رساله درباره سه شیاد : موسی، عیسی، محمد

by Samuel Briggs, حمید محوی (Translator)

De tribus impostoribus, A.D. 1230. The three impostors. Translated (with notes and comments) from a French manuscript of the work written in the 1716 with a dissertation on the original treatise and a bibliography of the various editions (1904). This book, "De tribus impostoribus, A.D. 1230 The three impostors," by Samuel Briggs, is a replication of a book originally published before 1904. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible.

Genres: Nonfiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1719

Reviews

[Peiman E iran · Rating 4 out of 5]

‎ دوستانِ گرانقدر، عنوانِ این کتاب، "سه شیاد:موسی، مسیح و محمد" نام دارد.. این کتاب در سده هایِ پیش دست در دست بین اندیشمندان و انسانهایِ مشهور چرخیده است و کسی نمیداند نویسندهٔ آن دقیقاً چه کسی بوده است و هرکه حدس و گمانهایی در مورد نویسندهٔ این کتاب ارائه داده است.. چیزی که مهّم است، این بوده که نویسنده ای، تلاش داشته تا انسانها را نسبت به ادیانِ دروغینِ سامی آگاه نموده و پیروانِ محمد و موسی و عیسی را از چاهِ نادانی و ناآگاهی بیرون بیاورد
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‎عزیزانم، هر انسانِ آگاه و خردمندی میداند که جهان به واسطهٔ ادیانِ پوشالی و دروغینِ یهودیت، مسیحیت و اسلام، از کردارها، گفتارها و پندارهایِ پوشالی و بیخردانه پُر شده است و هیچ عاملی به اندازۀ نادانی و بیخردیِ پیروانِ ادیان و دین داران، برای کسبِ اعتبار و رواجِ چنین ادیانِ بیخردانه، کارا نبوده است... نادانیِ مردمِ ساده لوح و زودباور، یگانه منبعِ پندارهای پوشالیِ ادیانِ سامی، دربارۀ عالم قدسی، معاد، روح، بهشت و جهنم و تقریباً همۀ دیگر عناصر و موضوعاتی است که پیامبرانِ دروغگو، به نامِ دین و مذهب در حلقومِ مردمِ بیچاره فرو کرده اند
‎این پیامبرانِ شیّاد و دروغین و پیروانِ بیخردِ آنها، مردم را از فیلسوفان و دانشمندان دور کردند، چراکه از این ترس و هراس داشتند که مبادا آموزه های این دانشمندان و فرهیختگان، مردم را از این دروغها آگاه سازد و دربِ دکّانِ دین فروشیِ این پیامبرانِ شیّاد تخته شود.. از این روی، همیشه دین دشمنِ دانش بوده است و چه بسیار اندیشمندانی که خونشان توسطِ دینداران و متعصبانِ مذهبی، به زمین ریخته شده است.. در طولِ تاریخ انسانهای بزرگ و اندیشمند بسیار بوده اند که سعی در رو کردنِ دستِ پیامبرانِ ادیانِ سامی داشته اند.. آنها سعی داشتند تا به مردم آموزش دهند که تصوراتی که ادیانِ سامی (اسلام، یهودیت،مسیحیت) از خدا برایِ آنها ساخته اند، دروغی کثیف بیش نبوده است.. خدا نه خشمگین میشود و نه حسادت میکند، نه مهربان است و نه عدالت دارد و نه زورگو میباشد.. اینها صفتهایی میباشد که پیامبرانِ متوهم و دروغگو، به موجودی نامرئی چسبانده اند و بدینوسیله بر مردمِ بیچاره حکومت کرده اند
‎کسانی که اهلِ مطالعه و دانش نیستند و از چرخهٔ طبیعت آگاهی ندارند، نوعی ترس در وجودشان رخنه کرده است.. این نگرانی و ترس نسبت به نیرو و نیروهایی ریشه میگیرد که تصور میکنند ممکن است به آنها خسارت وارد کند و یا موجبِ بقا و حفاظت از آنها شود. از همین رو به علتهایِ غیبی می اندیشند، یعنی علتهايی که در واقع چیزی بجز توهمات و تخیلاتِ خودشان نیست، و آن را در سختی ها و یا کامروایی هایشان فرا میخوانند. در نتیجه خدایانی همچون <بتِ اللهِ اکبر> و <یهووه>، می آفرینند و همین ترس توهم آمیز از نیروهایِ ناپیدا سرچشمۀ پیدایش ادیانی است که هر یک به سلیقۀ خود آن را ترسیم میکنند. پیامبران شیادِ ادیانِ سامی و متولیانِ دینی که در وضعیت بسته نگهداشتن و متوقف کردن مردم به اینگونه خیالپردازیها نفع خاصی برده و میبرند، بذر مذهب را در زندگی و مغزِ انسانهایِ ساده لوح کاشته اند و از آن قوانینی درست کرده اند و سرانجام مردم را با پیامدهایِ ترسناکِ آینده به تبعیت و فرمانبرداریِ کورکورانه از این ادیان و مذاهبِ بیخردانه و غیرِ انسانی، مجبور کرده اند
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‎امیدوارم معرفیِ این کتاب، برایِ شما خردگرایانِ ایرانی، مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[رزی - Woman, Life, Liberty · Rating 2 out of 5]

