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The Rise and Fall of Jesus

31/10/2019

A complete explanation for the life of Jesus and the origin of Christianity

The 3rd revised edition of this book has now been published by Tectum Verlag in Germany. Contact them if you want a review copy.

What really happened to Jesus? Did he rise from the dead, and if not why do Christians believe that he did? Did he have a plan and, if so, what was it? Did he accomplish his purpose or did the plan fail? If it failed, what were the consequences?
As a former Christian, I takes a rationalist look at the problem of Christian origins and show that no previous writer has completely solved the riddle of Jesus. My hypothesis explains Jesus' curious behaviour and solves age-long mysteries that no one else had solved. Here is Jesus in historical context, the leader of an obscure Jewish sect which believed that it was fulfilling a divine plan revealed in the Scriptures. This plan required the Messiah to die and rise again to become the king of Israel, throwing the Romans out of Judaea and even replacing the Emperor as ruler of the known world. Read how Jesus expected to accomplish this. Read how his plan failed.
Also read how Christianity began by mistake.

I build on the work of many other authors and construct what must be the true explanation for the origin of Christianity. This should be the last book on Jesus.

I also review of the many attempts to solve the mystery by other sceptical or objective writers.
'Taking up the torch from where Albert Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus left off, Campbell offers a provocative, and what for many will be a deeply disturbing, account of the life, mission, death and "resurrection" of the historical Jesus...[it] is also a good read...it has some of the merits of a good detective story'
Professor James Thrower, University of Aberdeen

ISBN 978-3-8288-4346-2
ePDF 978-3-8288-7327-8

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Global warming and how to stop it

2/10/2019

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The latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change confirms what most of us knew already, that man-made greenhouse gas emissions going back over at least 200 years have led to the present global warming, with dire consequences. Ice everywhere is melting, sea level is rising, the seas are acidifying, hurricanes and typhoons are getting stronger and wetter and erratic weather patterns are leading to more oppressive heat waves and more flooding from excessive rain. The warming evaporates more water from the oceans, loading the atmosphere and disrupting the weather system, causing more storms and, at the same time increasing the warming because water vapour is a greenhouse gas. Many other positive feedbacks contribute to the warming.
          As Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs At Princeton University, has declared, ‘we’re all in big trouble’. Some would say that civilization is under threat and may not survive. Many of the world's major coastal cities, including London, will be flooded and have to be abandoned.
          Surely we will be saved by the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hardly; it is too little and too late. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, in fact they are accelerating. They have increased by about 80 per cent since 1970 and the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main driver of global warming, has risen from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts-per-million to the present 415. It is still rising, mainly due to emissions from the USA, China and India, countries that value their industrial output and see no reason to commit economic suicide.
It is important to realize that global warming relies on two interacting factors: heat from the sun from insolation and increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. So if we cannot reduce emissions, perhaps we can reduce insolation. This is what geoengineers propose. They argue that, although technology has got us into this mess it can get us out of it. They have proposed various ways to reduce insolation, ranging from painting the world white to deploying a space mirror. Of course none of these measures, some of them very expensive, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they could give us more time to deal with that problem. Faced with the collapse of civilization, there is an urgent need to stop the warming, whatever else we do.

We do not need to look far for a practical geoengineering method. Stephen Salter, Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh has a proposal to brighten ocean clouds so that the world's albedo is increased (‘albedo’ is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation received by an astronomical body). This would involve about 300 or so specially-designed unmanned ships equipped to spray very small water droplets, which then brighten clouds (the smaller the water droplets, the brighter clouds become). Calculation shows that spraying over only 3.3 per cent of the Earth's surface, for example only in the North Atlantic, is enough to cool the planet by about 1 watt per square metre, dealing with about half the warming. Eventually this method could halt the increase in temperature and even lower it, reducing the dire effects that warming is already producing.
          Prof Salter has worked on this scheme for 20 years and recently presented his idea to MSPs at Holyrood. At present he is funding his own research but he lacks the funds to develop the idea. Here is an opportunity for Scotland to lead the way and save the world. The scheme would generate many jobs in shipbuilding, an industry in need of investment.
          However, there is much opposition to geoengineering techniques, alleging that they do nothing to address the root causes of climate change, with a high likelihood that rather than improving the climate they would make things worse—potentially in a catastrophic fashion. It is alleged that schemes like Salter’s come with high-stakes risks: entire regions could face drought. However, this opposition may be declining as the alternative becomes clearer. The risks of geoengineering changing weather patterns seems preferable to the risks of doing nothing. No amount of renewable energy schemes and recycling is going to stop global warming. A desperate situation demands a desperate remedy.

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I am a science writer and the author of four books and over 160 articles on diverse subjects, mainly investigations of one sort or another, and very many letters to the press.

The Rise and Fall of Jesus

Global warming and how to stop it

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