being unknowable or unknown for different reasons. However it is used more or less as a philosophical modifier as is indicated by the above definition.

Now as for my position of being an Agnostic-Atheist, I would hold the third definition of “the knowledge of god is unknown and is unknowable within the claims of theists but is not unknowable,” and thus I lack a belief in a god (Atheist).

Inconsistencies and Dishonesty

During the beginning of the book with the chapter entitled My Story tells the story of how Josh McDowell began his conversion story. During my time reading his conversion story there were several points of which I had to take a step back and laugh a bit. An example would be of where he describes a Christian girl he talked to and stated that he “used to think all Christians are ugly”[2] when he was describing talking to a group of Christians when he turned to what he describes as “a good-looking woman.” For some reason this just screams to me that Josh thinks that that is how all Atheists think and by giving this he might get a reaction like “Hey! That is what I think!” It would appear to me that from both the beginning chapter and the end chapter entitled He Changed My Life that McDowell seems it convincing that giving a series of anecdote’s would be enough to convince those of the skeptic community.

One thing I did notice however was that there were particularly other logical fallacies found in chapter entitled The Challenge of the New Atheism:

There have always been people who deny the existence of God, and there probably always will be. While atheists have often been vocal about their beliefs… The goal of the New Atheists is simple: to eradicate any rational grounds for religious belief and to persuade theists to walk away from their faith… the New Atheism is less costly, Atheists of the past were well aware of the consequences of denying God. They realized that without God we inhabit a cold, dark, pointless universe. Many older atheists mourned the death of God meant the loss of purpose, joy, and everything that makes life worth living. By contrast, the New Atheists actually celebrate the death of God. They think life can continue as normal (and even improve) if we simply abolish religion… They believe that not only is religion man-made, but that it poisons everything and therefore needs to be eliminated.[3]

While I myself have not read the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens; I know that their goal is not “to eradicate any rational grounds for religious belief” or “to persuade theists to walk away from their faith,” but to really get them to start thinking that a life without God is not “cold, dark and pointless” but is actually no different from them (minus the idea that you will be judged if you do not believe enough).

Sean McDowell on the hand simply does not understand this and seems to think that the best way to deal with what he calls “New Atheists” is to simply strawman their position.

Also the very idea that atheists are “denying God” is absurd. You do not deny that which you do not believe in; it is like saying that “my not collecting stamps is a hobby.” You don’t categorize a lack of belief as a belief in and of itself. But this is exactly what Sean is doing by saying that atheists are “denying God.” It is not just inconsistent; it is very dishonest especially since his father supposedly was an atheist to begin with.

It is also really an appeal to emotion as Sean himself states that “the death of God meant the loss of purpose, joy and everything that makes life worth living” along with the other statement that “without God we inhabit a cold, dark, pointless universe.” This in and of itself tries to paint atheists as if they are living without meaning and they are constantly sad and very unhappy throughout their life because they do not believe in God.

I myself am happy with my life and the only times I am unhappy is due to events that come about throughout my life; like being in an economic bind and whatnot. None of my unhappiness was due to the idea that God is not in my life. Many atheists will in fact agree with me on this point alone and they might even express similar ideas. However that being said, I doubt that there is a survey if you would of atheists who unhappy because god is not in their life. If there is a survey in existence however I am willing to bet it might even the opposite.

The strawman in and of itself is not the only logical fallacy I saw, it is also the advent of the dishonest, malevolent and all too familiar quote mine:

Hence Bill Gates likens DNA to a computer program, though far more advanced than any software humans have invented.[4]

The first time I was aware of this quote mine was by thunderf00t’s video series called Why do people laugh at creationists?[5] According to the notes, Sean does take it from the same source:

