Comment on the Christianity Popularity article

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

This one (that just popped up to the main page):

The column closes with this:

“…what else is there? Sure, I know some profess to take solace in science. But who in his final hour rejoices at the thought, onward to the void?”

That seems often close to the moderately offensive (to atheists) “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Not that I’m the type to be offended, but it made me scratch my head. I can’t imagine I’ll be rejoicing at the thought of entering “the void,” but after a lifetime of not believing in an afterlife, I don’t see myself converting on my deathbed.

Not a complaint or anything, just a comment. I found that ending to be strange.

2

I have to agree. Those of us who have discovered that religion is a lie have to wonder why anyone would think we would want to embrace it while we are dying.

3

“Rejoices” is a bit strong. I don’t think anyone rejoices in being gone, except maybe those in unbearable and non-ending pain. (Some late stage cancers, or sever burn victims.)

But there is a certain comfort in acknowledging the truth over “comforting” lies.

I don’t think Cecil was trying to imply that atheists would convert, but rather just pointing out that Christianity offers an escape clause on death, “I may be dying but my soul will live on”. That is something that atheism does not offer. Of course, not believing that the escape clause is valid is a good antidote to finding comfort from it.

4

Since when did Cecil care about offending anyone? That’s part of his appeal.

Btw, my one-sentence response to the Q (with a nod to the great St. Jack Lewis):

It’s the only religion in which the Creator takes His own medicine. We got to torture-kill God.

5

Introduced European diseases may have helped convert people to Christianity. Missionary to primitive tribesman: “Worship Jesus or bad things will happen.” A week or two later, the native’s whole village comes down with a weird disease that no one had ever seen before. If I didn’t know anything about germs, that would, uh, put the fear of God in me.

6

Good article, however I think it should be added that Christianity eventually becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire (in 380 AD) also helped it a lot! Without that it might well have not lasted the distance. The infamous Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and several later ones were effectively run jointly by the Church and the Roman authorities. They ensured the standardization of Christian doctrine, and more importantly, that any parts of it that were politically incompatible with Rome were removed and/or modified until they were compatible. Most of the gospels were thrown out as “heretical” and forgotten, and the four that were left were often heavily edited and bits redacted until they presented no problem to Rome and emperor Constantine. No more followers being thrown to the lions sounded good to the Church elders and a new monotheistic religion to keep the plebs happy now that the old Greek-derived Roman gods were looking shaky sounded good to the emperor. Everyone was happy.

7

I think you clipped off the important bit:

Bolding Mine
Science is not a religion nor a substitute for it. Atheism is not about replacing God with science. There are atheists who are not particularly interested in science.

The bit about “onward into the void” is a comment on substituting science for Christainity, not a comment on atheism. IMHO.

8

Actually there are many atheists who have indeed rejoiced at ‘going into the void’, their particles mingling into the dance of energy that is the universe. Some scientists have written movingly about the prospect. I’m astonished that Cecil should buy into the fallacy that only religious folk can gain comfort and inspiration at the onset of death.

9

Or at any other point in their lives for that matter.

10

I would really like to have Cecil expand on this comment:

Everything I’ve read about religion in the ancient world says just the opposite. For example Ancient Religions, 2007, by Sarah Johnston, ed. ( shows that the old pagan faiths were quite vibrant and dynamic into the late Imperial period. Where did Cecil get his information?

11

This is mostly rubbish. The canon of the New Testament was almost entirely settled by the mid-2nd century, and the four gospels, in particular, were entirely decided by then, as has been explained in Staff Reports Who wrote the Bible? (Part 4) and Who wrote the Bible? (Part 5), and in Cecil’s column What’s up with the “lost books of the Bible”?.

12

Thank you,** John W. Kennedy **-- Christianity may have gotten an unfair bonus advantage by being promoted from subversive cult to the “establishment”'s religion, but orthodox Christianity was NOT “invented” on a whim at Nicaea; by then most of Christianity HAD accepted the canonical Gospels and Letters and left the gnostics on the fringe. Even the Ethiopian Church, whose Bible seems to include most of anything that was considered inspired at the time, leaves the gnostics out.