اون‌قدری که سروصدا کرده کتاب خوبی نیست. منبع درست نزده و مغالطه هم داره. مطالبش هم چیزِ جدید و مفیدی نبودن

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

If Ham Sarris is a religious critic of a roughly middle school-level, this anonymous treatise is about high school-level. It takes the same literalistic and superficial reading of scripture as Sarris and the same ignorant hubris of Dawkins, plus a few references to works like "Contra Celsum" to convince you that they at least read the sparknotes version of what they’re talking about. My favorite thought while reading this book is that it might be a subversive work written by a believer to discredit the stupidity of a manufactured unbeliever. Either way it's a really bad showing, and it would be a much better use of your time to read modern and postmodern critics of note like Nietzsche and Bart Ehrman, not this. Even reading a shampoo bottle would be more enlightening than this. The number of factual inaccuracies, not to mention its fallacies, explicitly biased assumptions, unfounded speculations, theological oversimplifications, and petty hostility shred any semblance of objectivity which the author feigned. But this is what passes in most "skeptical" communities for critical thinking: as long as you're critical of the right thing, you can be as orthodox as you want in your reasoning/arguments, no one will care. You can be as polemical and biased and ignorant as you want as long as you hold the right opinion (god-people bad, grr). Certainly this is a problem in religious communities, don't get me wrong, but the skeptic/scientific community falls prey to it just as much; the theistic community simply isn’t in denial about it.

The first chapter of the book betrays a modernist assumption that reason left to its own devices is disinterested and in control, not just a Humeian post-hoc justification machine. It also makes the fundamentally wrong claim that we can discover everything needed by reason alone, including theology. Theology specifically is only “theology” insofar as it supersedes reason and surpasses it. If you can reason to it, it isn't theology, but philosophy. These sort of basic problems with logic and thinking are rife throughout, and the only way I was able to make it through was because of how short it was.

Up next the author made a conspiratorial claim that all religions have been started by knowing liars. This is a very hard sell and shows how biased the author is right off the bat. A much more defensible (but much less showy) argument would be that even the (false) prophets were fooled by the magic/coincidence/etc. That would not only bolster their argument, but it would also show that they had thought about the topic for longer than 5 minutes. As such, it’s evident that they’re going to take the hardest line possible, not allow any nuance or grant any points to their adversary (spoiler alert, this hold up throughout). It’s also notable how superficial, dismissive, and hyperbolic the author is. They use this in a bad attempt to distract the reader from how theologically naive, reductive, and wide-sweeping their assertions. And I say assertions here because I’m not sure that the author actually made a legitimate argument in the entire book. To explain this, see the following example:

"Christ who speaks very frequently of angels and spirits, good and bad, does not inform us whether they are material or immaterial. This makes it evident that both of them were ignorant of the fact that..."

The above quote details the sort of logical fallacies and idiocy that's par for the course in this bilge. The author complains that Christ doesn't use philosophical categories to give explanations about the (im)materiality of demons (nor does Moses use philosophical categories to explain their origins). This is merely an assertion of the modernistic philosophical fancy of the author and nothing more. The most ironic part is the end of that quote, where he says "this makes it EVIDENT" (it doesn't make anything evident other than the author's arbitrary standard of competency) "that both of them were IGNORANT" (omission doesn't necessitate ignorance; if omission proved ignorance, this anonymous author knows even less than a newborn baby) "of the FACT that..." (this isn't a fact, you're making an assertion and using that one arbitrary assertion for three purposes. Props for the economy of language but too bad they're using it to say literally nothing other than "I, the anonymous author, am ignorant."