We have all had teachers who made a difference. I had a great chemistry in high school who made his subject immensely interesting. Chemistry seemed enthralling compared to biology. In biology, we were dissecting frogs - just hacking them to pieces, actually – and our teacher didn’t explain why. My chemistry teacher sensationalized his subject a bit and promised that it would help us understand the world. When I was in my twenties, I read James D. Watson’s “Molecular Biology of the Gene” and decided my high school experience had misled me. The understanding of life is a great subject. Biological information is the most important information we can discover, because over the next several decades it will revolutionize medicine. Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created. It seems amazing to me now that one great teacher made chemistry endlessly fascinating while I found biology totally boring.[6]

Just like thunderf00t says “Gates is comparing how boring his biology made the subject compared to his chemistry teacher and the importance of having inspiring teachers.” This quote mining is very indicative that both Sean and Josh are very serious in their advent of trying to convince people that the Christian is true. Not only that, but it also shows the amount of dishonesty within the context of actively quote mining and gives me very much a means not to take much of what either Sean or his father has to say on the subject.

At this point many people might say that perhaps Sean didn’t know it was a quote mine, that he obviously quoted it from someone else. If that is the case then why does he put several people whom he quotes from the works of others such as W. Graham and Paul Davies within the notes? This very fact makes me very weary of accepting most, if any of the quotes provided in the book itself.

But that was not the only problem with this book, after the quote mining of Bill Gates, Sean gives a section called Fine-tuning the universe which in and of itself is the Teleological Argument. The very idea that the universe is fined tuned or looks fine tuned is in and of itself an appeal to ignorance. The example he gave was coming upon a cabin and finding a refrigerator full of the persons favorite food, the temperature is set as one likes it, favorite song is playing and all the favorite books, magazines and DVDs are there.[7] He gave this as being the very same as our own universe where he says “this is why British astronomer Fred Hoyle remarked, “A commonsense interpretation of the facts suggest that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blond forces worth speaking about in nature.”

This in and of itself is partially true in certain manners; being that this is the nature of Chaos Theory Mathematics. However to say that because of these things God exist, for the same reason we do not assume God keeps us grounded to earth because we cannot fly (without the usage of technology). Of course this in and of itself was at the heart of some of the fundamentalist belief of Christianity from the time of Galileo all the way to Newton.

The example given however was that of gravity:

If the law of gravity varied just slightly, the universe would not be habitable for life. In relations to the forces in nature, gravity must be fine-tuned to one part in 10⁴⁰.[8]

The idea that gravity must be fine-tuned along with giving a statement by Stephen Hawking (possibly a quote mine as well but unsure of it) that supports his statement is in and of itself a form of ignorance. Any event that has happened in the past is of a probability of one to one. It has already happened, there is no point in postulating what would have happened if this did not actually occur this way but instead it occurred that way; the very fact that it has already happened show in and of itself that it has. Now you can postulate that a god, deity or a creator that caused these things to happen, but it has no scientific application and no scientific merit.

If Sean McDowell does believe that God is scientifically provable and can be proven to have interacted within the universe in past times then by all means, he is welcomed to put forth his data and scientific research where it can and will be peer reviewed and be taken into consideration. If he can do this, he will be the very first to revolutionize our scientific knowledge and will be hailed with a Nobel prized and awards being showered his way from the scientific community and perhaps those of the theological community worldwide. So my question to Sean McDowell would be, “What are you waiting for?”

In another chapter (this one written by Josh McDowell) called Are the Bible Records Reliable, McDowell gives evidence of a fragment of The Gospel according to John called by many as p⁵² in the dating of this he gives is 130 AD.[9] This very idea that the date for p⁵² has even been set matter of carbon dating is completely wrong. First off there is no contemporary Scholar who even knows what the dating for p⁵² really is. There are varying notions as to what the dating is. There are scholar’s who agree that the dating is at 130CE, but there are others that state that it might even be between 130-150CE, while there are even those who have suggested a later date for it being 175-225CE being in the grounds that the first early reference to all four gospels clearly being named was by Irenaeus. So to give this date is in and of itself another form of dishonesty. If people wish to know of what I mean there is a particular article published in the Harvard Theological Review in January 2005 entitled The Use and Abuse of p⁵²: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospels.

