Excerpt



Religion is a subject of intense interest to the general public today judging from the number of recent magazine articles, books, and newspaper articles on this topic, and from the inquiries the author has received. Many individuals have become confused by the differing beliefs of various religions of the world. They ask, "Do the differing beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism all come from the same God or from different Gods? Or is there any God at all? Which beliefs, if any, are correct?

This book removes that confusion by applying to each religion's beliefs the lessons learned from the earth-shaking Galileo scandal of the early 1600s A.D. (described on Page 4: 3 in the book). Beginning with the intellectual jolt of that scandal, history has repeatedly demonstrated that examining beliefs on the basis of evidence plus logic provides our best chance at finding correct beliefs. Beliefs that have a strong basis in evidence plus logic have a high probability of being correct because they survive close scrutiny and the test of time more consistently than beliefs not so-based. And any action based on high-probability beliefs has a high probability of bringing desired results.

Because belief always consists of believing information, this book begins by clarifying the basic neurophysiologic nature of both belief and information and then points out the crucial role that belief plays in our daily lives (Chapters 1 to 7). This understanding is then applied to seeking high-probability beliefs within several world-religions (Chapter 8). No other study, to this author's knowledge, has approached religion in this fashion.

What emerges from the study of these religions is that one part of today's Christianity contains beliefs that have by far a stronger basis in evidence plus logic than the beliefs of the other parts of Christianity and the beliefs of the other religions. Because these beliefs have a much stronger basis they also have a much higher probability of being correct. The reason for their basis being so strong is that it is consistent with the lessons learned from the Galileo scandal regarding identifying correct information. This most strongly based part of Christianity consists of that body of information in the New Testament of the Bible that comes exclusively from eyewitness accounts of events. It contains the teachings of Jesus Christ as taught by Christ himself, in person, while he was here on earth, and not as taught by others of ancient or modern times.

Because this part of Christianity is the most strongly based of the religions, the last two-thirds of my book focuses exclusively on it, with the aim of clearly identifying its teachings. Although the strong basis for this part of Christianity gives its beliefs a high probability of being correct, differences do exist in the accounts of some of the eyewitnesses to Christ's words. This makes it absolutely essential to determine, with the highest possible probability of being correct, which accounts report accurately what Christ did actually say. To achieve this, the eyewitness accounts are analyzed in detail (Chapters 9 to 31). The criteria for the determination are described in the first three pages of Chapter 13. The result is a powerful account of Christ's teachings that is coherent, internally consistent, and has a high probability of being accurate. A lifestyle based on these high-probability teachings thus has a high probability of bringing desired results in the eternity into which we step at the moment we die.

A longer summary of this entire book is given in Chapters 32 to 38 and a "nutshell" overview of religion is provided in Chapter 39.