Is “History for Atheists” an offensive blog?

[Kingpoleon]

https://historyforatheists.com/about-history-for-atheists/

[afleitch]

It's not a blog I'd heard of.

It's important to correct misconceptions, particularly around early Christian mysticism and appeals to pre-Christian philosophy but a look at his twitter suggests he's close to being the atheist equivalent of the 'I'm on the left really' pundit who never critiques the right. You lose a bit of (pardon) 'good faith' that way. Maybe that's not the case in his videos, but I have better things to watch.

Also online atheist discourse, those who either didn't sell out after 2015 or are much newer to it is vastly different than it was a decade ago (and Christian apologism too, including those active at that time demonstrating that it was really a deliberate circus for the sake of an appearance fee) so he's challenging quite a lot of dated 'gotcha' arguments.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's important to correct misconceptions, particularly around early Christian mysticism and appeals to pre-Christian philosophy but a look at his twitter suggests he's close to being the atheist equivalent of the 'I'm on the left really' pundit who never critiques the right.

I get this sense too. Rolled my eyes a bit at that post of his linked in that thread in the History subforum where the author spent several paragraphs fulminating against an innocuous line from Dawkins that Christianity spread around the world because of its adoption by Constantine. What an outrageous myth! And the "myth" of non-canonical gospels discussed next wasn't much better. Mostly seems to be a site nitpicking mistakes by ignorant New Atheists to score points, rather than actually being interested in establishing what might have happened.

[Kingpoleon]

I get this sense too. Rolled my eyes a bit at that post of his linked in that thread in the History subforum where the author spent several paragraphs fulminating against an innocuous line from Dawkins that Christianity spread around the world because of its adoption by Constantine. What an outrageous myth! And the "myth" of non-canonical gospels discussed next wasn't much better. Mostly seems to be a site nitpicking mistakes by ignorant New Atheists to score points, rather than actually being interested in establishing what might have happened.

O’Neill is one of a number of secularists assaulting the Dawkins Dogma. Richard Dawkins blatantly lies about history, such as “We aren’t even sure Jesus existed.”; “A number of very good historians in fact say Jesus never existed.”; “Virtually all historians agree that the Gospels, written decades after his life, fell us little to nothing factual about Jesus.” These are not mild lies - they are purposefully designed to indoctrinate people. Dawkins says that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire - this is false, as Constantine purposefully did no such thing, but rather played pagans and Christians off each other. Dawkins continues to insist that Constantine “made” the canon, that the four Gospels were essentially chosen, and a number of other falsehoods. He, Carl Sagan, and Neil deGrasse Tyson have gone around the world and, despite no study of history, made empirically false claims about history and gotten upset when corrected. They’re not “just scientists,” and Tyson’s dogma about Science is precisely why so many people still believe in the conflict thesis.

For example, A. C. Grayling is a philosopher who chairs the humanities department at his university. In spite of that, virtually every historical fact he cites in this video is patently false.

Now, it is important to note that there is a younger set of atheist thinkers who are serious - who don’t laugh as though their opponents were idiots or absurd and who don’t make up their own history in a Maoist-esque fashion. In spite of O’Neill’s abrasive and offensive persona, he has made a dent in the historical knowledge among atheists. This is a vital and important role, as a lack of knowledge is a quick and easy pathway to evil.

“There is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

“Religion is evil.”

These two claims, for example, are incompatible, and the new new atheists seem cogently aware of this fact, thankfully.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I obviously don't have any dog in atheist intracommunity arguments but I entirely disagree with the idea that the quasi-Dan Brownist "Constantine invented the internet orthodoxy" treatment of early Christian history isn't that big a deal. Pseudohistory is everyone's problem. If this blog focuses on refuting that genre of canards then it's doing at least one thing right.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I obviously don't have any dog in atheist intracommunity arguments but I entirely disagree with the idea that the quasi-Dan Brownist "Constantine invented the internet orthodoxy" treatment of early Christian history isn't that big a deal. Pseudohistory is everyone's problem. If this blog focuses on refuting that genre of canards then it's doing at least one thing right.

     Constantine is a particularly fascinating figure in terms of pseudohistory, because he has become a bogeyman for people of all persuasions. I have seen an ELCA minister blame him for the Great Commission and an IFB pastor blame him for the existence of the Catholic Church. As it turns out, people with agendas can twist his actions to suit their narrative, whatever that narrative might be.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Dawkins says that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire - this is false, as Constantine purposefully did no such thing, but rather played pagans and Christians off each other.