Another point of complete and utter dishonesty on the point of Josh McDowell must be in regards to his notion that “Because of the book’s accuracy even on the minutest details, Ramsay finally conceded that Acts could not be a second-century but belonged to the mid-first century.”[10] What is interesting about this idea is that all he gives is an anecdotal story about how William Ramsay detracted his notion about the Book of Acts when doing research about Asia Minor, but the very fact that he describes this particular scholar as “one of the greatest archaeologists ever to have lived”[11] shows that he is giving an argument from authority which is a logical fallacy. But what is worse than that is that Acts is not as reliable as many people might think. There are multiple different accounts of the Apostle’s deaths/martyr’s ranging from variations in place, time and even way. Likewise there are three different accounts of Paul’s conversion to Christianity. This idea that Acts is accurate about everything it says is completely dishonest and shows a lack of credibility upon the author in and of itself.

What are my overall thoughts?

My overall thought’s on the book in and of itself is that it gave me headache and for those you who read this review think I am kidding I am actually not. It was not one of those migrating awful headaches where it hurts to even hear things. But it was one of those just noticeable headaches. The very fact that I got a headache out of a 168 page book is not a good thing even. That is the simplest way I can describe the book, it gave me a literal headache.

My in-depth thoughts of the book is that it is very inconsistent, filled with logical fallacy at every page turn, giving rise to dishonest tactics and even outright quote mines to begin with. The appeal to authorities, appeal’s to emotion, the anecdotal evidences at every turn given, along with the notable quote mines make me wish I had never wasted money on this book. Within of consistency the book fails, in regards to being logical it fails, the premise of it being honest it fails and finally most of all, of it doing the job of converting me from being an Agnostic-Atheist to a Christian it utterly fails. So for the skeptic wanting to be convinced of a god, deity or the “truth of Christianity,” my word of advice is simple: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!

[1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z55oWS5vaUM

Monday, February 8, 2010

Banishing the Demons of Ignorance: Eric Brame’s Ignorance of Gerald Massey

By Devan Evans

Hi, Voice of Reason here; on February 5, 2010 YouTube user ChristianScholarship posted a video entitled Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present. The video is essentially filled with slanderous accusations of a long dead famous poet and Egyptologist. The so-called research that ChristianScholarship has essentially done is taken the already debunked statements made by Keith Thompson in his blog article entitled Critique of Acharya S’ Sun Thesis. These accusations have already been dealt with, yet the statements still persist. Perhaps this will finally be the end of the slandering of a man dead for over a hundred years!

Let us go ahead and investigate what ChristianScholarship has to actually say shall we?

The purpose of this article will be to detail the Theosophic life of Gerald Massey and to present a case which will argue for his influence; which lead to modern witchcraft and later New Age Movements[1]

It is really hard to imagine that Gerald Massey could have any influence on a movement which derives their beliefs from Eastern Indian and Asian philosophical systems such as reincarnation, Monism, Pantheism, etc… beliefs that stem back thousands if not tens of thousands of years before Gerald Massey’s Great Grandfather was even conceived. But let’s see what else ChristianScholarship has to say on the matter shall we?

Gerald Massey was a practicing chief Druid, a self proclaimed Egyptologist and a supporter of Helena Blavatsky.[2]

All statements of which are completely wrong and can only take about twenty-five to forty-five minutes using Google to figure it out. To verify this I contacted the Upper Norwood Joint Library which houses the world’s greatest collection of writings by Gerald Massey which is entitled The Gerald Massey Collection about his involvement with the Most Ancient Order of Druids. They contacted me back with a forwarded e-mail from David Shaw whom of which they state in their own words “can be considered the foremost authority on Massey.”

The position so far as I can ascertain was purely an Honorarium, and required little, if any, work for the Order. He would not have become an actual member of the Druid Order as such, as he was not in favour of ritual.[3]

As one can see from the statement given by David Shaw that not only was Gerald Massey’s position honorary, but he also did not actually favor in the partaking of Rituals. So it would appear that not only is Eric ignorant of the fact just mentioned but he also seems to be poorly equipped for adequate research.

