In Eden, God Lied and the Snake Spoke Truth

https://www.humanreligions.info/god_lied_in_eden.html - In Eden, God Lied and the Snake Spoke Truth.

God itself says that if Adam eats from the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, "thou shalt surely die" on the very same day, using the Hebrew mût tamût that specifically means physical death and yôm which does just mean an ordinary day (Gen 2:16-17, Gen 3:2-3). The serpent says it's untrue: actually they will attain knowledge of good and evil (Gen 3:4-5). Adam and Eve, who were already mortal (Gen 3:22-23), ate from the tree and didn't die. They lived on to parent all of humanity. God in Gen. 3:22 admits that Adam and Eve did indeed "become as one of us, to know good and evil". God lied, and Satan told the truth.

God Has No Free Will (Four Arguments)

There are four philosophically strong arguments that God cannot have free will.

1. If God is perfect, then, it always follows the best course of action and therefore never has a choice.
2. A benevolent God always chooses the path that causes most good, so, never has a choice.
3. An all-knowing god knows with certainty all of its future actions. As its knowledge cannot be wrong, then, it must follow this instantaneously predetermined path, and has never had a moment of existence in which this wasn't the case.
4. A perfect being that created time never changes (any new state implies that the previous state was less good); a being that never changes isn't making choices. This makes sense for a being that is outside of space-time.

Without free will, God cannot be moral, and must be neutral (amoral).

One final irony is that if God created free will, then, it had no choice in doing so. If free will wasn't created by God, then, God is not the Creator. If it was, then, #Creator:at the moment when it created free will, the concept did not exist, and therefore, God itself did not have free will in doing so.

See: www.humanreligions.info/god_has_no_free_will.html.

Knowledge

A new page! Free will, elections, sexual consent, and the meaningfulness of life: without information, knowledge and wisdom, nothing has a purpose, and we are open to abuse.

"Knowledge" by Vexen Crabtree (2026)

The contents menu is:

1. To Act Morally or With Free Will, You First Need Knowledge
2. Politics
   1. Elections are Only Legitimate if the Populace Has Access to Reasonably Unbiased Information
   2. Leaders Must Use Experts (a Lesson from the Enlightenment)
   3. Governments Must Use a Rationalist Evidence-Based Approach
   4. Which Countries are Most Modern, With the Best Education and Internet Access?
3. Sexual Consent Requires Understanding of Consequences (Hence: the Age of Consent)
4. Errors in Thinking: Cognitive Errors, Wishful Thinking and Sacred Truths

Human Religions website

I've never had any graphics skills, my very best is 'kind of okay'! I needed a new icon to use specifically for www.humanreligions.info ... so I made this, in MS Word (!!!). About once a month, I say 'I need a graphics person...'.

Hindu Violent Extremism Against Christians in India: The Continuing Legacy of the BJP

Hindu nationalists target Christians in India, as the culmination of a few decades of increasing hate. In Christmas 2007, a hundred churches were damaged and 700 Christian homes destroyed: things have gotten especially bad since the BJP gained power nationally in 2014, with their representatives giving hate speeches (including calling for death to Christians), encouraging the many hundreds of violent incidents recorded each year against Christians. See section 6 of https://www.humanreligions.info/hindu_extremism.html.

Psalm 23

Psalm 23 is much-loved because it sounds positive and wholesome. But it's a trap, just as Habakkuk's opposite gloom is a trap. Don't fall for it: we can make the world better by behaving better, educating ourselves, embracing human rights, and encouraging others.

www.humanreligions.info/psalm_23.html

The Old Testament Book of Habakkuk

After a long series of prophets promise again and again that god is going to punish the Hebrews' neighbours for their unbelief, the reality of history is that the Chaldeans, after conquering Babylon, continued to spread. In terms of the Hebrews' understanding of their place in God's world, this simply made no sense. This story explains that God empowers the violent, expansionist and immoral Chaldeans, and that God (for no particularly good reason) boosts them against the Hebrews, causing the Chaldeans to occupy and ransack southern Judah.

Habakkuk tries to explain that God is choosing the Chaldeans to damage Judah on purpose, but struggles to find a coherent ethical reason why such bloodshed and violence can be endorsed by a good god, as a collective punishment - especially when the Chaldeans were infamously immoral and ought to be the ones being corrected. It is hard to see what morals or teachings there are in these wars between the Hebrews and their neighbours other than that it pays to be on the winning side, whether or not the winners are Jehovah-fearers.

The contents of "The Book of Habakkuk by Vexen Crabtree (2012) is:

1. The 3 chapters of Habakkuk (56 verses)
   1. Habakkuk 1 (17 verses)
   2. Habakkuk 2 (20 verses)
   3. Habakkuk 3 (19 verses)

Pantheism

Pantheism is a form of theism (god-belief) in which God and the universe are equivalent: be this in either a conscious or automatic sense. The whole system of physical laws, cause and effect, and time itself, are the internal workings of a divine being. www.humanreligions.info/pantheism.html

Why Does Palestine Struggle to Be a Recognized State?