But back to the actual points the author was making: when bemoaning about ancient people attributing agency to inexplicable things, this author likewise attributes knowingly maleficence to all religious priests... how ironic. The author also claims the baldfaced lie that "All" natural evils (weather, disease, etc.) are attributed to divine wrath, which is false in every Abrahamic religion. They also alluded to Job and the misfortune which falls on the good and the evil as being contradictory, but it isn't at all contradictory when their first claim is one that is a theological lie (certainly some believers think it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s something the religion teaches; some Christians think Donald Trump was a good president, but that doesn’t mean Christianity says he was a good president). When discussing etymology, the author made a laughably backwards claim:

"This prejudice conducted them straightway to another, which was, that all the judgments of God were incomprehensible; and that consequently they were beyond the cognizance of truth, and above the strength of human reason; a mistake which would have existed at the present day, if mathematical knowledge, natural philosophy, and other sciences had not extinguished it."

The only reason we ever started scientific inquiry is directly a result of the Christian worldview. We believed in objective truth, trusting senses, an order to nature, a trust in reason, etc. because of Christianity. No other religion had this unique combination of views and thus no other religion allowed this to happen; none of the eastern religions had this, and Islam could have, but it chose fideism over its former philosophical and scientific emphasis.

The problems only compound as you read further. They consistently forget about Christ claiming to be God, not to mention a myriad nuances which are less obvious than that which get ignored. The writer, in their passive aggressivity, refuses to understand what a metaphor or allegory is, and takes a Ham Sarris approach to scriptural reading. They made the claim that the Bible “has scarcely more arrangement than the Koran,” which is just a total insult and utterly untrue. The Koran contains no discernible organization (neither by theme nor by chronology), while the bible is obviously linear, straightforward, and grouped by genre (the Torah, then the Historical books, the Wisdom books, the Prophetic books, the New Testament gospels, Acts, the epistles of Paul, the other epistles, the Apocalypse).

The author throughout has a problem switching between talking about the Abrahamic religions in specific, and western religions in general. They clearly use whichever one works better to their ends rather than keeping any sort of consistency. This slipperiness worsens when they continue the unfounded conspiracy theory that all religions are known lies, but then they backtrack and point out how the pagans didn't have any single organized “religion” per se, but it was an intermingling of many different rites and gods, and "only later" did people conspire to take power for themselves and manipulate the masses… this totally contradicts their earlier claim that it's all a conspiracy. This point about the exclusivity of religion is one Bart Ehrman explained well, where exclusivity (and its correlative orthodoxy, doctrines, dogma, hierarchy, etc. is a monotheistic peculiarity, one which wasn't present in the polytheistic mindset, and thus there's not really any "power" that a polytheistic priesthood holds, because people can always worship other gods or more gods or new gods, so there's no actual control there. The control would be more of a nationalistic one, which was the actual reason for persecuting the Christians who wouldn’t sacrifice to Caesar (they were viewed as putting the Empire in jeopardy, no one cared about their theological positions).

The history of Moses is recounted with lots of little jibes thrown in and everything explained in the most utilitarian and negative view, same thing with Christ, but with extra falsehoods and not a single pure intention attributed to him (speculated that He was just waiting to get into power and then he'd show his true colors, despite literally all evidence being to the contrary). I've never witnessed unfounded hyperbole as rampant as this: "In short, it is abundantly manifest that the authors of the Scriptures have copied the works of Hesiod, Homer, and some other ancient writers, almost word for word."

They made parallels between Christ and a few obscure Greek philosophers, claiming that Christ was less profound (even though he died for his teachings, claimed to be God, all of that), simply because of some parallels. The author mentions Contra Celsus but misattributes the original Celsus writing as being sent to/aimed at Origen, who wasn't even alive then. They keep using the "poor people and unintellectual people believed christ, so it must be false or wrong or stupid" argument from Celsus, which actually reveals an interesting “aristocratic principle” a la Nietzsche, though this idea (proles = worthless) has problems, namely that intellectuals and even the Emperor of the Roman Empire himself (Constantine) became Christian without any compulsion whatsoever.

Things reach a fever pitch of brevity and lost brain cells when the author attempts to discredit the resurrection in one dismissively sexist sentence, then proclaims that due to this "argumentation", Christianity is just as unfounded and accidental as any other religion. This is almost as bad as Sarris’ dismissal of the historicity of Christianity in one sentence by falsely equating the reasons for Christian and Islamic faith.

The author throughout insults us with assumptions and unfounded speculations, then says "with these facts in mind, the reader can decide for themselves". It’s pathetically obvious how biased the writer was. All of this is an excellent example of even the modernist reliance on reason doesn't get you any closer to truth, since this "reasoned" argumentation is always so marred by bias, and in this case it's hopelessly far away from fact: "The following observations, if read with a free and unprejudiced mind, may lead to the discovery of truth, by clearing away those mists wherewith you have been blinded and beguiled."