And as to the issue that’s being taken with Cecil, well, well, well, what have we here… so Cecil is not going to please the ultrarationalists, either. Why, what a surprise… not. Cecil may be a curmudgeon and be quite irreverent, but his approach is always highly humane.

13

I think one of the great appeal of religions in general is how it can be interpreted in so many different ways and hence can more flexibly support ones’ political goal and guide ones’ motive.

If I want to promote capitalism, I got to show lots and lots of Math and history lessons and people still don’t believe out of envy. If I want to promote communism, I can simply pin point that early Christians were communists and anti free trades bigots will have ammo. Of course, another can also says that early Christians are “losers” and Jesus themselves teach that those who are the greatest should be the one that serve which seems to promote free market. But that’s the point. Religions can be interpreted either ways. Science cannot.

All in all, those with honest goals will quote sciences. Those with dishonest goals will quot religions.

It explains all religions in general rather than just Christianity. But other popular religions, like muslims, budha, hindu, and so on are also pretty, well popular right.

Being a synchretism of various cultural norms with allow the flexibility most unique in Christianity.

By the way, I also think that the true reason behind monogamy is to ration females in equal share for everyone. Here Christianity, again can be interpreted in ways that promote monogamy.

In fact, I think monogamy is the main christian ethics I think. I rarely hear priests condemn murders anymore.

So that’s another appeal of religions that it gives justification for societies’ prejudice. Religions that can embrace interests of status quo will florish. The rest, is like Richard Dawkins’ memes I guess.

14

I would disagree with that statement. Up till Nicean’ creed there are many people that claim that they follow Jesus. I said claim that they follow Jesus rather than “follow Jesus” because the latter is arguable. For example, the Arian, is in a sense Jesus’ followers too.

Their numbers is Significant. Visigoth and vandal (one or both of them are Arians) can sack Rome, which means there are significant numbers of them. At the end, it’s more of military might rather than scientific method that “proof” that the Catholic were “right” all along.

Some church father (irianus?) say that there are 4 gospels by 2 AD. That’s often quoted by fundamentalists that the gospels are already accepted by that time. It only show that one guy accept it. Not only that, his reasoning is that there are only 4 gospels because there are 4 wind directions. In other words, he is insane.

Please correct me for incorrectness.

The standard of the new testament books are written by apostles or friends of apostles. But then, we do not even know the writers of many books in old and new testament bibles. Most Pauline epistles are probably not written by Paul.

Gospels are written after Jesus died. How long? We’d never know. Luke seems to be written by 45 and we don’t even know whether he is an eye witness. Luke him self says that he has many sources.

15

I don’t think you can really ignore the importance of Christianity’s evolution as an intellectual force as this article does. Christianity really couldn’t have achieved its lasting imprint on Western history if it hadn’t become, over time, greatly more sophisticated and robust as a theology, assimilating many helpful and important ideas along the way from other traditions.

Most importantly, the reconciliation with the Greek logos, for a start, and the so-called Stoic bridge to Christianity, allowed it to develop a coherent legacy and a tightly argued position compatible with intellectual flourishing, going from the scholastics onwards.

By having a ex nihilo account of the universe, it also had the luck to stand against Aristotelian cosmological and metaphysical baggage, which arguably allowed it to sidestep many encounters with scientific irrelevance and redundancy through history as well.

16

You mean the barbarians whose ancestors were out-and-out pagans at the time of Nicea? In my reality, cause and effect normally go forward in time.

Errr… No. And it’s “Irenaeus”.

In the first place, the evidence is plentiful that mainline Christianity all over the Roman world accepted the four standard gospels. In the second place, Irenaeus is only giving an ex-post-facto justification for what is already true. (And, however silly we may think it, it’s the sort of argument that was wildly popular at the time, and which the Gnostic system pushed much further.)

Frankly, before you quote any more from “Anti-Christian Rumors for Dummies”, you might want to look at the columns already cited.

17

Can you please explain your point here? My history is not perfect.