Decade after decade, circumstance, bad luck and the active interference of the #UK, #Israel, others but most of all, the #USA, have prevented #Palestine from being recognized as an Independent State. This page lists those obstacles. https://www.humantruth.info/palestine_statehood.html

The Nizari (Assassins) of the 11th-13th Century

A brief history of the Nizari, who came to be known as the Assassins for their long and effective campaigns of religious-political murders during the 11th-13th Century, attempting to be the ones to usher in paradise on Earth via shifting the balance of powers on Earth. www.humanreligions.info/assassins.html

Trial by Ordeal in Medieval Europe

Added section 6.6: Trials by Ordeal. These torturous and chaotic devices were administered by the Christian Church as a way of calling on God to issue judgement, especially in the 8th-13th centuries. The Church provided a strict framework for their use, and with popular support and Christian King's endorsements, they were used for secular purposes, in a world with no separation between legal systems, religion and the state. www.humanreligions.info/christian_morality.html Only one kind of trial by ordeal is directly described in the Bible; Numbers 5:11-31 has God itself describe how an adultery case should be solved by a priest if there are no witnesses, the wife hides it, and the husband become jealous: by Ordeal of Bitter Water. The woman (of course) must drink water adulterated with ink, alongside a series of ritual steps by the Priest. If she suffers from the water, she is guilty. If she has no symptoms, she is allowed to live and conceive. Ordeals administered by the Christian Church included Ordeal of the Cross, Ordeal of Boiling Water, Ordeal of Red-Hot Iron and Ordeal of Water. In some, innocence is proven if the accused sinks and drowns. The overall results were disfiguration, or cheating, or a rigged test designed to produce the 'right' result by those setting it up. Overall, they were immoral, unreliable to the point of being random, and clearly injust.

11th-13th Century: Christian Superstitions Doom the Norse in Greenland

In full in section 7.1: The Danish Norse who settled in Greenland died of starvation after converting to Christianity and using too many resources to build churches, and allowing prejudice against non-Christians to prevent trade or cultural exchange with the Inuit, who knew how to survive. www.humantruth.info/greenland.html

The Epistle (Letter) to the Philippians quick introduction

The Epistle (Letter) to the Philippians is one of the 7 genuine letters of St Paul in the New Testament, although the occasional theologian such as Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860) still rejects it. Paul thanks the Philippians for their support during a time when many Christians didn't trust him, especially because he never met Jesus. He encourages them to remain brave, and with growing divisions between different groups of Christians, each with different beliefs and different texts, wants the Philippians to stay united (1:12-30), reminding them to be humble & obedient (2:1-18). www.humanreligions.info/philippians.html.

The Mistaken Idea of Conveying Divine Truth Through Human Communicators

Spreading divine truth by human inspiration causes confusion, divisions, disagreements, translation errors, slow transmission and limits it to the human ability to express ideas. It's not how a #god who cares about truth and accuracy would convey information. https://www.humanreligions.info/god_to_human.html

Western Muslims

Muslims have "somewhat modern" views in Turkey, Bosnia, Malaysia, the USA, Canada, and throughout Europe which is not much over 6% Muslim. The majority of Western Muslims are liberal, or devout "without embracing fury". There are two systemic risks: extremist outreach programs funded by Saudi Arabia, and the deceitful, divisive and loud-mouthed antics of Western far-right parties and their supporters, who read low-quality sensationalist news sources and feed on anxiety about Islam; together forming a movement that would make cohesion and tolerance impossible. https://www.humanreligions.info/islam_western.html

The Feeble Struggle of Islamic Moderates Against Radicalists

Updated section 2 on the influence of traditionalist and radical influencers on Muslim communities throughout the world, discussing 15 example countries where centrist policies cannot be enacted, for fear of radicalist responses. https://www.humanreligions.info/islam_moderates.html

The overall page contents is:

1. The Majority of Western Muslims are Peaceful and Moderate
2. The Influence of the Traditionalist Islamist Radicals
3. The Influence of Near-Eastern Islam on Western Communities
4. Reversals: The Occasional Efforts of Reforming Rulers

Thales of Miletus

Added section #4 to www.humantruth.info/skepticism.html, to celebrate the Ionian thinker Thales, who, in 600 BCE, is the earliest recognizable skeptical thinker. He correctly predicted an eclipse based on his dedicated observations of the movement of the Earth around the sun. The Greeks placed him amongst the seven greatest thinkers because of his long-term influence on proper, careful and methodical thought.

Christianity Declining

From 2010 to 2020, these countries saw over 10% of their population stop describing themselves as Christian: Australia (-20%), Chile (-18%), Uruguay (-17%), the USA (-14%), Canada (-14%), the UK (-13%), Austria (-12%), Sweden (-12%), Switzerland (-12%), Ireland (-11%), France (-11%) and Belgium (-10%), with Finland and Spain close behind.

The largest increase in Christianity in a country in that period was in Mozambique (+5.0%).

See humanreligions.info/christianity.html section #2 on Worldwide Numbers.

Souls and Mind

On www.humantruth.info/souls.html

Buddhism and Women

As in other world religions, the religious hierarchy in Buddhism is male-dominated, causing ongoing gender discrimination both in monasteries and in wider Buddhist society. Buddhist texts sometimes "equal the worst anti-women polemics of any religion".

https://www.humanreligions.info/buddhism_women.html