Modernism aside, this has to be perhaps the clearest example of "Begging the question" which I've ever seen in my life:

"The conferences of Moses and Mahomet with the Deity, and the miraculous conception of Jesus Christ, are the greatest impostures that have ever met the face of day, and you must shun their contemplation as you love the truth."

After all this individualistic, rationalistic posturing, the author references the philosophers of yore to discuss the Soul. The resultant questions abound: Why must we care what the philosophers of yore have argued? Especially if they're contradictory? Why the sudden appeal to authority? I thought it was "Reason Uber Alles"? The excessive name dropping at the end is a nice touch to pretend to some sort of knowledge.

“The world has been long infected with these most absurd opinions, yet in every age men have been found—truth-loving men—who have striven against the absurdities of their day. This little treatise has been written from like motives, and in it the lovers of truth will doubtless meet with some things satisfactory. It is to them that I appeal, caring little for the opinion of those who substitute their own prejudices in place of infallible oracles.”

This ending really puts the cap on the pyramid of shit-blocks. The author, obviously a lover of truth, says he "cares little for the opinion of those who substitute their own prejudices in place of infallible oracles", which is exactly how I view him, but exchanging "infallible oracles" with "self-inflated philosophical reason."

I would tell this author to "kys" if they weren't already dead, or if they had actually had the balls to put their name on this purile waste of paper.

Instead of the text of this book being hosted on Gutenburg.org, they should just include a link to the Wikipedia page for the Dunning-Kruger Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning...).

P.S. The book only talks about Islam I think twice, it's obvious they've never read anything about Islamic theology because they have virtually nothing of interest to say about it, not even any fun critiques or insults. At least Nietzsche, a man with an extremely deep understanding of Christianity, has good insults. They hit and they hurt because he knows the religion inside and out. This book, not so much. Others have elaborated naturalistic explanations of religion in much more compelling ways. This ain't it, chief.

[Nadia Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three birds, one stone: a savage attack on Christianity, Judaism and Islam, all in a single treatise. Piece by piece, the foundation of each faith is scrutinised and dismantled, though the success of this desecration is questionable.

It is written very succinctly, divided into parts each dedicated to certain aspects of faith.

Of God

"If the people could understand into what an abyss they are sunk by ignorance, they would speedily shake off the yoke of their unworthy leaders, for it is impossible not to discover the truth when reason is left to its unrestrained exercise."

Religion is attributed to a stubborn disregard for reason, fostered by 'leaders' who exploit and compel the masses into believing their hand-crafted falsehoods.

On The Reasons Which Led Mankind To Believe In A Divinity

"Those who are ignorant of physical causes have a natural fear, proceeding from a restlessness in their minds, as to whether there exists a Being or an Agency invisible to them, who has the power to injure them, or to do them good. Hence the tendency which they have to feign unseen causes, which are only the phantoms of their imagination - whom they deprecate in adversity and thank in prosperity. They make Gods of them for this purpose; and this chimerical fear of invisible Powers is the same source of those Religions which everyone forms after his own fashion. Those whose interest it is that the people should rest contentedly fettered by such reveries, have fostered their spread - have founded laws upon them - and finally reduced the people by the terrors of futurity to a blind obedience."

"They give names to their ideas, as if they existed in any other quarter than in their own prejudiced brain; but instead of calling them mere chimeras, they designate them Beings."

"They assert that God must be a just and avenging Being who punishes and recompenses - they represent him as susceptible of every human passion - they depict him with feet, with hands, with eyes and with ears, and yet maintain that he is an immaterial Being."

The anonymous writer proceeds to interrogate the evident resemblance of God to Man - how God appears afflicted with the very passions and jealousies which colour the essence of humankind. Why, we may wonder, must God appear in a corporeal form? Why must he act and react to the decisions made by us meagre men? Is he not above it all? According to the anonymous writer, this is merely a testament to our own corrosive egocentrism, our arrogance which compels us to craft Gods in our own name.

On The Meaning Of The World Religion

In this segment, we are presented with a depiction of Man before Religion - humanity in the State of Nature.

"Before the term Religion was introduced into the world, mankind followed the law of Nature, that is, they lived conformably to Reason. Instinct was the only bond by which men were united; and this bond, simple as it is, was so strong that divisions were rare."

