Lucifers Handbook - A Simplified Critique of Popular Religion

Editorial Reviews. About the Author. See bio for W. Milton Timmons. Originally published under the pseudonym of Lee Carter.
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With this book, hopefully, a person with no more than a high-school education can sit down in one evening and understand what spokesmen for the counterculture and radical theologians are talking about when they maintain that "God is dead. There is no guarantee that such a device will eliminate all religious conflicts, but it should reduce the round-robin disputes which go over the same ground again and again.

If the parties are capable of rational discussion at all in this area, the book will provide a solid base upon which to build new ideas and further discussion, thus eliminating the necessity for each person to re-invent the wheel, so to speak. But if either party is determined to repeat the same arguments over and over like a broken record, simply ignoring the other person, I have numbered the arguments so the disputants can at least save their energy by shouting numbers at each other.

This may sound flip, but it is remarkably difficult to argue with a number. Some supernaturalists will complain that the emphasis of this book is wholly negative. It is true that the main point is to show why traditional religion is no longer valid. But let us draw an analogy: In urban renewal it is necessary to clear the ground of old structures before new ones can go up. It is futile to build on old and crumbling foundations. In the religious community new structures are already going up.

This book is only an attempt to show those still living in the old religious structure why the edifice is falling down. Remodeling is no longer possible. It is now necessary to "clear the ground" so new structures can be built.

I felt there was no book that adequately cleared this ground for people who were still stumbling over metaphysical refuse. I leave to more competent hands the task of reconstruction; and for that task there are already many excellent books. I also hope that upon careful reading of this book, the positive, humanistic values upon which the criticisms rest will become evident. We know it is true because it says so in 2 Tim 3: Teleological Argument a Nature is orderly.

Everything conforms to pattern, is governed by law. Now this gigantic order of nature cannot have ordered itself in this way, nor can it have been a huge accident. It requires the existence of an intelligence responsible for it. The presence of a pattern or structure necessitates our assuming a designer or architect whose purpose it was to create this. Every object in nature could not have consciously chosen for itself what its function is to be, therefore the coordinated action of all the various elements of nature proves that they were designed by a single, universal mind.

A Priori Argument There are eternal and necessary truths of logic and geometry which presuppose an eternal intellect. Cosmological Argument "Any event whatever must have had some cause; it is contradictory to say that anything brings itself into existence. But by the same reasoning, the cause is itself the effect of some previous cause.

Now this chain of causes must have had a beginning.

There must consequently have been a first or ultimate cause, itself uncaused, responsible for the initiation of the series of events. This series of events is nature, and the first cause, God.

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Ontological Argument a God, by definition, is perfect. Nothing can be perfect unless it first exists. Anselm b Partial degrees of perfection exist, therefore a most perfect must exist. Or since there are degrees of good, there must be a best: But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest. There is then, something which is truest, something best, something noblest, and, consequently, something which is most being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum of heat, is the cause of all hot things as is said in the same book. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection. And this we call God. Thomas Aquinas c I have the idea of God. Nothing can come from nothing.

Moreover, cause must have as much reality as the effect. Effect cannot be greater than the cause. I am finite, therefore I could not have been the cause of the thought of an infinite being. Therefore, God was the cause of the thought.

Descartes d In nature, all things arise from their opposites; from day comes night, from the lesser the greater, etc. This change continues in a cycle — is reciprocal.

Lucifer's Handbook: A Simplified Critique of Popular Religion

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If it were not so, if all things occurred in a straight line one way , soon the cosmos would "run down" and cease to function. From life arises its opposite, death. And since the cycle must continue, from death, life must necessarily arise. Argument from Man as a Moral Being a All men have moral and esthetic values. These are things which cannot be seen, touched, weighed, or otherwise explained in terms of the physical world. Therefore these values must have been implanted by God. Kant b All men desire to be good. Atheists try to destroy religion because even atheists want men to be good.

And they think that atheism is a better religion for making men good. But if there is no God, why should men have the desire to be good? Dostoevsky "In a blind, brute nature, since all things must ultimately perish, what is done by human beings would not matter one way or another. Without an absolute supernatural standard, universal license would prevail. Life would not be worth living. But men do have morals; therefore God exists. Argument from Mysticism There are certain persons who have seen, heard, or otherwise experienced God directly, through prayer, fasting, isolation, pain, approach of death, pharmacological methods, etc.

Argument from Miracles The Bible relates many miracles. Even today, especially in India and Catholic countries, miracles are an everyday occurrence. Enlargement of left page. Enlargement of right page. Reviews Written by Troy A.

Lucifer's Handbook: A Simplified Critique of Popular Religion - Lee Carter - Google Книги

Heck Oxford, Michigan , October 28, Five Stars Comprehensive and intelligent critique of religion Lucifer's Handbook starts with the thirteen basic arguments for religion. The remainder of the book is then concerned with debunking those arguments in a very intelligent and thoughtful way. The text is well organized, comprehensive, and extremely well thought out. I found the examination of the Christian Bible's contradictions with commonly accepted scientific findings as well as with the Bible itself particularly enjoyable and illuminating.

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Curry lists 12 books, including those by Dr. Gordon Stein, George H. One of the 12 books listed is Lucifer's Handbook, which he describes as "A compilation of all the arguments for the existence of God, condensed and simplified into one neat volume. Dennis McKinsey published a series of newsletters over a period of several years, called Biblical Errancy.

In , he redacted these newsletters into a concise volume called The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, published by Prometheus Books. The original newsletters go into more detail, and are available on-line at http: At the end of Issue Sept. The great bulk of the Bible is made up of stories, poetry, and parables which are ambiguous enough to enable anyone to read anything he pleases into them However, any group of passages is just as valid or as invalid as any other, and the result is the thousands of Protestant sects, or denominations