Contrary to rumors by those who have not read my books, I do not simply "debunk" religion. In actuality, I love religion, and I am attempting to cultivate carefully the good parts, while incinerating the bad. The spirit with which my writing is meant is wonderfully encapsulated by a lovely Indian person who recently wrote a review of my book Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled.I am impressed by the wisdom and maturity with which this devout "keeper of the dharma," as he calls himself - from a Brahmin family - read and appreciated my book.
I also received a kind email from this gentleman, with whose permission I have excerpted here.Brilliant work and full of relevant facts,
September 23, 2008
By S. Kulkarni 
DM Murdock aka Acharya S had written a detailed sketch of the transition of the ancient beliefs that later turned out to be the religions of both the east and the west. This book clearly shows how much research a person writing about historical and religious issues must perform and how sensitive the information can be for certain groups. I am a Hindu and I have always held true that Dharma - the righteousness preached by our religion is very close to the Goodness in human nature. Rules are transient and with technology they are even more transient. Forcing rigid medieval dogmatic rules seems to have gotten worse in the modern age with Christians using new and new means to propagate the Church. On the other hand the Islamic world is under dark cloud of the fundamentalists. This book is a crucial read for not only hard core atheists and agnostics, but to every devoted Dharmic, Christian, Muslim, Jew or Buddhist who want to know how man wen on to establishing theology and religion from ancient times till date.
As a Hindu I do not take any offenses by the book. In fact the book clearly states that Vedic principles are indeed the oldest surviving religious works and all religion in the world had directly or indirectly emerged off a set of common beliefs which the Vedas are the most undisturbed or un spoilt source. As a rational human beings we can reason and think logically of religion and spirituality differs. How political is religion and how religious is polity!
I know that many groups are offended by the writings. Honestly we need proper dialog and discussion fora - bickering, censoring or fighting over such issues of hurt sentiments only strengthens the cause of political - mindied religious activists and makes the real thinking people less powerful!
Great Read - Suns Of GodAnother Indian fellow also posted a five-star review of Suns of God on Amazon.
September 2008
From: S. Kulkarni
Hello Ms Acharya,
...I belong to the Brahmin caste, and I feel proud that we have been preserving our heritage for more that 4,000 years. Our lineage goes back to the seven Wise sages (Saptarishis - named after the seven bright stars of the Ursa Major).
I took the pleasure of reading your Suns of God book...and, boy, I was clearly impressed by your erudition and grip on the ancient world....
Too much valuable evidence has been destroyed via book burning and history rewriting right from the Byzantine Empire, through the Mongol invasions, Christian and Islamic conquests and crusades, and, like you, I think that it is really important to establish the true history of that period....
The way Christian missionaries are rampantly "harvesting" poor Indian tribals and natives, destroying our heritage and preaching an alien and unscientific religion is really agonizing....
Thanks and Regards,
S. Kulkarni
I make a point of showing Indian support for the reason that there are those as fervent about Hinduism as Christians are about their faith, and over the years some have become upset at what they perceive as an affront in my work. Most if not all of the time, said individuals have not read my work to any extent but have heard rumors about it. As we can see here, my work can be appreciated for its very purpose: Getting at the truth behind the world's religious ideologies, wherever that may lead.December 18, 2004 This is a superb book. There are books on the mythical nature of Jesus, particularly "The Jesus Mysteries" and its sequel "Jesus and the Lost Goddess" by Timothy Freke. Freke goes in-depth into the very nature of mystery myth deity worship, whereas Acharya S tends to focus her scholarship on the nature of these solar deities: Christ, Krishna, and Buddha. Enough scholarship to have been awarded a Ph.D., though unfortunately, in the American academic world, to question the historicity of Jesus is to ask for trouble and indeed not ever attain the status of professor of religion. Hopefully things will change.
By Raja Bhat
Raja Bhat
Unlike the supernatural genesis often attributed to a given religion, the reality is that humanity's spiritual ideas possess a history. The various theologies date back thousands of years and did not arrive fully blown in the minds of certain chosen people but, rather, evolved as naturally as any other subject.
"My work - especially as exemplified in my book Suns of God - represents a one-of-a-kind, in-depth look at the origins of the world's most popular religious concepts."
