What do invented saints tell us about Christianity?

[mordant]

“Historyforatheists.com”

That doesn’t sound like a propaganda site at all...

I went to look at it. Its a Christian site trying to take apart rational arguments. Its main thing is its obsession with people not thinking that jesus is real. It seems to offend them.

Hardly. He's just a historical Jesus proponent, which has nothing to do with a person being a believer. Many atheists hold that view. It is not the view that Bible Jesus / GodBoy was divine or raised the dead or walked on water. It is the view that a fabulist mythos was built upon a historical figure named Yeshua who was in fact crucified by Pilate. In other words that much, and ONLY that much, of the gospel narrative is based in reality. I don't personally buy it, but if true, it presents zero problem for me as an atheist.

He correctly makes the point that history is not a hard science and deals in preponderance of evidence according to its own specialist standards. By those standards, it is more, rather than less, likely that Christianity's central story is based on / originated with an actual discrete historical individual. I reject this as insufficient evidence on which to stake a knowledge claim or form a belief. Even historicists will admit that they can't PROVE their position.

So it's a tempest in a teapot. In my experience and observation, historicists who are also atheists and want to bother to argue it like the sound of their own voice and like proving their "rightness" and "objectivity" and also to elevate their status by citing "scholarly consensus". Over on atheistdiscussion.org there's a historicist going on for stem winding threads telling anyone who disagrees with him what utter idiots they are. And there are a couple of of atheist mythicists who take the bait and do the same thing for their side. I mostly stay out of it because Jesus mythicism vs historical Jesus is just an interesting mind game -- a game in which no one has any actual skin. And so to elevate it beyond a fun speculative project is to take it way , WAY too seriously.

[Belacqua]

And the truth is?

The truth is what really happened, whether we like the idea or not.

[Fake Messiah]

I went to look at it. Its a Christian site trying to take apart rational arguments. Its main thing is its obsession with people not thinking that jesus is real. It seems to offend them.

Hardly. He's just a historical Jesus proponent, which has nothing to do with a person being a believer.

He does seems zealous in "defending" Christianity in every way he can to the point of being completely wrong.

For instance first thing on that page he arrogantly attacks Aron Ra for saying how St. Augustine considered Earth to be flat. But the thing is that Aron didn't make a wrong claim, I mean maybe he wasn't right but certainly he wasn't wrong, and especially that wrong for this guy to make a stupid mockery show à la Kirk Cameroon and the banana.

For instance this is what St. Augustine scholar, Leo Ferrari, wrote about St. Augustine

[Augustine] was familiar with the Greek theory of a spherical Earth, nevertheless, (following in the footsteps of his fellow North African, Lactantius), he was firmly convinced that the Earth was flat, was one of the two biggest bodies in existence and that it lay at the bottom of the universe. Apparently Augustine saw this picture as more useful for scriptural exegesis than the global Earth at the centre of an immense universe.

Leo Ferrari, "Rethinking Augustine's Confessions, Thirty Years of Discoveries", Religious Studies and Theology (2000)

[GrandizerII]

Hardly. He's just a historical Jesus proponent, which has nothing to do with a person being a believer.

He does seems zealous in "defending" Christianity in every way he can to the point of being completely wrong.

It's good that you put the word "defending" between quotes because he certainly is no defender of Christianity perse. As you might have noticed, in his FAQ page, he has links to pages on Quora and elsewhere where he critiques various Christian beliefs (such as the Resurrection), and he recently expressed frustration with Christian apologists on his Twitter.

See this:
https://twitter.com/TimONeill007/status/...1400551425

If there is one thing we can say about Christian apologists, it's that they are both highly inventive and indefatigable. If one of their arguments fails in the face of critical analysis, they don't worry - they just reach for another one.

Not so Christian after all.

[Belacqua]

See this:
https://twitter.com/TimONeill007/status/...1400551425

If there is one thing we can say about Christian apologists, it's that they are both highly inventive and indefatigable. If one of their arguments fails in the face of critical analysis, they don't worry - they just reach for another one.

Not so Christian after all.

But but...!

Atheists are superior, so everything we believe must be true!

Therefore, anyone who tells us that some of the stories we believe and repeat are false, must be a Christian! QED!

[Fake Messiah]

If there is one thing we can say about Christian apologists, it's that they are both highly inventive and indefatigable. If one of their arguments fails in the face of critical analysis, they don't worry - they just reach for another one.

Not so Christian after all.

He might be saying one thing about himself but his deeds speak otherwise. Maybe he is doing this false statements about atheists to appease so called watered down Christianity Christians because he does work for some Christian sites as a book reviewer and similar, so he has a market there.

[GrandizerII]

See this:
https://twitter.com/TimONeill007/status/...1400551425


Not so Christian after all.

But but...!

Atheists are superior, so everything we believe must be true!

Therefore, anyone who tells us that some of the stories we believe and repeat are false, must be a Christian! QED!

Or faking the whole thing about atheists being wrong, apparently.

@Fake_Messiah, nah, man, I don't agree with this speculation. Atheists can be just as irrational as theists.