For me, this seems to be a mere reassembling of Genesis - an illusion of paradise wherein man exists in harmony. What strikes me as curious is that this harmony is bound by the thread of Reason. It is reason, here, which allows us to coexist peaceably, and it is religion which brings about the destruction of this reason. I am of the belief that humankind has always been a species caught between the clutches of reason and unreason, rationality and irrationality. We live atop a pendulum, constantly tolling back and forth between these two states. I don't think that one is more natural than the other, nor that one is more essential to our coexistence. They are equally inevitable, and equally valuable. For, though rationality may give birth to the logic and pragmatism which paves the way for science and other means of empirical knowledge, it is irrationality which gives birth to art, to hopes, to ambitions.

"Terror having thus created the Gods, men wished to ascertain their nature, and conceiving that they must be of the same substance as the Soul, which they thought was like the appearances in a mirror, or the phantoms of sleep, they believed that their Gods were real substances, but so thin and subtle that to distinguish them from Bodies they named them Spirits; although Bodies and Spirits are in truth one and the same thing, for it is impossible to imagine an incorporeal Spirit. Every spirit has its proper shape, which is enclosed in some body; that is, it has its limits, and consequently it is a body, however subtle its nature."

A reflection of Spinoza's idea that it is fear which breeds superstition, and thus religion - indeed, many had claimed that it was Spinoza who was the author of this treatise, but alas, nothing is certain.

The author then goes on to interrogate Moses, Jesus and Mahomet in turn, though his critique of Christ is somewhat lengthier than the others. Here, lies a scrutiny of the Politics of Jesus Christ as well as the Morality. The existence of a Judeo-Christian code of ethics is dismantled in the claim that it is a mere reflection of the ethics proclaimed by those before Christ - the Greek philosophers, Aristotle, Plato, Epicurious.

"Is there no resemblance between the fall of Lucifer and that of Vulcan, or of the giants struck down by the thunderbolts of Jove. How close the resemblance between Sampson and Hercules; Elijah and Phaeton; Joseph and Hypolitus; Nebuchadnezzar and Lycaon; Tantalus and the rich man in torment; the manna in the wilderness and the ambrosia of the gods!
The idea of “Original Sin” is taken from the account of Pandora’s box; and the interrupted sacrifices of Isaac and of Jephtha’s daughter are borrowed from that Iphigenia, in whose room a hind was offered up. What we read of concerning Lot and his wife, is nearly the same as that which fabulous history informs us occurred to Bancis and Philemon. The histories of Perseus and of Bellerophon are the foundation of Michael and the demon whom he vanquished. In short, it is abundantly manifest that the authors of the Scriptures have copied the works of Hesiod, Homer, and some other ancient writers, almost word for word."

What next proceeds is an interrogation of the nature of the soul, and the existence of spirits we call 'demons'.

"It is certain that there exists in the universe a very subtle fluid, a substance extremely attenuated, whose source is the sun, and which pervades all other bodies, less or more, according to their nature and their consistence. Such is the soul of the world, which governs and vivifies it, and of which some portion is distributed to all the creatures in the universe.

This soul is the purest fire. It burns not of itself, but by different movements, which it communicates to the particles of other bodies into which it enters, it burns and makest its warmth be felt. Our visible fire contains more of this matter than air; air, more than water; and earth, considerably less than any of them. Plants have more of it than minerals, and animals more than either. In fine, this fire pervading the body renders it capable of thought, and is that properly termed the soul, although it sometimes receives the appellation of animal spirits, which permeate the whole body. It is certain therefore that this soul being of the same nature as that of animals, is annihilated at the death of man, as it is at that of the other creatures. It follows that whatever poets and divines have told us of a future state, is only the chimerical offspring of their own brain, begotten and nourished by them for purposes which is by no means difficult to fathom."

A very curious theory. It seems to me that, here, the soul is conflated with consciousness, with the essence of Thought. And I would have to agree. Or, if they are not one and the same, they are at least intrinsically bound together. What strikes me here is that the soul is said to be annihilated upon our death. But is death not restricted to corporeal forms? Truly, there is no way to know, but if it's true that the soul is an intangible essence, and if it's true that death and decay apply only to physical beings, then would it not make sense to say that the soul persists even after our demise?

[Esteban Bernal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet mocking of the 3 main religions around today.

[Peter J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a hard look into the philosophical problems with the three main faiths that originated in the Levant; Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The parallels noted between the actions of Mohammed and Moses were ones that I had already independently noticed. It is sad thinking that this work, which many authors had rumored to exist since 1230, had to be secretly propogated through the centuries for fear of the stake and the faggot.