To the extent that "official religion" or "state religion" isn't a somewhat anachronistic framing for ancient religious policy, I think this is highly debatable and that Dawkins is more correct than the author who deemphasises the importance of Constantine (and certainly more correct than the idea that he only "played off" Christians and pagans against each other...).

A few measures Constantine implemented: people owning property confiscated from Christians during the persecutions were to return it without compensation, however they acquired it, and this included the imperial treasury. The imperial treasury was swelled with a systematic programme of confiscation of valuables from pagan temples and opened for bishops to fund churchbuilding from. Bishops were given control over public administration of grain distribution and other charitable measures of the emperor. Bishops were given power to hear court cases at the request of a single party, and to hear them according to Christian (and not secular) law. Bishops could only be tried by a council of their peers, even in cases of murder, and were the only citizens of the Empire exempted from the death penalty. Sunday was made a day of rest for public officials. Symbolic sacrifices of incense before public business were ended, and pagan animal sacrifices were banned on pain of death. Jews were banned from proselytising Christians. A letter was written to the Sassanid Emperor Shapur II claiming protection over all his Christian subjects (which didn't go down very well to put it mildly). Etc..

The context of the Edict of Thessalonica was that due to Christological controversy it was needed to define the boundaries of a religion that had already de facto become the religion of the state decades ago. It was not a change in the status of Christianity vis a vis paganism but a formalising byproduct of sanctioning state persecution of the Arians. Pagans aren't even mentioned in the edict, only 'heretics' are!

There's a reason why ante-Nicene and post-Nicene are universal terms in the periodisation of Christianity, and not anything to do with Theodosius.

Anyway what alarmed me more was things like this:

Obviously the adoption of Christianity by Constantine and almost all of his successors had an impact on the growth of the once marginal sect, but Christianity was already growing exponentially and is likely to have dominated the Empire demographically by the end of the fourth century anyway.

A sentence which is an extraordinary claim to make considering we have about zero demographic data for the Roman Empire. We have zero idea how prevalent Christianity was, how effective the Great Persecution was, and what could have happened if persecution had continued for some time instead of Christianity being made the state religion, or if it had continued to be merely tolerated. So the claim that Christianity would have automatically taken over the Empire whatever happened because demographics is more or less making stuff up. It might even be plausible as a guess, but the author presents it as fact. From someone whose blog is dedicated to demolishing the bad history of others it's a seriously worrying throwaway sentence that indicates to me it's a site more interested in being a polemicist than doing a measured investigation of what we might actually know about early Christianity.

Dawkins continues to insist that Constantine “made” the canon, that the four Gospels were essentially chosen, and a number of other falsehoods.

Dawkins says it was the Council of Nicaea, and yeah he's wrong of course. But another example of what I complained about just above:

[Christian scholars] arrived at a selection of four gospels which even the most sceptical modern scholars agree are, in fact, the earliest, the closest to the ideas of the first generations of the Jesus Sect and, overall, the most likely to preserve actual historical traditions.

As someone who has read some of the most sceptical scholars (and I assume we mean to discount mythicists and the like here), this is wrong. The most sceptical modern scholars would make the obvious point that there's very little way to know this for multiple reasons. One, we don't have all of the gospels that existed: some are only available in brief fragments, some we only know by mentions or brief quotations from the Church Fathers, some are speculated to be sources of the gospels we do have. So there's no way to tell whether whatever the Egerton Gospel is is older or less accurate or whatever than the canonical gospels. Another problem is that because if one bases one's conception of what the first generation of the Jesus sect believed is based on gospel evidence, then the issue becomes circular. I've read sceptical scholars who have claimed that Mark is an Pauline polemic and that John, even though edited later, contains more genuine tradition. Are they right? Who knows. Some people have made a lot of the relative prominence of James the Just in the Gospel of Thomas. Is that a genuine tradition that was excluded from the canonical gospels? Who knows.

What I really dislike here is the certainty in not so much dismissing Dawkins but airily presenting counters to errors as fact and becoming sloppy themselves. Will say that I haven't read the blog more than a brief skim of the article previously posted in the History forum but from the little reading I picked up several of these and it was irritating.

He, Carl Sagan, and Neil deGrasse Tyson have gone around the world and, despite no study of history, made empirically false claims about history and gotten upset when corrected. They’re not “just scientists,” and Tyson’s dogma about Science is precisely why so many people still believe in the conflict thesis.

For example, A. C. Grayling is a philosopher who chairs the humanities department at his university. In spite of that, virtually every historical fact he cites in this video is patently false.