My point was there are, in a sense, many “Christians.” The judaizer, the gnostic, the arian, marcion. Hell, even muslims claim that they have faith in Jesus too, as a prophet.

There wasn’t a consensus till Nicea. Guess what, there isn’t a consensus now.

So how the hell we know that the nicean’s creed is the “true” one or the true “christianity”?

You said that 4 gospels are already accepted by say, 200 AD. Accepted by who? By 40% of Christians? by 80% of Christians? Oh I am sorry. The question doesn’t even have an exact answer because that would depend on the definition of “Christian is”.

If we count Christians to be the one that agree with Nicean doctrine then yes, of course, the whole nicean, gospel, etc. are agreed upon by ALL christians. But that depends on the definition of Christian.

If I said straightdopers are people the believe that the sun rises in the west then obviously all straightdopers have consensus on that.

If we define a group of people as those believing in a certain doctrine, of course we got a consensus.

However, another reasonable definition of Christian would be anyone that believe they are following Jesus. Again, I said believe they are following Jesus rather than actually following Jesus because the latter is much arguable, while the former is more easily verifiable. As far as I know, there is no consensus among those either. Not before Nicean. Not till now.

18

It’s a lot worse than “not perfect” if you do not know that Alaric’s sack of Rome came a century after Nicea.

The wackos like Marcion and the Gnostics who didn’t even accept that the Jewish God was God cannot be called “Christian” without reducing the word “Christian” to meaninglessness.

As for the Arians, they did not even exist until the early fourth century, when Arius began teaching his heresy, which was voted down at Nicea, and elsewhere, by approximately three hundred to five.

Yes there was. Nicea was merely the first time since the Apostles that a world-wide (which is what “ecumenical” actually means, by the way) conference was able to be held.

By pretty much everyone we know of. They are the books that are quoted and the books that are translated over and over again.

For the rest, you are essentially insisting that the word “Christian” means whatever anyone wants it to mean. Which ends up only in the need to create a new word to mean “Christian”. I choose not to do that.

19

Yea. I think so. Alaric sack rome after nicea. That means the Arians are actually plenty, it’s just that they happen not to be in rome and hence don’t have representative in nicean council.

Look, this is where the catch is. You call those who don’t believe Nicean doctrines as wackos rather than Christians. If we define Christians as those who share believes with Niceans, then of course we got a consensus.

You said the 4 gospels are accepted by “everyone we know of”. Well, you see, that’s another problem. I know Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan, in China, which didn’t accept the 4 gospels. If you mean by “every CHRISTIAN we know of” then there it goes again, what’s the definition of Christian? If we define a group of people based on what they believe, of course we got a consensus. We simply need to arrange our set to make the statement true.

Perhaps what you mean by “everyone we know of” is everyone whose quotes you see in “authoritative” reading as correct non heretical “church father.” But again, how the hell their quotes show up in authoritative reading as church father is because they happen to support the nicean creed. There we goes again.

Look I am not against Christianity. This sort of thing happens in many other issues where people define a group by their belief or by other criteria with high casual relationships with people’s belief.

In muslim world, the first Khalifah is Abu Bakar which are chosen based on “consensus”. Consensus among who? Consensus among those who support Abu Bakar. This cause a schism in Islam. Quite obviously it’s not a consensus among all people in that area right?

During Suharto’s reign, Suharto is elected president by “consensus”. Consensus among who? Among parliement members handpicked by Suharto. Those who prefer other candidates are called “wackos” and hence doesn’t count. Of course, they’re not on the parliement. Suharto’s downfall after huge number of popular support shows that it’s not a consensus among all Indonesians.

Until today, leaders in Iran, North Korea, are also picked by “consensus”. Those who disagree are called not to have “revolutionary” or “islam” value, or whatever and hence, in a sense are “wackos”. Is there really a consensus in that country? I doubt so. In fact, the very reason why the leaders go through the trouble of excluding some people as “them” shows that “they” dont’ share the same consensus.

20

I’m sorry, I think you’re already shown that you’re a little biased on this subject:

And for the record, the most likely reason for monogamy is improved childrearing and resulting success of offspring.