Be sure to check it out!
10 comments:
So I had a debate with a guy about Suns of God who sent me to this site:
http://www.thedevineevidence.com/index_articles.html
He said all your stuff and the pagan correlations are all debunked
there and that none of your research uses original texts and you are a huckster trying to sell books and all my points are dime store athiest debunked bs. The guy is an asshole, but what do you say about the divine evidence website? I assume you've seen it before?
Acharya
There are people who "belong" to greater or lessor degree to all the major religions of today who are just as concerned about getting rid of the despotism that has come to rule the followers of these traditions and I'm sure they will all agree that we need to get to the root from which these various traditions have sprouted. I think it will be wonderful if we as humanity can stand together under one umbrella that allows for different cultural expressions of the same basic drive towards peaceful coexistence and shared understanding. You are contributing to this very worthy dream. God bless!!!
Of course, I'm aware of all of these so-called debunking sites, and I have spent a great deal of time responding to them since I came online in 1995. Indeed, my entire life's work has been to demonstrate further my initial contentions.
My book Suns of God was specifically written to address these OLD contentions that have been kicking around for YEARS, but the detractors always ignore THIS book. They also ignore Who Was Jesus?, in which which I used Christian primary sources and the works of Christian apologists, evangelists and theologians to prove my points.
These contentions are false, and I have repeatedly demonstrated them to be, in my voluminous post-Christ Conspiracy writings and books. People who make these statements have almost always NOT read my work and do not know it at all. That would make their comments fraudulent.
The hundreds of pages of my writing online right now proves these assertions to be WRONG, and anyone can go read them. In my forums, I have repeatedly addressed these bogus contentions. I regularly write blogs and send out emails with my work designed to increase everyone's knowledge about all of these subjects. I appear on radio shows, create videos and do interviews and presentations in order to share this information.
Anyone following my work over the years would know about my CONSTANT endeavors to demonstrate further proof of practically every major aspect of my work. There is a MASSIVE amount of evidence, and I have repeatedly provided it whenever and wherever I have found it - that's my work in a nutshell, in fact.
My book Christ in Egypt will provide around 600 pages of primary source material as well as the works of highly credentialed authorities in relevant fields. We will likely continue to see the same falsehoods being bandied about by these same lazy detractors who have not read my work.
These people may not want to share in the fascinating data and common cultural heritage rooted in brilliant insight dating back thousands of years, but they should not be engaging in dishonesty, mendacity and character assassination to prevent others from doing so.
I am but one person here, with an army of hostile blind believers assailing me in every direction - talk about hucksters! What are they trying to foist upon the world? A massive, deleterious delusion.
I've provided the data, but I cannot be the only one who reads it, understands it and disseminates it. Everyone's help will be needed.
Cool! I've wondered what Indians had to say. :)
Anonymous, did you ask him what he called research and what he called original texts? I haven't seen the site, but he doesn't seem like he was educated at any university. Acharya's work is scholarly research and documented appropriately as any scholarly research paper/discertation should be (it's a book, but not all that different). She isn't selling anything, but she is presenting her case with the information she found in her research. I would dare say, if she had been working on a doctorial thesis, she would have gotten high marks on her work, regardless of whether or not the professor agreed. I've had profs disagree with my stance and I still made A's, in part because I documented, documented, documented (this was drilled into us), and wrote to the best of my ability to present my case. Acharya has done the research, she documented, and used writing (grammar, spelling, thesis, etc) skills, which are pretty much the requirements for scholarly works and the books she has written.
So the guy is not only an asshole, but naive about how research and scholarly writings work. Not only, he is probably too lazy ti read a book that long.
I see all to often how people, who speak out against Acharya's work the LOUDEST tend also to be the most ignorant about her work. She has 3 books to date totaling over 3,100 footnotes with over 1,300 pages, including primary sources and commentary by an array of biblical scholars including many respected conservative Xian biblical scholars.
Soon, Acharya's new 4th book, "Christ in Egypt" (XiE) may add another potential 700 to the bibliography sources and another 600 pages also discussing primary source material specifically about Egypt alone. That totals over 1,900 pages with Acharya making her case.
