| A former prosecutor will release his book that undermines religion's claims of any just god. Analyzing myths, the Bible, the Koran and Anglo-American law, Geoff J. Henley writes a critique of scripture and organized religion.
This May a former Texas prosecutor will release a book meant to shake the foundations of religion. Just as 9/11 has raised questions about Islam and science has challenged Creationism, Geoff J. Henley explains that he believes that common legal principles show no just God exists in Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Lawyer's Case for Disbelief in God. Joining skeptics like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, Henley has taken the debate about a godless universe from pulpits and laboratories to courtrooms and law libraries.
"This book shows that just as scientists in white lab coats through countless experiments have explained our existence better than scripture, so have common law judges through trial and error over the centuries discovered principles of justice that are superior to those ascribed to God," says Henley.
Having tried more than a 100 cases, including a capital murder case where he obtained a conviction without a body, the Dallas-based litigator analyzes the Bible and the Koran on everything from creation to damnation. In often funny accounts of creation myths from sources as different as Genesis, Apache Indians and Ancient Egyptians, the former district attorney illustrates that every culture's creation myths to explain natural origins are no different than a criminal's desperate alibi to explain his predicament.
Henley describes how gods condemn humanity based on our existence alone, but then demand fealty to obtain forgiveness for fictitious crimes. He explains that faith is a "contract of adhesion" - like the one-sided agreements that corporations force upon consumers in everything from bank loans to car purchases - that give humanity no choice, but to pay homage or burn in Hell.
"It's Yahweh, or the highway," Henley explains.
The former prosecutor shows that greedy evangelists, abusive polygamists and Catholic pedophilic priests are no different than the Old Testament patriarchs and how leaders of all faiths manipulate natural occurrences for simple financial gain.
In this work that covers everything from Genesis to Revelations, Henley relies on the law and biblical scholars to attempt to show:
- That we do not have the "best evidence" of God's alleged revelations
- That the Gospels are unreliable hearsay
- That Christianity damns the mentally ill like President Reagan and Terri Schiavo
- That the Ten Commandments are brutal and borrowed
- That the Koran and the Bible have equally absurd creation myths
- That under Intelligent Design is "junk science" under Daubert v. DuPont
Beyond Reasonable Doubt will go on sale May 15, 2008
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