IRON MAN

I have just been reading "The History of the World", an old book I found at a second hand store.

It is mostly a straight out secular description of the movements of tribes and cultures in the ancient world.

Strangely it says stuff like, "a man named Jesus who went around healing the sick ..." [paraphrasing] (ie. automatically assuming the existance of Jesus at all, whilst implying the description of his works to be accurate). However, in reading more of this book I feel these sorts of comments may only be window dressing for simplicity and to avoid criticism in a xian culture.

In reading the entire chapters on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, one can feel sympathy for the Romans, (traditionally the "bad guys" in our xian dominated culture), as champions of civilization, surrounded by barbarians and in constant "civil war" with religious ignorance.

As the book describes it, the Romans were largely not religious in that they only gave lip service to their own gods, and everyone knew it, (but somehow they accepted it as a necessary eccentricity of human culture).

Enter the jews and xians with their uniquely "jealous" god and restrictive religious ceremony ... by comparison the Roman Empire seems exceptionally tollerant.

During the protracted fall of the Roman empire, it even seems that civilization itself is under threat from religion, and you find yourself on the side of the Romans who are doing all they can to protect it, whilst attempting to deal with the fatal flaws in their own pollitical system.

Alas, the Dark Ages seems to have been the eventual outcome, and one wonders where modern civilization might be today without xianity.

Naturally one also worries about the future of modern civilization when hearing James Randi comment on the increase of quackery and frauds like John Edward.

Fantastic Voyage

What? John Edward is a fake?

and can you tell me the author of the book?

IRON MAN

Actually I would have put more information on the book, but I don't have it on hand at the moment. Suffice to say, I would think any concise telling of history that doesn't draw too many culturally biased conclusions would look very similar.

It is worth noting that the book makes no attempt to portray either the Roman Empire or xianity in the way that I suggested in the OP, that was me drawing my own conclusion.

Yes John Edward is indeed a fake.