Now the statement about Massey being a supporter of Helena Blavatsky is also poorly researched as well. To demonstrate this, in a letter regarding Gerald Massey; H. P. Blavatsky (that is the same H. P. Blavatsky that according to you Gerald Massey was a supporter of) wrote:

MY DEAR MR. MASSEY,—My respected Guru in Egyptology, your correspondent is, for once (?), and yourself too, at sea, in your conjectures… I quote you constantly, and, for me, you are the only man in Europe and America who understands that symbolism correctly… You differ from us in several important points, such as not accepting the Avatars, or the spirit, of Christos, Buddha, Krishna, (rather Vishnu), & otherwise than as purely subjective manifestations… We, too, claim that our interpretations are 'derived from the facts themselves,' and are not the outcome of our 'own theoretic speculation…' You have laborously acquired it by personal research and thought; you are self-initiate in the Mysteries—of the British Museum; and [have] extracted the essence and the marrow of Esotericism out of the dead letter of Egyptian papyri, and under the conceited nose of Egyptologists, who see no deeper than the surface… And, lastly, forgive me my pigeon-English in favour of my sincerity.— Yours in truth, H. P. B.[4]

This seems pretty much to me to be a letter of absolute praise from the woman herself. However Gerald Massey is less than courteous to her appraisal as in response to the letter Massey writes:

And yet in one of the "Lectures," that on "The Seven Souls," I had written of Theosophy, or "Esoteric Buddhism," as it was then called, as follows:—They are blind guides who seek to set up the past as superior to the present, because they may have a little more than ordinary knowledge of some special phase of it! There were no other facts or faculties in nature for the Hindu Mahatmas or Egyptian Rekhi than there are for us, although they may have brooded for ages and ages over those of a supra-normal kind… Much of the wisdom of the past depends on its being held secret and esoteric—on being 'kept dark,' as we say. It is like the corals, that live while they are covered over and concealed in the waters, but die on reaching day! Moreover, it is a delusion to suppose there is anything in the experience or wisdom of the past, the ascertained results of which can only be communicated from beneath the cloak and mask of mystery, by a teacher who personates the unknown, accompanied by rites and ceremonies belonging to the pantomime and paraphernalia of the ancient medicine men. They are the cultivators of the mystery in which they seek to enshroud themselves, and live the other life as already dead men in this; whereas, we are seeking to explore and pluck out the heart of the mystery. Explanation is the soul of science. They will tell you we cannot have their knowledge without living their life. But we may not all retire into a solitude to live the existence of ecstatic dreamers. Personally, I do not want the knowledge for myself. These treasures I am in search of I need for others. I want to utilise both tongue and pen and printer's type; and, if there are secrets of the purer and profounder life, we cannot afford them to be kept secret; they ask to be made universally known. I do not want to find out that I am a god in my inner consciousness. I do not seek the eternal soul of self. I want the ignorant to know, the benighted to become enlightened, the abject and degraded to be raised and humanised; and would have all means to that end proclaimed world-wide, not patented for the individual few, and kept strictly private from the many. That is only a survival of priestcraft, under whatsoever name. I cannot join in the new masquerade and simulation of ancient mysteries manufactured in our time by Theosophists, Hermeneutists, pseudo-Esoterics, and Occultists of various orders, howsoever profound their pretensions. The very essence of all such mysteries as are got up from the refuse leavings of the past is pretence, imposition, and imposture. The only interest I take in the ancient mysteries is in ascertaining how they originated, in verifying their alleged phenomena, in knowing what they meant, on purpose to publish the knowledge as soon and as widely as possible. Public experimental research, the printing-press, and a Freethought platform have abolished the need of mystery. It is no longer necessary for Science to take the veil, as she was forced to do for security in times past.[5]

As one can see; Gerald Massey was not a supporter of Blavatsky based on this apparent scolding he gives her in response to the letter addressed to him. This essentially shows that your research, ChristianScholarship, is shotty, poorly done and taken from previous accusations, which have been debunked before and have been now.

