I know this is a pretty vague question, as it will be very difficult to find an unbiased view on religion. On one hand, we have a union of all those believe that their religion and the holy book is infallible and on the other hand, we have a group with the personal agenda to denounce religion at any cost.

I have started investigating the Abrahamic version of god, and in particular Christianity. I would really appreciate if the members here can suggest any materials (books, articles, forum posts, blog posts, scientific journals, etc) which have a near unbiased research on the historicity of jesus, yahweh, allah, etc. Did the exodus really happen? What the archaeological "evidence" for events as described in the OT, NT or Quran?

I am trying to answer these any many other questions that keep irritating me almost everyday of my life.

PS: I consider myself a pragmatic atheist (soft atheist) so I am more of a agnostic than a strong atheist. Thus my curiosity.

Lots of luck finding an unbiased account of any religious or historical matter.I never have.The best you will probably be able to do is avoid both alpologists and the rabidly anti religion/anti theist.

Atheism and agnosticism are not necessarily connected. Atheism is about belief. Agnosticism is about knowledge.

I call myself an agnostic atheist.IE I do not believe in gods,due to the lack of credible evidence. However,I do not claim to know if God(s) exist or not. I consider this the thinking atheist's position.

Min should be able to give you a decent reading list if you ask him nicely and offer alcohol.

(August 23, 2012 at 3:28 am)Forsaken Wrote: I have started investigating the Abrahamic version of god, and in particular Christianity. I would really appreciate if the members here can suggest any materials (books, articles, forum posts, blog posts, scientific journals, etc) which have a near unbiased research on the historicity of jesus, yahweh, allah, etc. Did the exodus really happen? What the archaeological "evidence" for events as described in the OT, NT or Quran?

See, the problem is that different people will have different opinions on whether a particular material is biased or not, especially depending on the background and/or the religion of the authors. For example, if I tell you that a certain book is an unbiased work on the history of Islam, in my opinion, and that it was written by a Muslim, then you might automatically think that the book is going to be biased just because it was written by a Muslim. Similarly, if a Christian was reading a book on Christianity that was written by an atheist, then he might think that the book is biased just because the author is an atheist. The point is, people will tend to believe the evidence that supports their own pre-conceived ideas and reject any that opposes them. An author may go about writing a book in an intellectually honest manner as much as possible, spend a lot of time to do research on his topic, corroborate with many other scholars who are specialized in the field, re-evaluate his facts and arguments, and so on, but one can easily say that the material is "biased" just because he doesn't agree with those particular views.

So, the question is, what should be the criteria in which to determine how much "unbiased" a material is?

My answer to is that we have to look at many different things. The author's intellectual background does matter (partially) - things such as his cultural influences, the level of his academic achievements, his scholarship, what other books he has written, what kind of criticisms he received, his honesty, etc. - but it's not necessarily true that a certain book definitely has bias in it just based on the reasoning that it was written by a Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, or whatever faith he belongs to. The important thing is to examine the work itself and see if it has stood the test of time, not just the person who wrote it.

If I were to post a few materials which I consider to be the most unbiased view on the history of Islam (though you may disagree), the following would be the ones:

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (by Martin Lings)
Vision of Islam (by Sachiko Murata and William Chittick)
The Jews of Islam (by Bernard Lewis)
The History of the Quranic Text from Revelation to Compilation (by Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azami)

The idea of finding a pure unbiased view, is wrong it comes from an old way of thinking that some people's views are more important than others; the Popes view is the right view and you move about until you can see things the same way as him. We live in a relative universe where depending how a thing is observed, changes the information we get from that thing.
There are those that will hate what I have written above because it mixes up perspective, maths, history, and particle physics, but I like seeing connections, others like categories. There is no such thing as unbiased, that is my biased view anyway.

These are a good start. Plenty of validated info in here & links to sources for the deconstructions:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/

(August 23, 2012 at 5:43 am)Rayaan Wrote: See, the problem is that different people will have different opinions on whether a particular material is biased or not, especially depending on the background and/or the religion of the authors. For example, if I tell you that a certain book is an unbiased work on the history of Islam, in my opinion, and that it was written by a Muslim, then you might automatically think that the book is going to be biased just because it was written by a Muslim. Similarly, if a Christian was reading a book on Christianity that was written by an atheist, then he might think that the book is biased just because the author is an atheist. The point is, people will tend to believe the evidence that supports their own pre-conceived ideas and reject any that opposes them. An author may go about writing a book in an intellectually honest manner as much as possible, spend a lot of time to do research on his topic, corroborate with many other scholars who are specialized in the field, re-evaluate his facts and arguments, and so on, but one can easily say that the material is "biased" just because he doesn't agree with those particular views.

So, the question is, what should be the criteria in which to determine how much "unbiased" a material is?

My answer to is that we have to look at many different things. The author's intellectual background does matter (partially) - things such as his cultural influences, the level of his academic achievements, his scholarship, what other books he has written, what kind of criticisms he received, his honesty, etc. - but it's not necessarily true that a certain book definitely has bias in it just based on the reasoning that it was written by a Christian, Muslim, Jew, atheist, or whatever faith he belongs to. The important thing is to examine the work itself and see if it has stood the test of time, not just the person who wrote it.

If I were to post a few materials which I consider to be the most unbiased view on the history of Islam (though you may disagree), the following would be the ones:

Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (by Martin Lings)
Vision of Islam (by Sachiko Murata and William Chittick)
The Jews of Islam (by Bernard Lewis)
The History of the Quranic Text from Revelation to Compilation (by Muhammad Mustafa Al-Azami)

Yes Rayaan, this is exactly the dilemma - whose work to trust.
Anyway, those books you recommended should definitely make on my wishlist on Amazon. Thanks.

Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy
William James, Varieties of Religious Experience
Freud, The Future of an Illusion

Quote:Where can I get an unbiased view on the bible, Jesus and Abrahamic Religions?

Almost impossible. When you get an actual scholar, like Burton Mack, you will see the dipshits go crazy because he looks for jesus in a greco-roman setting rather than a jewish setting. They will thus challenge any notion of him being "unbiased." My problem with Mack is that even with no evidence at all he still thinks there was a real jesus wandering around with a small following of fools.

Perhaps the best you can hope for is someone who gets yelled at by both sides?

Mack, Burton L., "The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy"

or, "Who Wrote the New Testament."

As far as the original Yahweh shit goes, William Dever's "Did God Have A Wife" or Israel Finkelstein's The Bible Unearthed are among the best discussions of what archaeology has shown. Again, the jesus freaks will denounce both because they dismiss the holy horseshit but there is no way to get around that.

Another excellent archaeological text is Amy Dockser Marcus' "The View From Nebo."

You should start with a good translation like the New American Standard, the without others directing you one way or the other research through history and other credible material, such as Jewish writings, Greek and Hebrew languages, to search out the truth is a process of study, it is not received through others opinions.

Always your mistake, G-C. Reading the fucking bible does nothing except waste your time.

You can't learn anything by reading and re-reading bullshit.