Why would someone lie to you about the contents of a book?
Like those who lie to you about science, their problem is not that they think it is wrong; their problem is that they think it is right, but they don't want you to think otherwise because they don't want you to be informed. They have an agenda that requires you to remain ignorant and believing falsehoods.
These are frauds who understand how knowledge empowers and sets you free, so they need you to remain captive and weak probably because their income and power depends on it.
This was never better illustrated than by the barrage of lies and disinformation with which the creation industry is trying to stop you reading my books. It is so important to them that you don't read these books that expose them as frauds and conmen that they are willing to sacrifice their personal integrity to try to fool you into not reading them. The fact that they are willing to bear false witness to you for their own self-interest, should tell you that their pretense of piety is part of their agenda, since a devout Christian would believe that bearing false witness is a sin. These are frauds using religion as an excuse for their behaviour.
I suppose I should be flattered in a way, that they are so afraid you'll read these books because of the irrefutable arguments they present and the examples I used that they need to go to these lengths to retain their control of their cult members and recruit more ignorant dupes into it.
An indication of this consternation is the number of misleading and downright dishonest 'reviews' that Amazon are allowing to remain on these books.
The following is an all-too-typical examples, written by someone who calls him or herself 'The Professor' and who purports to be a University professor who has written numerous books, although he/she neglects to say what chair he/she holds at what university or give the tile of any of these 'numerous books'. We just have to take their word for it.
However, the veracity of their word can best be judged by the content of the 'review' of The Malevolent Designer. For some reason, the title of the book in their 'review' is followed by Unintelligent Design in parenthesis, so it's not even clear which book is being 'reviewed' here.
If you're an American woman who is about to have her legal right to an abortion removed by the Supreme Court, you might like to know that the decision of the highest law officers of the state is based, at least in part, on lies told to them by lawyers representing fundamentalist Christians in order to mislead them about what the science shows. In other words, their decision is based not on scientific truth but on lies and misrepresentation by Christian extremists with a political agenda.
Commandment eight of the Ten Commandments forbids a Christian from bearing false witness (Exodus 20:15). This is later clarified in Exodus 23:1 to prohibit false testimony with "Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." Yet American fundamentalist Christians, who demand everyone else be subject to these simplistic Bronze Age tribal laws, don't feel in the least constrained by them when they need an excuse to foist their barbaric rules on the rest of us.
For example, in their testimony to SCOTUS, which might have influenced them in their widely touted impending ruling effectively overturning Roe vs Wade and re-criminalising abortions, Christian lawyers acting for fundamentalist Christians who wish to impose their views on, and re-establish their control over, women in America, cited the British scientist, Dr Stuart Derbyshire, a British associate professor of psychology at the National University of Singapore. In a discussion paper in Journal of Medical Ethics in 2020, Derbyshire suggested that work by Giandomenico Iannetti, an Italian professor of neuroscience, who at the time was working in University College, London and Oxford University, showed that a foetus can feel pain prior to the development of the cerebral cortex at 24 weeks.
A. Watch his mouth. If his lips are moving, he's lying.
Here, for example, the pseudo-historian and professional liar for Jesus, is lying to a Talibangelical church group, eager for a fundamentalist Christian theocracy to be running the USA, safe in the knowledge that, so long as they hear things they want to be true, none of them is ever going to risk fact-checking his claims, and most of them will be ignorant of most of the real American history. A blank sheet on which liars such as Barton are free to draw whatever designs they want, and be paid handsomely for it.
Barton's subtext, as always, is that the American 'Founding Fathers' were intentionally creating a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, but somehow the liberals stole it, so this is the form of government that should be imposed on Americans today to create the nation the Founding Fathers intended. In his lecture, he makes specific claims about the contents of a letter from John Adams to a man named Hezekiah Niles in 1818. Niles had asked Adams which people were most responsible for the founding idea and principles of the nation that Adams had helped to create.
True to form, Barton casts aside any constraints on bearing false witness, considering it more important to fool his credulous audience than to tell the truth, so he makes claims, including naming specific individuals as 'right up front', which are not born out by the facts. He claims Adams stated that it was preachers like Samuel Cooper, Jonathan Mayhew, George Whitefield, and Charles Chauncy who must be placed at the top of any such list.
In fact, what Adams actually wrote, on Feb 13, 1818, was:
There might be, and there were, others who thought less about religion and conscience, but had certain habitual sentiments of allegiance and loyalty derived from their education; but believing allegiance and protection to be reciprocal, when protection was withdrawn, they thought allegiance was dissolved.
[…]
Those principles and feelings ought to be traced back for 200 years and sought in the history of the country from the first plantations in America. Nor should the principles and feelings of the English and Scots toward the colonies through that whole period ever be forgotten. The perpetual discordance between British principles and feelings and those of America, the next year after the suppression of the French power in America, came to a crisis and produced an explosion.