Furthermore to put this statement of him being a practicing Druid to rest; a site which is dedicated to Gerald Massey states the following:

A misconception about Massey's religious beliefs stems from his connection with the Most Ancient Order of Druids to which he was elected Chosen Chief, an honorary position that he held from 1880 until 1906. The position might have involved some minor administrative duties, but it required no formal membership. To Massey, at least, it was not a religion and did not involve forms of initiation, ceremonial dress or attendance at active meetings at megalithic sites; indeed, Massey did not believe in such pagan ceremony and made his interest in the Druids plain.[6]

I hope these contentions and slanderous statements towards the freethinker Gerald Massey will finally cease… or not.

Akin to the Theosophist Helena Blavatsky was also a Luciferian. In his poem Lady of Light he states: With the Flame of flame of thy radiance, the clouds that are veiling, of a woman’s millennial mission, Lucifer Lady of Light![7]

Ah quote mining, the favorite ploy of the Fundamentalist Christian Conspiracy Theorist[8] to convince the gullible and uneducated that “it’s too coincidental that he says this, so therefore it must be a conspiracy!” The quote is actually taken from the book My Lyrical Life: Poems Old and New where Massey gives the following poetic statement:

STAR of the Day and the Night! Star of the Dark that is dying; Star of the Dawn that is nighing, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Still with the purest in white, still art thou Queen of the Seven; Thou hast not fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, Lady of Light! How large in thy lustre, how bright the beauty of promise thou wearest! The message of Morning thou bearest, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Aid us in putting to flight The Shadows that darken about us, Illumine within, as without, us, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Shine through the thick of our fight; Open the eyes of the sleeping; Dry up the tears of the weeping, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Purge with thy pureness our sight, Thou light of the lost ones who love us, Thou lamp of the Leader above us, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Shine with transfiguring might, till earth shall reflect back as human Thy Likeness, Celestial Woman, Lucifer, Lady of Light! With the flame of thy radiance smite the clouds that are veiling the vision Of Woman's millennial mission, Lucifer, Lady of Light! Shine in the Depth and the Height, and show us the treasuries olden Of Wisdom, the hidden, the golden, Lucifer, Lady of Light![9]

So what are the problems with this statement? Well according to ChristianScholarship we can say that Edgar Alan Poe worshipped the Grim Reaper simply by picking on a few words in his poem The Raven, playing on semantics and using old symbolism of how the native tribes once conveyed that the Raven was considered a symbol of death while ignoring all of the other cultures that used the very same animal for different meanings.

Also let us not forget that this is a poem we are talking about; which is clearly of the beauty of a woman in Massey’s life, like all other poetry in, before and after his time that usually speak about women. Furthermore I find it hard to believe that ChristianScholarship is actually a literary major as this is supposed to be one of the many subjects in which he has to have learned about. If he made this assessment of Massey’s poetic writing, he would have undoubtedly been given an F and be forced to do the course all over again.

Massey is cited in numerous instances throughout Zeitgeist: The Movie; this leaves the Zeitgeist Movement highly suspect, a major reason for this issue is that Massey cites very few sources. Scholastically this is equivalent to not using a source.[10]

This accusation is taken directly from Keith Thompson’s Critique of Acharya S’ Sun Thesis which quotes:

Gerald Massey was an Egypotoligist who didn't cite his sources regarding these issues properly. I read the citation and was not impressed. To use him as an "early" source for objective information is not conducive to the viewer.[11]

The ignorant and slanderous statement’s given by Keith and Eric seem to demonstrate the absolute willful ignorance these two have in regards to the work of Gerald Massey. As a prime example of this ignorance in his book Natural Genesis Vol. 1 Massey states:

