ian.ellis-jones's blog

The therapeutic approach discussed in the attached article, which has been called ‘self illusion therapy,’ draws on both Eastern and Western insights including but not limited to the teachings of Buddhism and the work of the English neurologist John Hughlings Jackson, the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, the Australian addiction psychologist Jim Maclaine, and the philosophers David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and P F Strawson.

Mine is a religiously liberal and non-dogmatic faith---faith meaning living with courage, confidence and conviction---drawing on the wisdom of all world religions as well as the insights of science, philosophy, art, music and literature. Mine is also a skeptical faith, for I have always affirmed that every idea is to be tested and every stone turned over.

Human beings are neither evil beyond measure nor good beyond credibility. That is my position as a Humanist and religious liberal even though I am well aware that many Humanists tend to have a view of human nature that is far too ‘rosy’ and unrealistic.

Much of modern-day Judaism, in particular the non-Orthodox movements known as Reconstructionist Judaism and Humanistic Judaism, but also to some extent Reform Judaism, is for all intents and purposes devoid of notions of supernaturalism. This should not come as a surprise, as there has always been much less emphasis on the supernatural in Judaism than in, say, the religion of Christianity which sprang from it. There is more supernaturalism in the Christian New Testament than in the Hebrew Bible.

Enactment theology is one form of radical theology (also known as ‘Death of God theology’) which asserts that the traditional western idea of God is no longer tenable. Enactment theologians assert that if there is a God at all, that God is to be found in personal relationships with and between individuals. It is a God that we humans create and bring into being---that is, 'enact'. (After all, is it not the case that we humans have created all of the supposed gods over the centuries? I think it is indeed the case.

Note. The attached article began as an address to the Sydney Realist Group (‘Sydney Realists’), Glebe, New South Wales, Australia, delivered on 7 May 2013. The article was subsequently published in three parts in the journal The Northern Line, No. 15 March 2014 (pp 13-16), No. 16 May 2014 (pp 10-15), and No. 17 July 2014 (pp 9-13). The article interprets some key ideas and teachings of Buddhism in light of the situational realism of the Scottish-Australian philosopher John Anderson.

'God is light and in God there is no darkness at all.’ (1 Jn 1:5)

In The Celestial Hierarchy the great mystic Pseudo-Dionysius refers to God as the ‘light which is the source of all light’ and writes: ‘Of course God himself is really the source of illumination for those who are illuminated for he is truly and really Light itself. He is the Cause of being and seeing.’

In The Divine Names the same writer has this to say about God (whom he refers to as ‘the Good’) as light:

Clarence Russell Skinner was the most influential Universalist minister of his generation. He wrote a wonderful book entitled The Social Implications of Universalism (1915). Skinner wrote that modern religion must sanctify the world.

‘There is hope for whoever does not know what to believe. Human belief is a combination of superstition, gullibility and mental laziness. We need not believe anything; we need to find, to see, to know.’ Those words come from the American spiritual teacher Vernon Howard whose writings and talks have helped me greatly over the years.

This is a brief critical analysis of the extra-Biblical evidence for the supposed existence of Jesus Christ.

There is no non-Christian record of Jesus before the 2nd century CE. There were over forty well-known pagan and Jewish historians writing at the time of Jesus’ supposed existence or within a century of that time. Apart from two demonstrably forged passages in Josephus, and two highly disputed passages in the works of two Roman historians, not one of those historians made any mention of Jesus at all.

1. Josephus:-