It was not until after the annihilation of the French dominion in America that any British ministry had dared to gratify their own wishes, and the desire of the nation, by projecting a formal plan for raising a national revenue from America by parliamentary taxation. The first great manifestation of this design was by the order to carry into strict execution those acts of Parliament which were well-known by the appellation of the Acts of Trade, which had lain a dead letter, unexecuted for half a century–and some of them, I believe, for nearly a whole one.
This produced, in 1760 and 1761, an awakening and a revival of American principles and feelings, with an enthusiasm which went on increasing till in 1775 it burst out in open violence, hostility, and fury. The characters the most conspicuous, the most ardent and influential in this revival, from 1760 to 1766, were first and foremost, before all and above all, James Otis; next to him was Oxenbridge Thatcher; next to him Samuel Adams; next to him John Hancock; then Dr. Mayhew; then Dr. Cooper and his brother.
John Adams, Letter to Hezekiah Niles on the American Revolution, Feb 13, 1818. [My emphasis]
The treaty of Tripoli, Nov 4, 1796.
Presented to Congress by John Adams on May 26, 1797.
Ratified without dissent on June 7, 1797.
Not only were those Barton claimed, not 'right up front' but the ones he mentioned who were in the list, were some way down it, a Whitefield and Chauncy are never mentioned anywhere in Adams' long letter. Barton made those up to make his claim sound more believable. Nor is there any suggestion that the ideas and principles of those who inspired the revolution, were those of fundamentalist Christians.
Astonishingly too, for someone who hopes to have some credibility as a genuine historian, Barton appears to either be unaware of, or to have forgotten entirely, the single most embarrassing document for those who try to claim, as he does, that the USA was founded as a Christian nation, the Treaty of Tripoli, and particularly Article 11 of that treaty:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Islamic] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli, Nov 4, 1796.
Presented to Congress by John Adams, May 26, 1797.
Ratified without dissent or debate, June 7, 1797
It is perfectly clear then that John Adams did not express the views Barton tried to fool his audience into believing he had, as anyone with the slightest interest in the truth could have found out in a few minutes searching through readily available documentation, including the letter to Hezekia Niles that Barton cited.
But then, David Barton could have been the inspiration for:
When you show you need to lie for your faith, you show you know your faith is a lie that needs fools to believe falsehoods.
The Shroud of Turin or Turin Shroud (Italian: Sindone di Torino, Sacra Sindone) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, northern Italy. The image on the shroud is commonly associated with Jesus, his crucifixion and burial. It is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color. The negative image was first observed in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of amateur photographer Secondo Pia, who was allowed to photograph it while it was being exhibited in the Turin Cathedral.
The historical records for the Shroud of Turin can be separated into two time periods: before 1390 and from 1390 to the present. The period until 1390 is subject to debate and controversy among historians. Prior to the 14th century there are some allegedly congruent but controversial references such as the Pray Codex. It is often mentioned that the first certain historical record dates from 1353 or 1357. However the presence of the Turin Shroud in Lirey, France, is only undoubtedly attested in 1390 when Bishop Pierre d'Arcis wrote a memorandum where he charged that the Shroud was a forgery. The history from the 15th century to the present is well documented. In 1453 Margaret de Charny deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy. As of the 17th century the shroud has been displayed (e.g. in the chapel built for that purpose by Guarino Guarini) and in the 19th century it was first photographed during a public exhibition.
There are little definite historical records concerning the shroud prior to the 14th century. Although there are numerous reports of Jesus' burial shroud, or an image of his head, of unknown origin, being venerated in various locations before the 14th century, there is little reliable historical evidence that these refer to the shroud currently at Turin Cathedral. A burial cloth, which some historians maintain was the Shroud, was owned by the Byzantine emperors but disappeared during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204...
The history of the shroud from the 15th century is well recorded. In 1532, the shroud suffered damage from a fire in the chapel where it was stored. A drop of molten silver from the reliquary produced a symmetrically placed mark through the layers of the folded cloth. Poor Clare Nuns attempted to repair this damage with patches. In 1578 the House of Savoy took the shroud to Turin and it has remained at Turin Cathedral ever since.
Repairs were made to the shroud in 1694 by Sebastian Valfrè to improve the repairs of the Poor Clare nuns. Further repairs were made in 1868 by Clotilde of Savoy. The shroud remained the property of the House of Savoy until 1983, when it was given to the Holy See, the rule of the House of Savoy having ended in 1946.
A fire, possibly caused by arson, threatened the shroud on 11 April 1997. In 2002, the Holy See had the shroud restored. The cloth backing and thirty patches were removed, making it possible to photograph and scan the reverse side of the cloth, which had been hidden from view. A ghostly part-image of the body was found on the back of the shroud in 2004. The most recent public exhibition of the Shroud was in 2010.
Worth the long read to see the depths Christian apologists will go to to keep their market intact and their income stream flowing.
And more in Anthony Flew's Bogus Book, by the same author.
My thanks to @jablomih on Twitter for providing me with the link. In his words, "Can you imagine atheists circling William Lane Craig's deathbed looking for a "conversion"? Or lying & saying he had one?"
When you show the world you know you need to lie for your cult, you show the world you know your cult is for fools who'll believe falsehoods.