After reading the first two volumes, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace expressed the fear lest there might not be a score of people in England who were prepared by their previous education to under-stand the book… In the preceding part of the work the author took very extended views of Egypt’s enormous past and the age of her pre-monumental mythology. Some of the conclusions set forth therein were characterized by Samuel Birch as interesting and ingenious… The German Egyptologist, Herr Pietschmann, who reviewed the “BOOK OF THE BEGINNINGS,” was startled at the many “unheard-of suggestions” which is contained, and thought the work was “inspired by an unrestricted thirst for discovery,” but he adduced no evidence whatever to rebut the conclusions, and gave no hint of the author’s being wrong in his derivation of facts from the monuments which those conclusions in a great measure depend. The writer has taken the precaution of all through getting his fundamental facts in Egyptology verified by one of the foremost of living authorities, Dr. Samuel Birch, to whom he returns his heartiest acknowledgements. He also sincerely thanks Captain R. F. Burton and Mr. George St. Clair, F. G. S. for their helpful hints and for the time and labor they have kindly given during the progress of this work. As a matter of course, the author will have blundered in manifold details. Discoveries are not to be made without mistakes, especially by those who do not cultivate the language of non-committal.[12]

As one can see from Massey’s own words, the man was very keen on making sure he had his fundamental facts verified by the most leading authorities of his time and he was also keen to make sure that he was correct in all of his assessments as the last sentence of the quote indicates. Another such statement is given from the man himself in a documented lecture:

Although I am able to read the hieroglyphics, nothing offered to you is based on my translation. I work too warily for that! The transcription and literal rendering of the hieroglyphic texts herein employed are by scholars of indisputable authority. There is no loop-hole of escape that way.[13]

To state that Gerald Massey never cites his sources or hardly does, one has to answer these quotes and take into consideration that the man went to great lengths to discover as to whether or not he really had any of his fundamental facts straight, by contacting personally or through letter’s in order to attain the truth of his findings through well known Egyptologists. In evaluating these significant statement’s one can verifiably conclude that Gerald Massey was not a supporter of the Theosophical Society, that he is not a Luciferian nor did he cite his sources poorly or having any citations at all. This profound ignorance, the slanderous statements and many other instances show that Eric Brame is completely intellectually dishonest when it comes to the subject of Gerald Massey.

[1]The Statement is taken directly from Eric Brame’s video entitled Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present at timeline 0:14-0:28. The video can be found on YouTube or at his page http://www.youtube.com/user/ChristianScholarship

[2]Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present by Eric Brame taken from timeline 0:57-1:08

[3]The Upper Norwood Joint Library can be contacted via e-mail at info@uppernorwoodlibrary.org about the involvement of Gerald Massey with the Most Ancient Order of Druids.

[4]The Agnostic Journal Oct. 3^rd 1891 Madame Blavatsky on Gerald Massey’s “Lectures” and “Natural Genesis;” this statement is taken from an online source at http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/cmc_miscellanea_1.htm#91_10_03

[5]vide Massey's response to the Blavatsky letter, Agnostic Journal, 1891

[6] http://gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/index.htm

[7] Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present by Eric Brame taken from timeline 1:08-1:33

[8] The term Fundamentalist Christian Conspiracy Theorist is utilized normally to convey a Fundamentalist Christian who believes in the New Age Movement Conspiracy Theory, anti-Masonic Conspiracy Theories and One World Religion Conspiracy Theory.

[9] My Lyrical Life: Poems Old and New by Gerald Massey, First Series pp. 37-39 1889

[10] Gerald Massey and Theosophy: Theosophical Theology Materialize in the Present by Eric Brame taken from timeline 1:37-1:54

[11] Critique of Acharya S’ Sun Thesis by Keith Thompson May 29, 2009 - http://tinyurl.com/ycwvroa

[12] The Natural Genesis Vol. I by Gerald Massey pp. ix-x

[13] Gerald Massey Lecture: The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ by Gerald Massey p. 1

Voice of Reason

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Review of More Than a Carpenter (Reader’s Review)

Monday, February 8, 2010

Banishing the Demons of Ignorance: Eric Brame’s Ignorance of Gerald Massey

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