Hello everyone! My name is Christopher Johnson and I am a former United States Marine who became interested in the subject of religion, most notably the historical record of religion. I have researched and read many of the known and largely unknown religious systems that have existed since mankind first knew to look to a higher power and the writings that have passed through my hands span millennia. I became particularly interested in an undercurrent of what at first appeared to be coincidental similarities, but after deeper examination, turned out to be much more than I had imagined. I have written a book that serves as a map to discover the headwaters of the river of faith, one that begs the reader to discover more, and includes a bibliography of the many volumes that I have discovered. It may be the largest and most diverse collection of works compiled on the subject. The book is available in both soft cover and kindle version on Amazon at Be Ye Therefore Wise as Serpents or on Barnes and Nobles, Books A Million and the like by the same title. Thank you for taking a look!

is there an example chapter or a sample paragraph or two to preview the work?

I'll put one together for later today to post if that's ok.

Thanks a lot JohnsonCM, looking forward to it.

Sorry about the delay on this. Here is an excerpt of the book. I'd like to say that I've written it in more of a "treasure map" kind of way. Not only would my explaining every last detail of all the systems I examine have taken up multiple volumes, but it detracts from the discovery process that is so vital to actually learning the information. Thats why the bibliography is about 6 pages!

OK. So cant do a file upload for some reason....so here in the post is a sample. Its the introduction.

BE YE, THEREFORE, WISE AS SERPENTS
A Genealogy of Faith

CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON
Copyright © 2015 Christopher Johnson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1518842305
ISBN-13: 978-1518842306


DEDICATION


I would like to dedicate this book to everyone out there in the world. We are all family of the same Household of Faith regardless of our personal beliefs.

Acknowledgments i
Introduction 8
1 What is Religion? 15
2 Types of Religion 27
3 The Major Religions – Today and Going Backwards 35
4 Historicity Of Religions – Sources And Accuracy 55
5 The Role of Symbols 66
6 The Mystery Religions 78
7 Christianity: Heir Of The Mysteries? 95
8 The Man Who Changed the World 104
9 The Greek Connection 117
10 Egypt – Cradle of Civilization, Father of Philosophy, Progenitor of Modern Religion? 125
11 Prehistory – Here’s Where the “Crazy Talk” Begins 134
12 Tying It All Together – Sort Of 146
13 So What Does God Really Want From Us? 154
14 The Final Chapter 173
Bibliography 178
CONTENTS


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I would like to thank my family. My mother, father, sister, and my three boys who put up with me the entire time I wrote and researched this book. Without your encouragement, dedication, and transcription / editing skills (I'm looking at you, Mom) this book would not have happened. I would also like to thank the several people who, throughout my life have shared with me their beliefs and reasons for believing. You, too, were instrumental in the completion of this work.

