Peter J. King

What is the nature of good and evil? What is the meaning of existence and who are we really? For thousands of years philosophers have struggled with questions such as these, weighing every thought against virtually every rational alternative. Here, presented for non-academic readers, is an easy-to-understand survey of ideas put forth by 100 important philosophers, from the pre-Socratics of ancient Greece to the analytic philosophers of the present day. Each thinker is summarized in a single illustrated page, or in many instances, in an illustrated two-page spread. Each entry includes the philosopher's birth and death dates, titles of major works, major influences, a capsule biographical sketch, and a brief summary of his or her most important ideas. The glossary will help readers quickly navigate and organize their learning. In addition to philosophers in our own Western tradition, readers will find Chinese sages, including Confucius and Lao-tzu, the Indian Buddhist philosopher Ngrjuna, and thinkers representing other cultures.

A Guide to the World's Greatest Thinkers

100 Philosophers

How many times have you written an email at work, read it back and found that it didn't make as much sense as you'd hoped? or worse, someone else has told you that they can't follow it. The Pyramid Principle shows you how to communicate your ideas clearly and succinctly. It explains how to: think creatively, reason lucidly, and express ideas with clarity; define complex problems and establish the objectives of any document; assess your ideas and recognize their relative importance; structure your reasoning into a coherent and transparent argument; and, analyze your argument to confirm its effectiveness.

The World's Greatest Thinkers - Their Life and Work in a Nutshell

One Hundred Philosophers

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism or simply mythicism) is the hypothesis that Jesus of Nazareth never existed. It does appear that most scholars of antiquity agree that there was an individual named Jesus of the period. What also becomes apparent is that much of the philosophy, dogma and supernatural teachings of Christianity can be traced to much earlier religions and that the Jews of the time adopted these pre-christian cultural and religious myths as their own. They subsequently evolved into legend as often happens. The Christ myth theory takes a very adversarial approach and contradicts the mainstream view in historical Jesus research, which accepts that there are events described in the gospels that are not historical but which still assumes that the gospels are founded on a basic historical core. Many proponents of the theory use a three-fold argument first developed in the 19th century: that the New Testament has no historical value that there are no non-Christian references to Jesus Christ dating back to the first century that Christianity had pagan or mythical roots. Despite this there remains a strong consensus in historical-critical biblical scholarship that a historical Jesus did live in that area and in that time period. However, scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus, and the only two events subject to "almost universal agreement" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate. Some scholars have made the case that there are a number of plausible "Jesuses" that could have existed, that there can be no certainty as to which Jesus was the historical Jesus. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. Many of the allegories, events and proclaimed miracles attributed to Jesus were ever-present throughout history and not at all unique to Jesus of Nazareth. Some of the arguments attributed to many scholars are that: 1.The gospels were written many decades or even a century after Jesus' estimated year of death, by individuals who likely never met Jesus, and then were edited or forged over the centuries by unknown scribes with their own agendas. 2.There are no surviving historic records about Jesus of Nazareth from any non-Jewish author until the second century and Jesus left no writings or other archaeological evidence. 3.Certain gospel stories are similar to those of dying-and-rising gods, demigods (sons of gods), solar deities, saviors or other divine men such as Horus, Mithra/Mithras, Prometheus, Dionysus, Osiris, Buddha and Krishna, as well as Christ-like historical figures like Apollonius of Tyana and numerous others. In the days where people kill for their beliefs, it should be a high priority to better understand our humanity and commonality rather than accept religions which divide and take the stand that 'my belief is the one and only true belief'."

Peter J. King

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