What do invented saints tell us about Christianity?

[Belacqua]

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.

Cherry picking Wikipedia is a step up for that guy.

The other day he offered an unsourced 19-second video clip as proof that before the 19th century, all sentences in the Bible could only be interpreted literally. And of course insulted me for claiming otherwise. 

https://atheistforums.org/thread-59623-p...pid1938902

I doubt you'll have much luck with him, but some others might appreciate a careful reading.

[mordant]

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.

That is why I consider him an examplar of the atheist Jesus historicists I have encountered (admittedly, a small sample). As I said ... they like to be right, and smarter, and so forth. Which is ironic because they sometimes also critique, as this one does, "new atheism" as being too strident.

But I have no reason to disbelieve him when he says he's an atheist, particularly when he rejects the Jesus mythos as representative of what really went down.

Pedantry comes in many forms, and regrettably, atheists aren't immune to it.

[TimOneill]

Which is ironic because they sometimes also critique, as this one does, "new atheism" as being too strident.

Where have I criticised anyone for "being too strident"? I don't care if they are "strident" or not - they can knock themselves out. My issue starts and ends with them mangling history, especially when simultaneously preaching at other about checking their facts, doing their homework, avoiding fringe theories and paying attention to experts. I'm not a fan of bad history or of hypocrisy.

I'm also not a fan of patent stupidity, so the twerps who claim I'm not "really" an atheist because I burst some of their silly little bubbles also get pretty short shrift from me. Unfortunately some people are just plain dumb and atheism has attracted its share of the latter.

[Fake Messiah]

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" 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.

Well all I said was that Aron Ra was not necessarily wrong, Augustine was not very clear about it, so gloating that Aron Ra is completely wrong, like you did, doesn't prove anything.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Which is ironic because they sometimes also critique, as this one does, "new atheism" as being too strident.

Where have I criticised anyone for "being too strident"? I don't care if they are "strident" or not - they can knock themselves out. My issue starts and ends with them mangling history, especially when simultaneously preaching at other about checking their facts, doing their homework, avoiding fringe theories and paying attention to experts. I'm not a fan of bad history or of hypocrisy.

I'm also not a fan of patent stupidity, so the twerps who claim I'm not "really" an atheist because I burst some of their silly little bubbles also get pretty short shrift from me. Unfortunately some people are just plain dumb and atheism has attracted its share of the latter.

You're only concerned about people 'mangling history' because you're upset that Napoleon was killed outside the Biograph theatre in Chicago and didn't have the chance to edit his final version of the Summa Theologica. 

Boru

[TimOneill]

Well all I said was that Aron Ra was not necessarily wrong, Augustine was not very clear about it, so gloating that Aron Ra is completely wrong, like you did, doesn't prove anything.

Utter garbage. He is wrong. Totally and completely wrong. Augustine was quite clear to anyone who understands the natural philosophy of the time and I even gave you two passages in which he makes it absolutely clear he understood the earth is a sphere. So your "Aron Ra" person was completely wrong and I proved this by detailed reference to the evidence. The fact that you don't understand the evidence and/or just chose to ignore it is your problem.
Now, would you like to humiliate yourself further or are we done here?

---

Where have I criticised anyone for "being too strident"? I don't care if they are "strident" or not - they can knock themselves out. My issue starts and ends with them mangling history, especially when simultaneously preaching at other about checking their facts, doing their homework, avoiding fringe theories and paying attention to experts. I'm not a fan of bad history or of hypocrisy.

I'm also not a fan of patent stupidity, so the twerps who claim I'm not "really" an atheist because I burst some of their silly little bubbles also get pretty short shrift from me. Unfortunately some people are just plain dumb and atheism has attracted its share of the latter.

You're only concerned about people 'mangling history' because you're upset that Napoleon was killed outside the Biograph theatre in Chicago and didn't have the chance to edit his final version of the Summa Theologica. 

Boru

True. You got me.

[Fake Messiah]

Augustine was quite clear to anyone who understands the natural philosophy of the time and I even gave you two passages in which he makes it absolutely clear he understood the earth is a sphere.

Except those scholars that disagree with that.

[TimOneill]

Augustine was quite clear to anyone who understands the natural philosophy of the time and I even gave you two passages in which he makes it absolutely clear he understood the earth is a sphere.

Except those scholars that disagree with that.

Of which you found ... just one. And, as I've explained, Ferrari was a philosopher - not a historian of science. He just didn't understand the passages he refers to and was corrected by actual historians who do.

But if you want to defend the idea that Augustine was a flat earther, I've given you the passages in question. Go right ahead. Let's see if you somehow know better than the leading experts in the field. This should be amusing to watch ...  

[Fake Messiah]

But if you want to defend the idea that Augustine was a flat earther, I've given you the passages in question. Go right ahead. Let's see if you somehow know better than the leading experts in the field. This should be amusing to watch ...  

That's not the point. Point is what Aron Ra said, now he maybe made a mistake by leaning on a credible scholar, but is that your claim that these "new atheists" like Carl Sagan, Neil Tyson, Aron Ra and you name it, are deliberately spreading disinformations? Or that they sometimes make a mistake?

[TimOneill]

But if you want to defend the idea that Augustine was a flat earther, I've given you the passages in question. Go right ahead. Let's see if you somehow know better than the leading experts in the field. This should be amusing to watch ...  

That's not the point. Point is what Aron Ra said, now he maybe made a mistake by leaning on a credible scholar, but is that your claim that these "new atheists" like Carl Sagan, Neil Tyson, Aron Ra and you name it, are deliberately spreading disinformations? Or that they sometimes make a mistake?

Jesus Christ. What "Aron Ra" said was wrong. He didn't "lean on" any "credible scholar" - he simply misinterpreted Augustine's comments on the Antipodes, because he's clueless. And the people you mention "make mistakes" because they don't know what they're talking about, but when they honk their ignorance to thousands of uncritical readers and viewers - we have a problem. 

Further, it's not like the nonsense by "Aron Ra" about Augustine was his only "mistake". Every single thing he claims about history in that video is ... wrong. All of it. Why? (i) He's clueless about history and (ii) he has a massive ideological bias that means he only "researches" history by reading stuff by other clueless bigots until he finds something that fits his prejudices. He's an idiot.