Introduction

Religion is a strange and powerful force in our world. It is the only thing that can bring people together as easily as it can drive them apart, start or stop wars, create or destroy nations, and condemn as easily as forgive. The very mechanism of faith seems to be at odds with knowledge as, on the surface, faith exhorts us to believe not just in the absence of proof, but especially in the absence of proof. Apart from simply affecting the government of belief among the faithful, its social and political impact on the world stage can also not be understated. In fact, religion has been the driving force behind the birth of many nations, or at the very least, the foundation upon which nations have been built. Its effects are counterintuitive and paradoxical: the unknowable and eternal affecting the established and temporal. Accordingly, the institution of religion can be, and has been, approached from nearly every aspect that can be conceived, from absolute faith to pure academics. The compound nature of religion, however, dictates that it should be approached from a multidisciplinary point of view, the very subject itself containing an almost inestimable number of working and moving parts. It is a mistake to only take the subject in hand from any one angle to the exclusion of all others, and an equally great mistake to take it from either a purely literal or fictitious viewpoint.
It is my opinion, upon examining the Koran, Bible, Torah, Vedas and so on, that there have always been two major manifestations or incarnations of religion: that which is given to the general public, and that which is reserved for a select few, ever maintaining the schism between the enlightened and the ignorant. This very thought leads to several questions. Why are particular aspects of religious devotion, expression, and thought kept from certain groups of people? What comprises these secret teachings, if they exist, that they should be considered unsuitable for the average person, or perhaps more accurately, vice versa? What forms of criterion are developed to distinguish between those who should have and those who should have not?
The fractured expression of belief is also both problematic and provocative. Cursory examination shows that while there are several religions that are independent and distinctive of one another, for the most part they all claim sole proprietary knowledge on the process and requirements of not only the form of worship most pleasing to God, but indeed the very salvation of the human soul. Upon further examination, we find that within several overarching religious systems there are subsets, each teaching a different interpretation of the same message. For example, in Christianity we find there are Evangelicals, Protestants, the Amish, the Mennonites, and Shakers among many others, including those who simply term themselves as ‘non-denominational’. We will find similar divergences among nearly all of the established religious systems, each of these subsets adhering to the same general system of theology, but differing in the interpretation of doctrine or practice. Of perhaps greater interest, especially in this work, are the often ignored similarities also inherent with the various systems of religion. It is this last statement which will be the focus of this book, because it leads us to a few extremely important questions; which if left unanswered might precipitate critically dangerous consequences to the world of today: If there are similarities in these seemingly disparate religions, what does that mean? Could we reasonably speculate that ALL religions are in some way truly divinely inspired, and if so, by the same “God”? Or, perhaps, do all religions have a common ancestor, a Prisca Theologica, as St. Thomas Aquinas, among others, has suggested – modern religion simply consisting of divergent strands of the same “theological DNA”? If there was a single antecedent of all religion, can we prove that, and, if so, how did IT come to exist? If it was proven that all religions stem from the same source, and the differences in them are the result of mankind’s imperfect comprehension of a divine message, would that knowledge halt the wars raging in the name of religion? Would it unite us in ways no force heretofore has been able to do?
Those last few questions have a profound import for the faithful of today. Truly answering them would mean that those who thought one faith was right over another, that one book is truth while another is lies, are wrong. A difficult, if not outright impossible, thought to be sure for anyone who devoutly believes in their creed. But it is my belief that this knowledge would not, in turn say that all religion is false. In fact it wouldn’t say any religion is false. Instead it would show that all religion had a common ground and it was the introduction of a single imperfection into the system that caused the differences we now lament: humanity. The human mind is a complex organ and the human consciousness and belief structure is beyond modern science to fully understand, but one thing is absolutely certain. In comparison to what we believe to be an omniscient and omnipresent creator God, our vaunted intellect is decidedly fallible. For us poor mortals, trying to understand the mind of God is like a newborn baby trying to understand its parents will, and in the face of a truly 'perfect' God, even that presumption might be worse than hubris. This is not to say that religion is not rife with clues or that God did not leave us guide posts that we can understand and follow, once we look with reasonable eyes.
This book will be an attempt to explore these similarities and to trace them and their evolution throughout time with the hope that a defined trail will be uncovered. Undertaking such a daunting pilgrimage will require that several approaches be necessary, and at times these will seem counter intuitive. We will have to trust what history we know, while at the same time questioning whether we have been told the true way in which events unfolded or the veracity behind them unfolding the way they did. History is ever written by the victors, and hagiography more often rule than exception. We will have to utilize science in certain parts to assist in either lending credence to or debunking a particular point, while at the same time striving to remember that some of these scientific methods are imperfect or, at the very least, could bear questions as to their accuracy. Radio carbon dating is one such example as it has long been a mainstay in the science of archeology to date an object yet, as we shall come to see, it is also not without evidence to support its errancy.