Now, what the hell have these detractors done? And what are their credentials? Before detractors attempt to dismiss her work in toto or write some diatribe against Acharya they need to actually study the work first otherwise, it is *NOT* an objective, sincere, intellectually honest criticism.
What this really symbolizes is censorhip. The anti-Zeitgeist part 1 / anti-Acharya cult (which includes both theists & atheists) are doing is attempting to ridicule into submission. They want this mythicist point of view destroyed to the point that it's an unpopular position to take. Similar to one coming out of the closet with ones atheism. One couldn't really do that easily w/o ridicule or worse until recently. One could be jailed for such a thing just a century or 2 ago.
Meanwhile, religious devotees expect the rest of us to accept their beliefs, for example, of an invisible Jewish man floating in the sky watching everything you do & if you believe in him enough in order to decide if you should go to heaven or hell for all eternity when you die.
Do mythicists really deserve to be abused simply for having the view that this sounds like another fictional story?
22
Hi Acharya,
It's interesting that lots of people ask for so called "original" texts or sources. I don't beleive that an original text or source would exist for anything "ancient". Well, OK, perhaps a handful, and anyhow, how the heck would we ever know if it was an original? Most ancient texts found would all be hand copies of even older documents.
And then the problem arises of the copiers putting their own slant on the story being copied ALA chinese whispers. Only by careful cross-referencing of similar documents is there any hope at getting even close to the truth.
Does the average real true believer Christian ever realise how much the Bible they stand by has been altered and interfered with down through time? I somehow doubt it. Maybe ignorance is bliss for some.
Cheers and hi to all,
Doug.
Yes, religionists require little to no evidence for the most outlandish beliefs, but for a sensible and logical history of religion we will be dunned with requests for the most absolutely intact and pristine primary sources - in English, of course.
Where are the precious originals of the gospels, written by the very hands of the apostles, et al., themselves? Without those, how can we be sure what the evangelists really meant? What believers believe now could be completely different from what the evangelists wrote.
Until we see the pristine and intact primary sources proving that a Jewish man really was born of a virgin, healed the sick, raised the dead, walked on water, calmed a storm, was transfigured on a mount, resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, we certainly should not believe such a ridiculous story.
Produce the autographs - that's the Jesus challenge.
In the meantime, I've dug up a significant amount of evidence, and I will continue to do so. Despite the massive cover up of a crime of unimaginable scope, there remains enough evidence to demonstrate my contentions.
"Until we see the pristine and intact primary sources proving that a Jewish man really was born of a virgin, healed the sick, raised the dead, walked on water, calmed a storm, was transfigured on a mount, resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven, we certainly should not believe such a ridiculous story."
You know, reading that list just makes it seem so rediculous that anyone would believe such a thing was actually real and not just stories.
Except maybe that magician/illusionist, what's his name? Anyway, except for him, in which I'm still trying to figure out his trick, no one or nothing, but the sun has walked on water. It makes much more sense when the allegory and symbology is explained.
I'm on your email list and love keeping up with your work! You're absolutely correct that more people have to stand up, this can't be a one person battle.
I would like to see some sort of research trust or organisation set-up to disseminate and propagate information - perhaps with not-for-profit status (like all the religions!) so that it can accept donations and use them for this purpose.
Given all the problems our species is facing, it's time we developed a means of solving the problems caused by literal religious fanatics.
I think your work may be, at the very least, a part of the antidote, now we just need a bigger, better delivery system.
Bravo to the comments made by Tyler Jordan. I am furious at religion right now. With global warming, overpopulation, and our economy in shambles the world is literally going to hell right now. But in my community there are thousands of people who think that God is going to perform a great rescue mission. I consider the churches in my area to be ostrich farms -- they are a place to go where people escape reality. But reality is coming whether they like it or not -- they will fry from global warming just like the rest of us. And, come on, is there really some Godman who sits on a throne and listens to thousands of rambling prayers on Sunday mornings? I think not. I hold religionists directly responsible for the many serious problems we are now facing. Their fantasy games, denial, and deferral may very well have doomed both the human species and planet. If you don't believe what I'm saying, study what happened to Easter Island.
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