[TimOneill]

He does seems zealous in "defending" Christianity in every way he can to the point of being completely wrong.

For instance first thing on that page he arrogantly attacks Aron Ra for saying how St. Augustine considered Earth to be flat. But the thing is that Aron didn't make a wrong claim, I mean maybe he wasn't right but certainly he wasn't wrong, and especially that wrong for this guy to make a stupid mockery show à la Kirk Cameroon and the banana.

For instance this is what St. Augustine scholar, Leo Ferrari, wrote about St. Augustine

[Augustine] was familiar with the Greek theory of a spherical Earth, nevertheless, (following in the footsteps of his fellow North African, Lactantius), he was firmly convinced that the Earth was flat, was one of the two biggest bodies in existence and that it lay at the bottom of the universe. Apparently Augustine saw this picture as more useful for scriptural exegesis than the global Earth at the centre of an immense universe.

Leo Ferrari, "Rethinking Augustine's Confessions, Thirty Years of Discoveries", Religious Studies and Theology (2000)

Interesting that the quote you found on a Wiki page was carefully cherry picked, ignoring the scholars who think that it's Ferrari who was, to use your phrase, "completely wrong". For example, C.P.E. Nothaft, "Augustine and the Shape of the Earth: A Critique of Leo Ferrari", Augustinian Studies, 42 (1): 35. Or David C. Lindberg, "Science and the Early Church" in Lindberg, David C.; Numbers, Ronald L. (eds.). God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, 1986. Given that Lindbeg was pretty much the pre-eminent expert on early science in this period, I'm a bit more inclined toward his assessment.

But since, on the basis of a quick Google of a Wiki page, you're a sudden expert on Augustinian natural philosophy, maybe you can explain to us how De genesi ad litteram, I.10.21 and XXX.33 can be reconciled with the claim that Augustine thought the earth was flat. Good luck.

[Belacqua]

He does seems zealous in "defending" Christianity in every way he can to the point of being completely wrong.

For instance first thing on that page he arrogantly attacks Aron Ra for saying how St. Augustine considered Earth to be flat. But the thing is that Aron didn't make a wrong claim, I mean maybe he wasn't right but certainly he wasn't wrong, and especially that wrong for this guy to make a stupid mockery show à la Kirk Cameroon and the banana.

For instance this is what St. Augustine scholar, Leo Ferrari, wrote about St. Augustine


Leo Ferrari, "Rethinking Augustine's Confessions, Thirty Years of Discoveries", Religious Studies and Theology (2000)

Interesting that the quote you found on a Wiki page was carefully cherry picked, ignoring the scholars who think that it's Ferrari who was, to use your phrase, "completely wrong". For example, C.P.E. Nothaft, "Augustine and the Shape of the Earth: A Critique of Leo Ferrari", Augustinian Studies, 42 (1): 35. Or David C. Lindberg, "Science and the Early Church".i n Lindberg, David C.; Numbers, Ronald L. (eds.). God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, 1986. Given that Lindbeg was pretty much the pre-eminent expert on early science in this period, I'm a bit more inclined toward his assessment.

But since, on the basis of a quick Google of a Wiki page, you're a sudden expert on Augustinian natural philosophy, maybe you can explain to us how De genesi ad litteram, I.10.21 and XXX.33 can be reconciled with the claim that Augustine thought the earth was flat. Good luck.

Thank you for joining the discussion here. I've been amazed by the reactions people have had to your web site -- which I find very useful.

[TimOneill]

Interesting that the quote you found on a Wiki page was carefully cherry picked, ignoring the scholars who think that it's Ferrari who was, to use your phrase, "completely wrong". For example, C.P.E. Nothaft, "Augustine and the Shape of the Earth: A Critique of Leo Ferrari", Augustinian Studies, 42 (1): 35. Or David C. Lindberg, "Science and the Early Church".i n Lindberg, David C.; Numbers, Ronald L. (eds.). God & Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, 1986. Given that Lindbeg was pretty much the pre-eminent expert on early science in this period, I'm a bit more inclined toward his assessment.

But since, on the basis of a quick Google of a Wiki page, you're a sudden expert on Augustinian natural philosophy, maybe you can explain to us how De genesi ad litteram, I.10.21 and XXX.33 can be reconciled with the claim that Augustine thought the earth was flat. Good luck.

Thank you for joining the discussion here. I've been amazed by the reactions people have had to your web site -- which I find very useful.

I ceased being amazed a long time ago - people don't like having their myths debunked. Unfortunately that goes for many so-called rationalists as it does for Christians. This is why I tend to annoy dogmatic ideologues on both sides. So here was have someone who thinks that by uncritically accepting a quote he found on Wiki, he's shown that I'm "completely wrong". Unfortunately the "Augustine scholar" in question was a philosophy professor. Which means he was pretty good at assessing, say, Augustine's use of Platonism but not so good at working out where he fitted in with Greco-Roman science. For that we need to turn to specialists in that field. Like Lindberg. Augustine was not a flat earther, as informed reading of his work shows.