We will also have to reconcile that while recorded history is more often than not presented to us as fact, we must at the same time lend an open ear to the anecdotal evidence that existed long before a society had the written word. An interesting example, which will be examined in greater detail later, is Manetho, whose History of Egypt is often cited to determine the first rulers of Egypt. However, he also speaks of dynasties existing before the dynasty we call the First, as consisting of actual Gods. So while we take what we choose to believe to be possible as fact, we dismiss what we find to be impossible as fancy…from the same highly regarded historian. We will have to use history, science, and faith as guideposts on the path to the discovery of the roots of religion. Indeed, it could be rightly said that of the many Trinities, perhaps the most important is that of Science, History, and Religion, as contrary to popular opinion, they cannot in truth be separated. History and Science take our experiences from the past and, with the inclusion of the advancements we make in our understanding of the universe, affect our structure of belief. Science and Religion combine our technological achievements and how we believe in the will of God, our ethics, and our morals, and the resultant actions shape the very landscape of the history of our world. History shows us the mistakes and victories we have had, and in combination with how and what we believe, either pushes us to create, invent, and discover, or stops us from pursuing morally and ethically questionable experiments. They are three parts to an equation that if separated breaks our chain of experience, understanding, and belief.
Lastly, we must remember and understand the role of symbolism. Symbols were the first form of language and so hold an extreme amount of importance psychologically. Words are often used to describe and to build mental pictures, which we then equate with personal experience, but symbols are primal and direct. These pictorial representations touch us on a deep and visceral level, while simultaneously hiding information and confounding those found unworthy of knowing their true meaning. Any person who cannot read Egyptian hieroglyphics may still be expected to feel the same sense of awe and import as a seasoned archeologist, when standing in front of a 4,000 year old column incised with the symbols of an ancient people. The most famous symbol, arguably, is the Cross, both for the fact that an amazing number of the world’s population follows a religion that venerates the symbol, but also because of its enormous antiquity. Yet the question of how and why it existed in various forms for centuries prior to the death of Jesus Christ is relegated to a historical side note or a subject best left to those who subscribe to a pseudoscientific field or “paganistic” belief.
I feel it is also important to mention one final thing. To some, the material presented in this work may seem as though it is an attack on religion or certain forms of religion. I assure you this is not the case. The purpose of this book is to show that there are two ways of looking at religion: literal and allegorical, and to show the existence of a common theme. It is my belief that the literal interpretation of religion leaves a lot to be desired because the use of allegorical symbolism, when taken literally, misleads the student of religion into believing an instructional tool as historical truth. When understood in a multifaceted approach, nearly all religion teaches the same lessons and uses the same or similar symbols to accomplish them, the explanation of which I hope to achieve by the end of this book.
This book is solely independent of any particular religious doctrine or belief, and is simply the natural process of following the evidence and making scientific conclusions, insofar as science can be applied to such a subject. Having stated this, Christianity is going to be a major focus of this book and there are several reasons for this. The Christian religion can account for some 2.4 billion adherents, comprising over 33% of the world’s population, making it, numerically, the largest religion on the planet. Perhaps more importantly, it is because there was a pivotal point in history during which the Ancient Mysteries and Christianity existed, where one waned while the other waxed. And lastly, because Christianity could be called a 'religious middle child', in that chronologically it is the fulcrum of the Big Three religions - having grown out of (and subsequently away from) Judaism but predating Islam.
The next logical question, then, is where do we begin? I suggest that we begin with what religion is today and work backwards to where we might have come from.

AWESOME!!

loved the writing style, very readable, very level and, to me, not off-putting, a great bonus.

also the material and ideas are pretty much "my cup of tea" so all in all i think next payday i'll buy myself a very inexpensive christmas present

thanks a lot Christopher

looking forward to reading more.

i'm googling up some Manetho already

My pleasure. It's been an obsession of mine for the past decade or more. I think you'll especially like the chapter relating to Constantine the Great. Lots of research went into the writing of this book and I've tried to support it all with scientific, historical, and credible sources. The paperback is about 187 pages long and there are somewhere around 60 citations and footnotes. If I may be so bold, I'd like to recommend the paperback version, those kindle fellows are simply unconcerned with the integrity of the formatting. Thanks again, I appreciate the kind words!