Upon Further Review is a very comprehensive and in-depth journey of discovery into the truthfulness of the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, with an emphasis on Christianity, the world’s most popular religion. The book is based on the best evidence available in the 21st century (modern biblical scholarship, many branches of science, philosophy, psychology, history and much more). It was written for the reader who is very serious about sorting fact from fiction without having to resort to accepting a belief without sufficient evidence. An emphasis has been placed on making every part of the book clear and understandable (though some topics are by their nature complex), and combining everything to reach an unmistakable final conclusion.
This website was created to introduce the book to the public. Numerous extensive excerpts are available through the Book Excerpt Menu. Everything in this website may be shared as long as attribution is given to the author.
Book Introduction:
If you are a religious person of any sort, have you ever seriously wondered if your version of eternal truth is actually true, if the reality it promotes is actually real? Undoubtedly you have. Have you also wished to actually know without having to simply accept it through faith? On the other hand, if you happen to not be a religious person, have you ever seriously wondered if you are missing something; after all, can billions of people be wrong? Undoubtedly you have. There should come a time in a person’s life to get an honest grip on what it’s all about. Fortunately we live in an age when this is possible, much more so than for the generations that came before us. However, there is a staggering amount of misinformation out there that must somehow be navigated to arrive at a truly valid conclusion. This book is about subjects that are relevant to the validity of the Abrahamic religions, and how to effectively navigate through the information and misinformation to get to the truth. It is often easier, and can be just as important, to determine what is not true as to determine what actually is true. In this book we’ll do a lot of both.
Even though I was raised as a Christian and long professed to be a Christian, for over 30 years I drifted on a sea of doubt about the actual existence of anything beyond the natural world. I was determined to eventually do whatever was necessary to sort through it all and arrive at a conclusion I could confidently base the remainder of my life on. Sorting fact from fiction began in earnest a few years before I retired from a career in America’s space program. I have now rigorously researched every topic I thought might have any relevance to the truth of religion in general, but more specifically to the truth of the Abrahamic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and even more so to Christianity, the religion most westerners have been raised to have faith in.
Among the many topics we’ll delve into are these: Conservative and modern Bible scholarship, religious defenses (apologetics), comparative religion, history, archeology, philosophy, logic, psychology, sociology, demographics, neuroscience, cosmology, astronomy, metaphysics, classical physics, particle physics, quantum physics, relativity, evolutionary biology, genetics, paleontology and anthropology. This book is a journey of discovery, served up as a mega-course banquet that I think you’ll find pretty easy to digest and will hopefully relish. If you still have a childlike curiosity about how things work and why they are the way they are, then all the better.
My admittedly very ambitious goal is for this book to be the most enlightening single source available today about what is true and not true about one religion in particular—Christianity. Emphasis has been placed on making the book comprehensive, in-depth and understandable (hence, this is not a small book). Regarding the latter, I have no interest in using fancy words or technical jargon in an effort to create an image of myself as a brilliant writer. Just like most folks, I tend to get confused and frustrated by writers who communicate with language that doesn’t fit the subject or the audience. There are many subjects here that are technical and complex, but that doesn’t mean their explanations have to be complicated to obtain the level of understanding we will need. I want readers to readily comprehend what they are reading, to understand how it all fits together, to enjoy the learning experience, and finally to have an enlightened understanding of human nature, the human condition, and the authentic source of purpose and meaning in life.
An important criterion I’ve employed is to open everything up to scrutiny; nothing is sacred or off limits. This contrasts markedly from what is normally done in religious scholarship. For example, in a radio interview I once heard with two Moody Bible Institute scholars, they were asked about the objectivity of their work. They insisted that their work was done under no constraints, save one thing they accepted without question: “God is the source of all things.” You won’t find that kind of “objectivity” here. Completely open is the question of whether God is the source of all things, or the source of some things, or the source of anything. How far we drill down has no artificial dead end to limit our progress.
A major impediment for most religious people when they attempt to evaluate the validity of their religion is the fear that God is looking over their shoulder and will not take kindly to being questioned. This reminds me of a joke by comedian Emo Philips. “When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.” At the end of the book you can ask God for forgiveness for doubting him if you feel a need to make amends. In the meantime, I won’t be discussing anything with a sense of reverence, as it is counterproductive to employ reverence when trying to determine if a set of beliefs is worthy of reverence.
It was obvious from the beginning of my research that religion is based primarily on faith. We’ll see that there is more than one type of faith, with the types being distinguishable by the amount of supporting and contradictory evidence. Religious faith is often thought to be synonymous with hope and optimism. For our purposes they are different concepts, although, hope and optimism are usually complementary to the way the religious person employs faith.
Now I need to define truth and reality. Defining truth can get a bit confusing. Read a few philosophical treatises on “truth” and you could end up more confused than when you started. The problem is, for almost every philosophical theory of truth, philosophers can think of true examples that don’t fit the theory. Nevertheless, for our purposes I have used the very reliable correspondence theory of truth: A belief is true if it corresponds with the way the world actually is. This is in line with most dictionary definitions of truth, such as (1) in accordance with fact and reality, (2) accurate or exact.
I will not be dealing with relative truths. It can be true for Alice that broccoli is a delicious vegetable but quite untrue for Ted. Nor will I indulge in false relativism such as it being true to Christians that Jesus is the Son of God but untrue to Jews and Muslims. Jesus either is or is not the Son of God—period. The true answer is the same for everyone. A strong or sincere belief should not be confused with truth. It doesn’t matter how passionately one believes something, or how many people share the belief; what is widely believed to be undeniably true may very well not correspond to the way things actually are now or have been in the past. Intellectual honesty is essential if we are sincere about uncovering the truth. Unfortunately that has become more difficult in an age when “post-truth” has become so common that the Oxford Dictionaries named it the 2016 Word of the Year, and in 2018, Dictionary.Com chose “misinformation” for its Word of the Year.
Although the words truth and reality are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Reality is the real, actual nature of something. Truth is a statement about reality—an accurate description of reality. Even though there is only one ultimate reality for anything, perceptions of that reality are often corrupted and wide-ranging. Misinformation and personal and cultural biases too often lead to personal and cultural realities that are severely corrupted versions of actual reality.
Now I’ll answer a question that will inevitably be asked. Who am I to write a book about religion since I’m not a theologian or cleric? This book provides a comprehensive, in-depth evaluation of whether or not the Abrahamic religions, singularly or collectively, provide realistic answers about the existence of a supernatural “higher power,” the origin and nature of the universe, where we and other biological species came from, what it means to be human, the sources of sin, evil and our sense of morality, and what will ultimately become of each of us. Theology takes one down a narrow path that is unavoidably dependent on faith without sufficient supporting evidence. We live in the 21st century, a time when we need not cling to such a dubious means for sorting fact from fiction. There are far better ways to enlighten ourselves about truth and reality, provided that is what we yearn for.