OK? Maybe AC Grayling isn't entirely accurate either, great. The thread asked for opinion on "History for Atheists" and I gave it for the author of that, not New Atheists who have received their dunkings before.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I obviously don't have any dog in atheist intracommunity arguments but I entirely disagree with the idea that the quasi-Dan Brownist "Constantine invented the internet orthodoxy" treatment of early Christian history isn't that big a deal. Pseudohistory is everyone's problem. If this blog focuses on refuting that genre of canards then it's doing at least one thing right.

     Constantine is a particularly fascinating figure in terms of pseudohistory, because he has become a bogeyman for people of all persuasions. I have seen an ELCA minister blame him for the Great Commission and an IFB pastor blame him for the existence of the Catholic Church. As it turns out, people with agendas can twist his actions to suit their narrative, whatever that narrative might be.

I don't get it, why would the Great Commission be blameworthy for some?

[Associate Justice PiT]

I obviously don't have any dog in atheist intracommunity arguments but I entirely disagree with the idea that the quasi-Dan Brownist "Constantine invented the internet orthodoxy" treatment of early Christian history isn't that big a deal. Pseudohistory is everyone's problem. If this blog focuses on refuting that genre of canards then it's doing at least one thing right.

     Constantine is a particularly fascinating figure in terms of pseudohistory, because he has become a bogeyman for people of all persuasions. I have seen an ELCA minister blame him for the Great Commission and an IFB pastor blame him for the existence of the Catholic Church. As it turns out, people with agendas can twist his actions to suit their narrative, whatever that narrative might be.

I don't get it, why would the Great Commission be blameworthy for some?

     The idea is that it was added as a pretense to justify imperial expansion.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Many of the narratives he argues against are not things just believed by atheists; people of varying beliefs including Christians have been told them and assume them to be true.  Some have their origins in Protestant polemics against Catholics.

[Kingpoleon]

Many of the narratives he argues against are not things just believed by atheists; people of varying beliefs including Christians have been told them and assume them to be true.  Some have their origins in Protestant polemics against Catholics.

Catholic bad history, meanwhile, holds that Saint Peter was a forty fingered freak.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Many of the narratives he argues against are not things just believed by atheists; people of varying beliefs including Christians have been told them and assume them to be true.  Some have their origins in Protestant polemics against Catholics.

I always find it ironic how much of New Atheism is just Victorian era Protestant propaganda repurposed to be directed against religion generally.

[7,052,770]

That description makes the blog look pretty good, but don't hold me to that.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Many of the narratives he argues against are not things just believed by atheists; people of varying beliefs including Christians have been told them and assume them to be true.  Some have their origins in Protestant polemics against Catholics.

I always find it ironic how much of New Atheism is just Victorian era Protestant propaganda repurposed to be directed against religion generally.

     Quite accurate. Biblical higher criticism of the sort that New Atheists glorify as disproving Christianity began as an effort by German Protestants to shed what they saw as mythological thinking plaguing Christianity. The original scholars of this school would be shocked to see who some of their biggest fans today are.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

No, lots of historical misconceptions involving religion exists, and atheists are largely the proponents of these misconceptions*, so those who want to learn the truth without a religious bias can recieve help through the essays written there.


*Especially Jesus Mysticism.

[Alben Barkley]

I like O'Neill and his blog quite a bit. He actually helped open my eyes to the fact that a lot of the stuff I came to believe in my edgelord atheist days was BS. Even after those days were behind me, I still believed a lot of the myths I "learned" during them, and he dismantled many of them very effectively.

I still do not consider myself religious, but not outright anti-religious anymore either. Clearly it's a lot more complicated than "religion was invented to control people and is responsible for most of the atrocities and division throughout history, blah blah blah" as the more militant atheists and antitheists insist. Religion certainly has its problems, but it has also led to lots of good things and great achievements. And honestly, most of the evils ascribed to religion are really more the product of human nature than anything else; if it wasn't that we were fighting each other over, it would have been something else. That's more apparent now than ever as we have become so secular (in the West at least) but are still at each other's throats in tribalistic ways.

[Figueira]

I think it's important for people to realize that it's possible for misinformation to be used to promote an overall good, or correct, viewpoint. So I think it's a good thing that an atheist is criticizing bad arguments and myths used to promote atheism. (I'm personally an agnostic, but I don't really think God exists and I certainly don't think that anything in history indicates that God exists, so I think I count as an atheist for this purpose.

Are there any examples of him supporting the right wing, though?